A visit to the state capital that I would like to forget.

Yesterday our I-171H notice arrived...

I have no idea why I am including an illegible photo of it

which was the missing piece of documentation needed to take all our forms up to Sacramento and have them authenticated.  So, as you may imagine we were pretty excited.  I had visions of driving the 90 min to the Secretary of State office, cruising in and getting or $460 worth of state seals stamped on our 21 notarized documents, having a beautiful sit-down lunch date with my husband, snapping smiling photos for our daughter's Life Book, and then driving back to Berkeley to enjoy the afternoon off being lazy on a Friday.  IT WAS NOT TO BE!

We find parking and walk into the building with paperwork and smiles, only to be told that 16 of our 21 documents ($320 worth of notary stamps) had the wrong "official language" on them.  Apparently, they have started to crack down on the EXACT wording that the notary puts in and our forms said "sworn" instead of "some-other-random-bullsh*t-word-that-means-the-exact-same-thing"!  Yep, full on RED TAPE brought us to a halt in our little fantasy world of "The smoothest adoption process ever".  So - we walk 5 blocks to the nearest notary, to pay another $320 for new signatures with the correct wording.  It takes about 90 minutes, and with only one person working in the UPS Store that day we made plenty of enemies in the line in back of us.  Not that I care.  So, we are out a few extra hundred dollars and some time, not so bad right?  Oh but wait.  The very last form in the pile, Tor's birth certificate, was signed by a doctor and not the county administrator in San Francisco.  And the Secretary of State cannot authenticate or certify it. Holy Crap.  I now have to go back to SF, get another birth certificate, and have the wonderful folks in the state office put the great CA seal on it.  Another trip to SAC awaits me...

Underwhelmed by the capital, but satisfied with the plastic treat.

The woman behind the counter reached over and gave me a hug!...I'm not kidding.  She said "I know this is rough, but when you hold your baby girl for the first time, this will all be forgotten."  Sigh.

So....Retail Therapy at the Vacaville Outlets!!! That's right, we decided to treat ourselves to shoes!  It makes total sense right?  I also bought some clothes for our little-girl-to-be at the GAP outlet...it made me feel a little better just to walk up to the counter with a pink and frilly size 2T dress.  (If none of this works out, baby Aya is going to have one helluva wardrobe from her Auntie Drea)

Nothing makes my day brighter than a new pair of Air Max

To top it off we had a horrible dinner at AppleBee's (we were starving) and reminded ourselves why we NEVER eat that crap.