Dossier Package!

We got our dossier package in the mail yesterday!  I'm sure plenty of you are thinking, "Wow that's great!  What is a dossier package?"  Pretty much this:

We have to create five sets of documents, but really only two and send them to our adoption agency, then they send things back to us.  And everything has to be notarized and a lot has to be apostilled.  Don't know what apostilling is?  Don't feel bad.  I had to Wiki it.  And documents from out of state (ie: our marriage certificates from Hawaii or my birth certificate from Massachusetts)?  Have to be apostilled in those states.  FYI, I'm not going to Hawaii or Massachusetts anytime soon, so I'll be waiting for that through the mail.  And we need like 47 copies of every document in triplicate, signed by the mayor of the town we grew up in, but only signed in red ink on page 18.  Seriously ya'll, dumb people can't adopt, because they couldn't follow the directions.  And we have to have our psych evaluation and get our passports back and do our adoption education, and get our homestudy report, which is waiting for our psych evaluation, passports, and adoption education.

And all of this costs moneeeeeeey.  I'm very hopeful that our yard sale will raise enough to pay for our psych evals, passport applications, and adoption education.  That might be some high hopes, because it's over $1,000.  And it would be really, really great if we raised enough to pay our homestudy fee as well.  We have had a lot of people tell us they're getting things together for us, but I am a bit concerned that we live in a really small town and have never had a yard sale here before.  I think, worst case scenario, if we don't make much money and have just a ton of stuff leftover we will pack it up and have a sale at my sister's house (which is our old house, and a great neighborhood for a yard sale) another weekend.  You know, after I talk to her about doing that at her house. . .

After our dossier is prepared, it is sent to our adoption agency for their approval.  Then?  Sent to Eastern Europe!  This is a huge step in our process, and I'm excited to get it started!