The Paper Trail

Today I followed the paper trail. I photo documented the whole route so you wouldn't feel left out.

1st stop - Meridee's. A yummy bakery in down town Franklin. What paper is there you ask? No documents, but I did eat a great breakfast and bought fabulous molasses cookies to take with me and drop off at stop #2.

2nd stop - Off to Curo Financial Management to have my friend Leslie notarize all the documents. I dropped the cookies off here and ended up with 9 notarized documents.

3rd stop - I had to meet Clark so he could sign some documents before I hit a stop down the list. I found him at a Starbucks with our daughter Tori. I got his John Hancock and kept moving.

4th stop - The UPS store. I now needed copies of all the documents for my file. I also recieved a bonus game card. Scratch off = not a winner. Oh well.

5th stop - The post office. I sent off 4 grant applications. Here's praying that we actually get one!

6th stop - County clerk's office. I've been here several times. They know me and are sooooo nice. I got nine pieces of paper to go on top of each of my nine documents.

7th stop - I drove down to Nashville and actually had change to park in a metered spot! Into the Snodgrass building and up to the sixth floor. It's a government building and I have to stop at security and have my driver's license scanned and a picture name tag created to identify me in case I do something stupid. The security guard had been to Russia before. He complained that the Russians wanted to know his itinerary 90 days in advance of his trip. He was in the US military stationed in Germany and would go with his buddies to party in Russia. Since Russia wanted too much documentation for his trip, he and his buddies would park and hike over the border. When the police would catch up to them they would make a break for it and high tail it back over the border. I told him we weren't going that route into Russia. :0)

I took the elevator up to the sixth floor and presented my 9 documents to be apostilled. When the lady returned she said there were only 8 documents. UH-OH. I went through them all, one by one, and found the missing document. WHEW! She fixed it and off I went with my documents. They look so official with their gold seal and blue folder.

8th stop - Immigration center. An indiscreet building near the airport. No cell phones, cameras, or recording devices allowed. I wondered what we weren't supposed to record. Although we were there to get our biometrics done. Doesn't that sound fancy? We actually just got our fingerprints taken.

(NO PICTURES ALLOWED)

9th stop - Fed Ex. After having to email our adoption agency about when certain documents will arrive I find that I am using "fed ex" as a verb. However, Fedexed doesn't quite look right when I type it.

10th stop - HOME! All in all--much was accomplished on this fine day!