Three pounds

So this morning Mom and I got up and drove from our hotel to downtown Austin and found parking and found the right building and found the right office and got in line to get the documents apostilled. Most of the people there before us were getting one or two done. Us? 82.

All went swimmingly until one document got rejected. It's a copy of a letter that says that our homestudy agency is licensed to practice in Texas. This letter was notarized back in the day when it was written. The agency just copies this same letter, with the agency director certifying that it is a copy. Then my social worker had notarized the signature of the director of the agency. There were two copies of the letter and both were certified and signed by the social worker, but only one had her notary stamp. Uh oh. We need two complete dossiers. Was I going to have to scramble home and get it fixed hopefully tonight and then drive there and back again tomorrow?! I was hoping that this was a document that could wait and wasn't a core document. So the clerk did 81 apostilles and rejected one. After we went back to the car, I called the agency and was told that yes, this is a core document. They need it to register us in our region. My dossier consultant, though, suggested we find a notary there in Austin who would notarize it. That hadn't occurred to me.

In the Sec. of State office, we had overheard them telling someone there was a UPS store with a notary two blocks away. As we started touring the one-way streets trying to find it, we immediately saw it and after circling the block, I got a parking space right out in front.

It took some doing to get a new notary on it. At first they wouldn't because it already had a notary stamp. I had to explain that the first notary was notarizing the fact that the agency was licensed and that the second notary was notarizing the fact that this was a copy of an original letter. They still wouldn't do it. So I showed them the one that did get apostilled and they kept insisting that two notaries were not allowed on one document and that they needed to fold up the letter so that the prior notary was no longer there. I finally impressed upon them that both notary stamps were necessary...both were for different things, showed them the one that got apostilled again, and finally they were on board. We had to recopy the letter with a sheet of paper over the original copy certification and notary statement and then I wrote a new statement and signed it, then the guy notarized it.

Then Mom waited in the car while I ran back to the Sec. of State to get it apostilled. So now I had 82 apostilled documents.

I am so glad that was a copy to begin with and not an original document, because we would not have been able to fix it so easily it if it had been something like a missing notary on the doctor's signature or the police department. I've always checked all the notary stamps so carefully, but I missed that this document needed a second stamp for the certification that it was a copy of an original notarized document. The first notary stamp was there, so I didn't pay attention to the signatures in the bottom corner.

We got home a little over an hour ago and I went and overnighted the paperwork. Three pounds of paper. I didn't take the time to count all the sheets, but we are at well over 100. I just hope it is all there. I think it is. I've gone through everything a couple of times. But there is just SO much that it gets a bit overwhelming and I am so glad I don't have to make another 7 hour run to Austin tomorrow.