Mad scramble to get visas

Having waited twice as long as anticipated for the Australian Embassy to get Sebastien's citizenship certificate organized, we had run out of time to get an Australian passport and then our chinese visas. So we applied for his US passport - which arrived within a few days of our application - and having then just received our paperwork from China, headed to Chicago with everything we thought we needed for our visas.

We made it to the embassy in time for their shortened opening time after lunch - only to find that they required the certificates (birth and marriage) to be attested as valid by the authority of that country (the Secretary of State in Illinois for the birth certificates, and for our marriage certificate the Dept. of Foreign Affairs in Australia - plus the Chinese Embassy in Australia had to attest it too) - uhoh. Brett put his marathon running into practical use (:)) and ran over to the Secretary of State's office whilst I kept the kids amused. Luckily the marriage certificate wasn't necessary for them to issue the visa, so we were able to arrange that from China (thanks so very much Chelle - we owe you BIG time!)

Here's what we did to keep occupied while Brett was doing the rounds:

First we went to oft-heard-about Trader Joes - and bought some special cookies for the final Friday's playdate at Donita's - Alex loooved this place because it had shopping carts just for her. She was responsible for bringing the cookies to the counter to purchase because "Mummy has to use the stroller with Sebastien and I have the cart".

Then we walked a little around the block and came upon this charming little landmark. I really wanted to check out what it looked like inside!














It was Wednesday, we dropped it all off and arranged to come back and collect it the following week on Tuesday (we were supposed to fly to China that Sunday so this was a very tight turnaround - no room for errors).

Finally, before heading off to C-U we stopped for an icecream at ColdStone Creamery.










(One very cheeky little girl)

Alex was so happy to be going back to Chicago the next week with Daddy - they managed a quick trip to the zoo. Is it any wonder that she still mentions today that "I wish I could go back to Chicago after China, it was fun."

Oh, and we did get everything organized in the end - our marriage certificate from Australia arrived in China the last possible day it could before we would start being fined for not having done appropriate paperwork.