Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Not Citizens Yet




Okay, so we get the letter to go to Jacksonville our "local" field office only five HOURS away (!!!) The appt is 10:00 but it's an hour ahead of us so instead of leaving by 3 or 4 a.m. we went last night.

We got called in just about on time. The lady read down a list of documents and I handed them to her as she read off. When she said, "Marriage certificate and Richard's divorce decree" I about had a heart attack. Those were NOT on our list. But they were in the folder from PAP thank goodness.

So, we are in there less than ten minutes when she says, "You are our first case so I need to go over this with the supervisor." We went back out into the lobby and sat 50 minutes.

She comes back out and is not carrying certificates so I"m thinking, "Oh no. Some little thing is missing." Well, it wasn't and the decision was favorable and that's good.

But what is not good is that Jax has to send it all to Orlando to be processed. Then it goes back to Jax. Then all four of us take another day off and make another ten hour round trip because we all have to report back there to pick up the COCs.

But what annoys me is that Orlando is only two hours farther for us than Jax and we could have done this all in one trip and have walked out with the COCs. And today would have been their citizenship day. We won't even know when their day is until we see it printed on the COCs. And we could have snuck off to Disney too : )

We go right by Jeff's school/home when we go to Jax so we stopped to see him. We called ahead and the guy who runs the place said we can't do anymore drop in visits like that. We have to come only on visitation day and sit in the room with him to visit. Oh brother. I will be glad when he's done. We only left him here because he's so close to graduating under their program but would be a year or more from graduating here.
We went to Wendy's and then took him to Walmart shopping.



He's getting so tall. He's at least 6'2"



My three Haitian sensations.

9 comments:

Bill and Christina said...

I am so sorry that it is not over for you.

Kathy Cassel said...

Thanks Christina. It's just that it would have been much easier for us to have just gone to Orlando than twice to Jacksonville.

"Are These Kids All Yours?" said...

UGH!!!! Feel that frustration!!! NOT FUN. Sooonnnnn- it will all be over :)

Kathy Cassel said...

Thanks Dawn. I had taken flags as props for pictures and stuff but then didn't bother because it wasn't really their citizenship day : ( We were in a good mood going, planning to celebrate on the way and home and then a big let down. But it should be within a few weeks. They just don't realize what ten hours round trip with twin five year olds is like--plus Rick has to take a day off of work.

Unknown said...

They certainly don't make anything easy. I'm so sorry Kathy.

Felicia said...

Crazy.....to make you take two trips. But, you know that you have nothing better to do with your time but drive hours away and sit around with two little ones. Hopefully you will have your celebration soon.

I think I would be annoyed with Jeff's school, no drop in visits. It is not like you drop in every week.

Kathy Cassel said...

Stephanie--I know you've really been through it all with your adopitons too!

Felicia--the school accuses us of not caring about Jeff because we can't make the Saturday visit they schedule every other month (two older kids only work weekends so it wouldn't be fair to take most of their hours for the week, Rick sometimes works etc). But we usually pick him up and take him somewhere for a couple of days like Universal or the laser tag place at a different time which is a lot more fun than sitting awkwardly in a visiting room for three hours anyway.

kb said...

So frustrating and anti-climactic... yet soon it will be done. Forever!

Mommy to the Monsters said...

I live in Jacksonville!!!!