Try, try, try again

It has been a while since we've updated the blog and there is a lot to share. We've made significant progress in some areas and seem to be stuck in a "Groundhog Day" time loop, or a Star Trek temporal loop for others. We'll start with the positive and go from there.

First and foremost, all of our documents are back from the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC and Consulate in New York! Now for the caveat - without really thinking about it, we sent the consulate my verification of employment letter, which originated in California. As the Consulate in New York does not have jurisdiction over California documents, they sent it back letting us know we needed to send it to the Consulate in California. We sent it to California with a new money order and supporting documents but it came back yesterday stating that the notary in California needed to notarize the actual document. She had filled out a form called an All Purpose Acknowledgement which is a separate piece of paper. The Consulate didn't like that so now we need to send it back to her to get the actual letter notarized and have it filled in properly. Details, details, details...

We also had submitted our I800A to USCIS and received it back approximately a week later with a note that it was missing a page. I called USCIS and spoke with someone who was obviously not going to be able to help me and after 20 frustrating minutes of non-sense with her, she finally mentioned that her computers were down. Even if she had the ability to help me, she wouldn't have been able to look anything up! We could have saved 20 minutes of time and frustration if she mad mentioned that up front. *sigh* Julie and I reviewed and re-reviewed the form and found that we had not sent a page that was supposed to be signed by a person if they prepared the form rather than the parents. Silly us - we figured since we prepared the form we didn't need to include a page that wasn't signed but the computer that scanned our form in didn't agree. We sent it back the next morning and hoped we were done. A week later it came back from USCIS again stating that the date on the check was wrong and we needed to send a more current one. Apparently when I filled out the check I put in 02 as the year rather than 09. Julie filled out a new check and FedExed it back off to Texas. Apparently her writing is way better than mine because I logged into our checking account this morning and saw that the check had cleared so we assume we are now "in process" at USCIS!

Next steps will be to get the Letter of Verification of Employment back to CA to be notarized (again) and then send it back to the Chinese Consulate in CA for certification. We're also waiting for the USCIS to send us a letter for our fingerprinting appointment downtown. After that is completed, we'll wait for our I-797C to come back and then we get to make a copy of it, get it notarized, state certified and off to the Chinese Consulate in NY for certification. Once these stars all align, we're ready to send our dossier (all of this paperwork) to the agency and then off to China. The end of this part of the road is in sight, but we're not there yet!

Paperwork on top of paperwork

It has been a crazy two weeks for us, as expected. :) Our grand scheme of getting the application letter notarized while I was out of town missed an important point - I was out of town so the notary couldn't stamp it if she didn't see me sign it. Julie was the one who pointed that out while I was in Raleigh. So much for that plan! LOL! Saturday morning we headed to the local bank to get the document notarized to find that the one on staff at the time has the same last name as us though no relation. We don't want to create a situation where anything might look improper, especially in China, so we hit the branch at the local Kroger to get it notarized. I think the teller thought we were a family of stalkers or something when I asked her where she lived (in the context of needing to know which county to take it to get certified). Pretty funny as she was a young single woman so was a bit taken aback. I hated to break it to her, but even though I am a hot commodity, I am off the market so she'll have to keep looking for love elsewhere. :)


After the bank I wanted to drive Julie downtown so she'd know where to go to get the documents certified by the Secretary of State. On the way we decided that Schmidt's sounded like an excellent plan for lunch so we enjoyed the buffet and Julie enjoyed her vegetarian Reuben. Dessert at Schmidt's can't be missed and the German chocolate cake, coconut creme pie and chocolate silk pie were right on the money. We had just enough time to go home, grab the gift for the birthday party Sydney was going to while we went to mass at St. Mary's. It was a lightning mass as the Father didn't have a homily prepared since one of the deacons was supposed to do it, but couldn't at the last minute. Julie, Max, Veronica and I went to Meijer in Delaware to buy some jeans for me and then went to pick up Sydney. We went home, ate and hit the sack - a busy, but fun and productive, day for sure.


Sunday we worked on getting all of our documents in order, packaged into FedEx envelopes and the getting the return envelopes ready, too. The Consulate requires we copy every page of every document we send including the county and state certifications and fill out a form with what we are asking them to do, in our case authentication that the bundle of papers is legit and proper. I've read on-line that you can send up to 10 documents in a single envelope but am sticking by the form and only doing 5 per envelope - we don't want to give them any pause or delay in processing our documents. We went to the local truck stop to get the money orders we'd need for the Chinese Consulate and sealed 2 envelopes with 10 documents. Julie will take the last two, our home study and application letter downtown for certification between picking Sydney up from school and picking Max up from school.


Julie had an excellent idea to take the kids to the local Pumpkin Patch Sunday afternoon so after PSR we got everyone ready and took off to do the hayride, pet the critters and pick out pumpkins. We had beautiful weather and had a good time. We decided that we'd get a big pumpkin for the family as normally I carve the pumpkins with the kids while Julie is at adoration, but this week it was carve them Sunday night or never. We picked the perfect pumpkin and on the way home decided that it was too nice of a day to not take the car for a spin. We got home and packed everyone into the Mondial and went for a Sunday drive. The two girls shared a seat belt so Julie was on nerves the whole time but it was a blast. We went down Hogback road which was beautiful with the trees and water on the west side. We took North Old State up into Kilbourne and kept on it until we picked up North Galena to head home. The kids love the horn and we had fun honking at horses and cows in the field and watching them jerk their heads up as we passed. We came home, washed the car - yes, it was THAT nice - and started dinner and wrapped the evening up. Max and I finished Star Trek - First Contact and then it was time for him to hit the hay. Julie and I watched The Amazing Race and called it a night - the alarm will be going off earlier than we want it to tomorrow.



Monday comes and Ron is off to Raleigh and Julie does her morning routine. Today is extra crazy for her as she drops the older two off at school, goes to the County Clerk of Courts and gets the application letter certified. Then she's off to Veronica's music class before she's back to school and picking up Sydney. The girls braved downtown and found a good spot to park and walk to the Secretary of State and get the documents certified there, too. Then she jets home, makes the needed copies for the Chinese Consulate and heads back to the school to pickup Max. They drop off the envelopes to FedEx and we're in transit for our I-800A form to USCIS and 3 envelopes to the Chinese Consulate in New York. We are told that it will take 20 days for the documents to get back from the Consulate and no real ETA on the I-800A. We are waiting for government employees to do their job now.


While in Raleigh, I get emails from FedEx that the documents have all been delivered so that is a step in the right direction. I also get an email that says Julie's birth certificate is back from the Department of State! Whoo-hoo! More envelopes to send!


I get back home Friday night and Saturday morning spend time getting Julie's birth certificate ready to send to the Chinese Embassy, not the Consulate, because it originated in Maryland we had to get the US Department of State certification which means that the Embassy in Washing DC needs to authenticate it, not the Consulate - or so we're told. We pickup a money order for it and we're ready to send more on Monday.


Saturday is trick or treat day so we headed out to Noodles and Company for lunch so the kids can get Zombie glasses and then we go to the Genoa fire station for their annual open house and Halloween festival. They put on such a good deal for the kids with bounce houses, mazes, fire engines, letting them hold a fire hose and more. It was a good time for sure!

We have just enough time to get to St. John Neumann for mass. After mass we're off to see Julie's sister, Janet. She gave each of the kids fun toys. Afterwards we head home and watch Monsters vs. Aliens - The Mutant Pumpkins before it is time for the girls to go to bed. Max, Julie and I watch Big Bang Theory before Max hits the hay and then Julie and I get caught up on Survivor. Two weeks away really gets us behind on our shows. :)