Closer yet

It's four o'clock in the afternoon and my dog is sitting expectantly in front of the door. It's still a little bit early, but soon we will start getting our trick-or-treaters, and then he'll have some fun. Actually, this is his first Halloween, so I don't think he really knows what's coming tonight. He's going to be so excited to see everyone come to the door. Sometimes, I think I sound like a parent when I talk about my dog. He's the only child that I really have at this point in time, although, our paperwork for Caleb is coming along. Last week, we took all of our documents that we have been gathering for the last seven months and went to the office of the Secretary of State at the capitol building. Here's a side note: has anyone been to the capitol building recently, or at least since the 3rd grade? It's amazingly spooky and dark in there. The halls are very dim and everything echoes. All the doors are closed and, from the outside, look like any number of entrances to some other realm beyond. And then, you open a door and it is totally different on the inside: big and bright, cheery, even. Anyway, I went to the office of the Secretary of State and had all of our documents certified. They were then sent to Washington DC to the Chinese consulate to be authenticated. I took them to our local Fedex drop-off point and, let me tell you, it was difficult to see our envelope of all of our work over the past several months, now certified, being placed on a pile of other packages that were being sent, too. I watched the man put it there, and then I had to leave them at the store. All of our work. I was so worried, after everything we'd done! I never imagined I would be so nervous about it. But, it arrived in DC and was supposed to be completed and sent on to our agency today. Hopefully, it will all be mailed out November 9th, and then we can get started waiting for the next thing. Eventually, the next thing will actually be going to China, but unfortunately we are not there just yet. But, we're closer.....