Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

Will and I went to the Oklahoma State Capitol to take care of some of our dossier papers yesterday. It felt like our timing was perfect, being the day before July 4, so we kind of got into the process. Pretty soon, we were taking pictures on the Capitol steps and in the rotunda like a couple of tourists. (In some ways we were, even though we only live about a 15-minute drive away. It was my first visit there in the two years we've lived here in OKC, so you know, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you!)

For those of you who are not engulfed in this pile of papers, the dossier is the official documents that go to Vietnam as our application. They include:

• a copy of our marriage certificate
• a copy of our homestudy
• a police letter for each of us stating that we don't have a criminal record
• a letter of employment for Bill & a letter for me stating that I am a full-time homemaker
• a doctor's letter for each of us giving us a clean bill of health
• copies of each of our passports

Our social worker sent our homestudy directly, so I had nine pieces of paper to submit. We also sent 6 pages of photocopied and signed application forms, but four of the six pages were in Vietnamese, so they didn't seem too real to me. All inclusive, 15 pieces of paper. I know that the agency adds a few more pages of paperwork and some pictures to this packet, but all in all, 15 pieces of paper just didn't quite seem enough to me. It just seemed like such a tiny stack of stuff to indicate how much we want to adopt a new baby boy. How can all this time, energy, effort, desire, and most of all, love, possibly fit into 15 pieces of paper?

Well, we took our pile of papers to the Capitol to have the Secretary of State's office certify the notary signatures on them. Now, this part of the puzzle is usually handled by Dillon, and it always seemed a little hazy to me. So, I thought my adoption buddies might enjoy seeing what a certified document really looks like. Each document gets its own separate certificate from the state where it was notarized saying that the notary's signature is authentic.

I admit I am glad I got to see these documents. Somehow, the big gold seal, the "STATE OF OKLAHOMA" written across the top in very impressive font, and even the little gold grommet that attaches the certification to each of my documents made me feel better. Somehow, it all seemed very official, very approved, very finished. (I just hope that the Vietnamese government sees it that way!)

Suddenly, it was hard to mail my 15 little pieces of paper off. I was a little nervy trusting them to the Kinko's guy, I admit. When he asked if my envelope contained paperwork, and I said yes, and he wrote down a declared value of $100. I immediately said, "NO!! It is worth so much more than $100 to me! In fact, it is pretty much priceless!" He looked at me like I was nuts, and said, "How 'bout $1000?" I nodded, defeatedly, knowing that I could never really express the value on this package. The Kinko's guy slapped a zero on the end of the declared value and carelessly tossed my precious cargo in an outgoing mail bag. I probably paid extra for that extra value, but I don't care. I also freely paid for the Priority Service, Automated Tracking, and some other bells and whistles. After all, this is the most important 15 pages I've ever put together in my life.