Hurry up and wait!!

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, but there hasn't been much to report.  We got James's legal documents a few weeks ago, had a minor fiasco trying to get a copy of our income tax from this year (I'll tell that story in a minute!) and finally got everything off to USCIS on the 1st.  And here we are, on the 18th, still waiting for our I800 approval.  I called today and actually spoke with the officer assigned to us.  Our file just arrived today and hasn't officially been given to him yet, which was good because I was able to give him permission to send the approval directly to our agency.  That should save a few days, but we still won't have it until sometime next week.  So that's a bit frustrating.  I also sent our photobook and a Pirates t-shirt so James can start getting to know us.  But the foster parents think it's best to wait until closer to our arrival to show him so he's not confused by the long wait.  I'm not really pleased with this, because I want him to see us and know us, but I keep telling myself that they've done this dozens of times, so they might know a bit more than I do about what is best.  But still...  So here we are at the end of October with the visa process not even begun.  Please pray with me that all the paperwork and appointments happen extra quickly, so that we can still travel in January.
And now for my income tax mishap story... When I applied for the grant we received this summer, I had to include a copy of our income tax report, with our SSN blacked out.  Well, I didn't want to black it out permanently, and I didn't think to make a copy, so I covered the numbers with masking tape.  Just long enough to make a copy, mind you, but when I pulled it off, the numbers came off with it.  Now this was many months ago, and I had forgotten about this until I got it back out to make a copy for immigration (even though I'm fairly sure we supplied the same information with our first form).  So now I needed a new copy.  Jason said he filed our taxes in an office this year, so i called the tax office and found a location that was open that day and accepted walk-ins.  The only one was in the Mills (about 20ish minutes away), where I had just been the day before shopping.  So I loaded up the kids and headed out.  The only lady working that day took me to her desk, asked for our info, and tried to locate our file.  The computer gave her an error and said we didn't exist in the system.  After this happened several times once, she looked at me and basically said, "Sorry, nothing I can do.  Don't be mad at me."  Seriously??!!!  Very calmly, I asked her if there wasn't something else she could try, someone she could call, etc??  I explained that I needed this paper TODAY (it was a Friday) and that it was extremely important.  Finally she gets ahold of a tech guy who finds us but says the server is down and he can't help us either.  We'll have to go to the office where we filed, which would be open the next day.  I had to work Saturday, so I told Jason he would have to go.  Neither of us was very happy at this point.  So, Saturday comes, and Jason calls the office to make sure he will be able to actually get our return.  They don't have it in their system either.  Finally, he remembers that he really filed online, and was able to quickly find and print the report.  Needless to say, I will never use tape to cover anything on paper again!!