More Fun with Notaries

We finally have all the pieces assembled. We're almost ready to send off the dossier to Grand Rapids where it can be translated into Spanish and we can get on the referral waiting list. The last two days have been a flurry of official business. Fingerprints were taken. Documents were notarized. Money changed hands. Officials were bribed.

No, of course that isn't true! We did get our fingerprints taken yesterday morning, though. We went to a dingy-looking office in downtown Boston with a banner stapled to the wall saying, "Welcome to the Department of Homeland Security!" The Dept. of Homeland Security looks a lot like the DMV. We went in, took a number, and waited half an hour for our turn to be called. We were taken into the back room, and they took our prints using a scanner gadget that was able to give the operator real-time feedback on the quality of the print. Then a severe-looking Jack Webb type came over and double-checked everything before they let us go.

Last night we went over our instructions and discovered that we had to get a Great Seal on most of our documents. We had neglected to do that. So we sent various notarized documents and checks to Austin (marriage license), Columbus (birth certificate), Jefferson City (another birth certificate), and Dover (employer letter) to get Great Seals attached to them all, and this morning Rebekah went to the appropriate Boston office to get Massachusetts Great Seals on all the locally notarized documents. Once there, she was told that the medical letters we had had notarized at our doctor's office were not correct, which spawned a series of phone calls to various mobile notaries trying to get someone to meet me at our doctor's office today to do this thing up right. 123Notary is a swell resource if you find yourself in a bind like that.

Now the plan is to get the dossier mailed off by the end of next week if the various secretaries of state get on the ball for us. Phew.