One Step Closer!!!

To do on Saturday morning: a visit to the farmer’s market.

That was our agenda for the morning. No other plans. Just a leisurely-spent morning sipping coffee and walking a few blocks to the downtown square to buy fresh blueberries and strawberries {which we ate the majority of before we made it home} and a new planter with fresh herbs.

A calm, relaxing, quiet morning.

The weather was perfect – cool and sunny.

We even stopped by our dear neighbor’s house on the way home so the boys could see her pet turtle and pick raspberries in her patch out back. She is the sweetest lady in the world. Ms. Betty. She has to be in her late 70’s and we saw her on our walk home riding her bike {!} to pick dandelions for her turtle’s lunch. She invited us over and we just enjoyed her company. She told us more about her life and her family. It was fascinating. We weren’t rushed to be anywhere so we just visited with her and soaked up the uninterrupted time together. Times like that are few and far between in our hurried and busy lives.

I thought there was nothing that could have made this day begin any more perfectly.

Until we arrived home.

I noticed we had mail and, as soon as I saw the packet from Dillon, our home study agency, I was overcome with a combination of joy and panic.

Joy because I had been waiting for this packet to come for weeks. It was our final, approved and notarized home study.

Panic because I thought it would arrive on Monday or Tuesday. I wasn’t prepared. I had left our I-600a application and cover letter at my office last week thinking I would get the home study and mail it off sometime during the week.

So, I frantically retyped our USCIS application and cover letter, grabbed our home study, our birth certificates and our marriage license and raced out the door. {Dave stayed home to put the boys down for their nap}.

It was 11:30 at this point.

I rushed to the bank to have two cashier’s checks issued to accompany our application.

As soon as I pulled into the bank, I realized that I didn’t know who to issue the checks to. How could I not have printed these off last week?? Frustrated at my lack of preparation, I called Dave to check it out online. He couldn’t find anything so I made an assumption and had them issued to “USCIS.”

I ran out the door and headed to the Fed Ex office to mail our packet off. As I was filling out the “to” section on the shipping label, Dave called and alerted me that he double checked in our AGCI workbook and we needed the cashier’s checks written to the Department of Homeland Security.

WHAT?!

I dropped my pen and raced out the door. The poor guy behind the counter must have thought I was a complete lunatic.

I sped back to the bank and was confronted with a five-person deep line.

I waited in line VERY impatiently. I was even annoying myself with my loud sighs and pacing back and forth.

I prayed. I apologized for not planning ahead and asked for God to get this application in the mail. I turned it over to Him. I was gently reminded that this will all work out in His time. Not mine.

The bank teller was an angel on earth and rushed to reissue the checks for me. I wanted to jump over the counter and give her a hug but there was no time.

It was 12:12 and the last Fed Ex pick-up for the day happened at 12.

Knowing that there was little hope of getting this out today, I still raced back to the Fed Ex office. Rushing in, looking all kinds of crazy, I yelled, “Did I make it?!”

I had! The pick-up was late!!!

I snapped a quick photo before handing over six months of hard work to the frightened kid who unfortunately came to work that day. He definitely thought I was crazy.

I had a date in my head since the beginning of this process: May 14th. That was my goal to have our paperwork complete. We almost made it. Our USCIS application (last bit of paperwork) will arrive to their office on the morning of May 14th. Pretty awesome, right?

Next up, fingerprints and then shipping off our giant dossier packet to AGCI. We are SO close, I can taste it!!!

And, I can’t forget to mention, when I arrived home from what felt like a audition for “The Amazing Race,” the house was CLEAN and the boys were asleep. What else could I possibly ask for on this Mother’s Day weekend?? Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.

“Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.” Ephesians 1:4 (emphasis mine)