Not just yet!

I went to Lincoln yesterday to get our remaining pile of documents apostilled. I sat in the Secretary of State's office crossing my fingers and thinking good thoughts about the State of Nebraska in general, hoping that somehow that would help things along. Well...it probably didn't hurt, but we were not able to get everything apostilled. There were two issues to fix.

The first was not too bad, and I was able to get that one taken care of while in Lincoln. The other one is taking a bit of effort. The issue we have concerns our child abuse clearance letter from the State's Health and Human Services Department. It wasn't a big deal getting the letter, and in fact we got it months ago. However, they did not have it properly notarized. They had the notary stamp and signature, but they did not include the "attestation clause" or language such as "subscribed and sworn to me by…" or "I hereby attest that…." I should have caught this earlier, but I think I just assumed that it came from an agency that does this all the time, and they must have done it right. Well, they didn't, and we need a new letter, and it has to be properly notarized.

I went to the HHS Department while in Lincoln and talked with them about it. They said they needed releases of information (new ones, because the ones from months ago are no longer on file), and then they would run the check and send us the letters. So, last night I drafted releases and an awesome letter setting forth what we need (and thanking them profusely), and faxed it to that gal's attention. Here's hoping small state government pulls through!

I was initially a little bummed about the whole thing, but then realized that we have everything else notarized, apostilled, and done! This is now the last thing that we need to do in terms of the dossier. So, while I was hoping to send the dossier this week, next week (hopefully) will be just fine!