Hoops

I feel like a circus tiger. They bring out a hoop, and we jump through it. Another hoop, we jump through that. Here's a hoop on fire, we jump though that too! Ugh. 

We got a call from the agency. Not with our travel dates, but rather yet another hoop to jump through. Apparently there's a brand new request from AIT to get our passports notarized, then authenticated by the secretary of state up in Sacramento, then authenticated again by the consulate (or Taiwan's equivalent). We had the option of letting our agency do that, which would probably take maybe 3 weeks or so. We could FedEx the docs to Sacramento ourselves. But the docs would have to go thru their process which would take 2-5 days just for that part. Taking the docs up there in person could get it done right away. One of my wonderful sisters who lives up in the Bay Area agreed to help with this. But we did a bit more research and found a service that does this sort of thing for people, and got it taken care of that afternoon. The company has a branch in Costa Mesa and a main office up in Sacramento. They notarized our passports and will send them up to Sacramento for us. We should get our documents back next Wednesday (since Monday is a holiday). Then we will need to go to the consulate. Then we get it to our agency. Then it goes to Taiwan. We are hustling cuz we don't want it to be us holding up on the process. It's another one of those hurry up and wait situation.

The lady at the agency was 85% sure we have the final decree (but no guarantee) and we're just waiting for these final pieces to be able to get an appointment with AIT. So we wanted to get it done ASAP. We had thought of driving or flying up to Sacramento ourselves (or just one of us), which would've been fun too. But this way none of us has to take time off work. So next Friday we plan to go to the consulate, then Pasadena, then to Alhambra to pick up my new glasses. It'll be a full day. Hope this is the last hoop and we can travel soon!