It is hard to believe that we have been here 28 days!!! While it does feel like we have been away from home for a while, it seems like we just met Nicolas. It's crazy how time flies!
This morning we went to Home Affairs (similar to Secretary of State) to start the paperwork process to change Nicolas' name. We arrived there around 7:30 this morning in hopes of avoiding the lines. We started at the ID center. Petra had already acquired the appropriate documents for us, so we started filling them out. We had pre-filled samples from Ruth to ensure that we would fill them out correctly. We started comparing the documents and they had all changed - since last month. Nothing catastrophic, just enough to make you nervous about making mistakes. Not to worry, though, a quick call to Ruth and we were good. After filling the forms out twice (once for practice of course!) we got in line. When it was our turn, we found out that we were in the wrong office. We actually needed to go to the birth, death, and marriage office down the hill. So, we headed that way. After only a few minutes in line, it was our turn. The man looked at our documents and said "You don't need this one and they need to fill out this one" (which was one of the documents we had marked for stage 2 of the process). So, we filled those out. We were back to the front of the queue and got another gentleman this time. He looked though our paperwork and said there were two more forms we needed. What???? Thankfully, he let us fill them out at the counter while he put in the rest of our paperwork. The other forms we had to fill out were ID registration forms for us to prove that we were present to request his record change. With that, we had to get fingerprinted which we also had to wait for. The last step for today was to have them fax all of the documents to the processor. It took a while, but they got it done and we received confirmation that they had been sent successfully. Total time at Home Affairs for stage 1: 3 1/2 hours. I would say that the biggest difference between Home Affairs here and SOS at home is that there is no official queue (and the departments are broken up into fairly small offices) or numbering system, so people just wait at the desk until they are done with a client. It was easier than we anticipated. Hopefully, all steps will go this way! Special thanks to Petra and Ruth - it would have been stressful without their help! We did hear from Ruth that the processor who will prepare our documents is currently unable to access the system she needs in order to process our paperwork, so please pray that it is back up and running very soon!!!!
After Home Affairs we were hungry (surprise!), so we were planning to go to Luigi's for pizza. Um.....no. Apparently people don't eat lunch on weekdays until 12 (it was 11:30). So, we settled for Steers instead (burger joint). It was actually quite good! And, if you saw on facebook, we celebrated our step in the right direction with ice cream! I know, we eat a lot of ice cream.....it will be a tough habit to break! :)
Nicolas has been dying to go in the pool after three days of rain, so despite the fact that it's freezing, he went in anyway. Given that it was so cold, he would get in for a few minutes and then warm up on the tiles around the pool which get very warm in the sun. He was also enjoying using the water and his finger to make art on the tiles. He also got into a palm frond war with Dad. Good times!
The clouds came in and it began to sprinkle once again, so we headed inside. We played for a bit and then had dinner followed by our evening routine. We e-mailed Nicolas' teacher in Byron Center to ask her for some specifics on what we should be working with him on. She gave us a long list of sight words to practice and he rocked the house!!! He'll need to some time adjust to american money and measurements, but I think he will do very well!
Tomorrow is open on our calendar, so we will see what the day brings. The forecast has rain threatening our fun almost all week, so who knows if it will be another day in.....
The Longstreets
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