wow, this was more complicated than it should be...

So yesterday morning, I picked up the finalized copes of our homestudy. I mailed one copy to the USCIS office in Boston along with our I600A application and other documents they needed. I mailed our criminal record requests for Massachusetts to the State Records Office in Boston as well. All good. I took the NH criminal records request to the office in Concord in person since it is only 15 minutes from work...they took my check, stamped my form and sent me out the door. I asked specifically if that was all I needed for an international adoption (as I thought I needed a notarized statement that said "No criminal record") and I was assured that what I was holding was the official and only seal frmo the state of NH. So then I decided to take all of the NH documents to the Secretary of State's office in person (along with a FedEx envelope so she could send the authenticated documents back to me). The good news was that she could do them right then and there, so no need to pay FedEx to get them back to me. The bad news was that I was correct and I did need a notarized letter for our criminal record statement. I also needed a new copy of our marriage license because the copy I had was certified at the town level, and not the state level. Lucky for me, the Department of Vital Records was across the street from the Department of Safety (where the criminal records are done). So I fought Concrod traffic and drove back to the other side of town to the office I had just come from. I got our marriage license without any problems, but when I went back to criminal records, I was again informed that they did nothing special for internation adoptions. I drove back to the statehouse with the phone number of the person in criminal records. The secretary of state official called the criminal records and explained what I needed. I had to go back the next day (today) to ge tthe correct form, and the drive back to the statehouse for the certification....
whew...
So I have all of those forms in hand and authenticated now, but it took 3 trips to each office over 2 days to do it :)
Then I get a call from the homestudy agency coordinator who tells me that there was an error in our homestudy (which was one of the documents I just had authenticated at the state level) and would have to be redone...So that means I get to make one more trip to the statehouse after they reissue the homestudy.
Too bad I don't get frequent driver miles...
But at least everything else is submitted and maybe will be back waiting for us when we get back from vacation (leaving tomorrow!).
:)