Milestones Abound

Drumroll please! It's time for the sentence we've been waiting to say for six months: Our paperwork is done.

Well, almost.

Last week, we met with our favorite notary (and good friend!) and notarized a stack of documents that would put any mortgage paperwork to shame.

The next day, Fernando took a few of the forms to the Secretary of State's office in Phoenix and returned with some lovely authentication forms bearing beautiful seals. Maybe they were just beautiful because we have been wanting to see them for so long. Regardless, they are the final pieces to our dossier.

Today we sent copies of our dossier to our case manager with other miscellaneous forms. If there are changes to be made, we'll most likely know within the week. After those changes are made, we will have the original document sent via courier to the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington DC where everything will get authenticated one more time. (Just for fun!) Then on to Ethiopia.

It feel so real suddenly... to be nearly past this part of the process feels impossible, especially after so much of our time and energy has been devoted to assembling the necessary documents.

Our goal was to be here before Christmas - so far, we're right on track!