Jordyn's Passport and Our Visa's!!!

I am happy to say that I am back from Austin and Houston tonight and we have Jordyn's American Passport and our Chinese Visa's. We drove to Austin on Wednesday to get one last document State Certified and arrived at the Secretary of State office just minutes before they closed. Wew...It would have been terrible if they had closed because I had to get that Document done which was the Power of Attorney for one parent traveling. I still can't believe that I am going without Tim. I know it will be fine, but I will miss him and I will be sad. From austin we drove to Houston to get Jordyn's passport and the Visa's. We stayed at my sisters home in Seabrook TX off the Bay and it is beautiful there. To hear the Bay from her deck and see the Ocean and smell the salt water...that was very therapeutic during a stressfull couple of days.
The plan was to get the document done on Wed and the passport on Thursday, but there was a complication. I personally have decided that some people just do not understand adoption and are determined to make the red tape process difficult. The lady at the passport counter wanted to send the passport to me in 5 days. I cannot afford a 5 day delay. Granted, I should have gotten Jordyn's passport sooner and not procrastinated (yes, I admit it...I am the queen of procrastination) until the very last minute....I still need the passport TODAY! Now! I have to get the Visas and that takes 4 days unless you pay an arm and leg to expedite them and I do not have the money or time to make a second trip and expedite the visas! Then, the lady started to give me a hard time because Jordyn's adoption certificate was written in Chinese and does not have the words "Adoptive Parents" in English on it. I am sure that it says it in Chinese. Then, she said it would have to be translated. So I told her that is fine, Is there a passport employee that speaks and translates Mandarin? Of course not. I think she was really giving me a hard time on purpose. I was extremely polite and I was praying the whole time for God to intervene. I have learned from the past that sweetness works better than anger in these situations. Oh, and prayer too ;> Finally, she said I could pick up the passport the next day which was still not what I wanted or needed. But, I did not want to push it with her. So now, I am paying a courier to get our Visas for us and they will be mailed back by next week. I am just relieved to know that is done and not hanging over my head on my TO DO LIST.
I am also praising God for His protection during our trip. We had one very scary close call that would have been, could have been an awful accident. I am not exaggerating one single bit. We were very close to being involved in a terrible accident and I truly believe that Angles were protecting us. Two cars were speeding and swerving in and out of traffic and I mean a high speed race or chase or something. They had to be driving at least 90 miles an hour. The second car sped past us, weaved between two cars trying to change lanes and lost control of the vehicle right in front of us! He spun around through 4 lanes barely missing a car ahead of us and then spun back across the interstate into the HOV lane and came to a stop. I thought that he was going to stop on the other side after the first spin and kept going. My dad was in the back seat and started saying slow,down, slow down, slow down. I started to put on my brakes as he was coming back across the lanes and almost had to come to a complete stop to avoid hitting him. I do not know how to explain the fact that he was able to drive away and that we did not hit him. We were just millimeters from hitting him. It seemed as though the time/space/speed velocity continuum went into slow motion. It was so scary...I was reaching over to Jordyn bracing for an impact! I am thanking God and Praising God that I am still alive and breathing today. I am thanking God that I will see Jailynn and hug her in China. That I will see Jailynn and Jordyn reunited as sisters and that I can still be their Mommy! That I am still here with my family. Maybe I sound ridiculous, but that seemed like a near-death or serious injury accident to me. I know that God still has a purpose for me here and that is to be a mother to my children. I am not done yet!