Today was a long, long day. But it was a good day and one that I know God has His hand in. 
After a couple hours we arrived at a restaurant to have breakfast.
Termit hills!! I was so excited for the trip and these mounts just amazed me. Haha
(And another "ant" hill- that's what we thought they were)
That was pretty funny!
Today we had our document check appointment at the U.S. Embassy. But let's start at the beginning of this whole process... And let's start with myself, mom and the boys heading out for our first safari Friday morning around 6:30am. We had just had the boys IOM check up appointment Thursday and were told it would take around a week for all the paperwork to reach the embassy and for us to get our document check appointment. (The IOM paperwork process started Tuesday but it's about 5 days from the last appt that everything usually gets to the embassy) So we planned a safari for the weekend. It takes about 6-7 hours to get out to Parra Lodge and the road was bumpy (that's an understandment) but it was beautiful! We set up some cushions on the floor of the van and the boys slept some. It was a great idea!
The place was amazing and it's where some famous people stayed while filming some Africa movie haha (you like those details- well my brain is barely working so that's all I have right now) :)
So anyway, we headed to the lodge and once we entered the park we saw some of the. Most. Amazing...
We also saw baboons along the road. And we stopped at Murchison Falls- it was beautiful!!
Anyway- onto the safari and then the details of today.
The safari was amazing! We saw elephants, giraffes, some kind of buffalo, all sorts of antelope, baboons, hippos, a rabbit and a rat.
We also saw this tree that my mom thought people hung actual sausage in.
I will have to show you more pictures of our safari later.
So as we are waiting on the ferry, Joe calls me and asks if I have internet access and if I have seen the email. We got an an email stating our document check appointment was scheduled for Monday at 11am! We could not believe it! Unfortunately I didn't have my documents I needed for the appt yet from my attorney..
So last night (Sunday night) we had arrived back from the safari, and Patrick dropped off my file at midnight. I was so exhausted! I had to leave it for the morning- there was no way I would be able to look at it all then. So I went to bed around 12:30. the boys had a rough night and both had me up at 5! By 7 I had them back down again, grabbed my files and started going through them. It was a stressful morning. I had myself all worked up and felt sick but God worked everything out!!
So the 4 of us- Myself, my mom and the boys arrived around 10:45 am to make sure we were on time for the 11am appt. We were seen around 11:30 and I had everything but their 2x2 passport photos. I could not find them! All I had were the small ones. So the lady said they would look over my file and I had 30 minutes to go get new ones reprinted and return to the embassy. I was anxious let me tell you, but the lady was very nice about it. We hopped back in the car and went back to the photo place to get more copies of the 2x2 photos. (Ps- I found my originals while waiting back in line at the embassy, AFTER I went and had more made lol)! Oh and I also had some spelling errors in my file but because I got it the day before there wasn't anything I could do but point them out during doc check. She didn't like "all" the errors (there were only 3) but she took it and made notes for me. So when I returned, I dropped off the passport photos, paid for the visas and she told me to come back at 3pm for my exit interview. Awesome!! So while I was dropping off the photos, the driver took my mom and the boys back to the house. Because after the document check I needed to go into town and see my lawyer so that I could go over everything and prepare for the exit interview. I got stuck in traffic but tried to stay calm knowing Gods got this!! He has brought me this far.
After I talked with the lawyer for about 30 minutes I headed back to the house to get my mom and the boys for the exit interview at 3. We were so blessed to be seen the same day.
So... The exit interview. Wow, talk about prayer. All the prayers surely calmed my nerves and I was ready! I was told to not let the embassy fluster me and to argue my case, I didn't have to do too much of that. He asked me questions about their story and mostly about what happened to the parents and why I didn't know more, or the family didn't know more.... We were in the tiny room for about 35-40 minutes and he told us to step out and he would call us back. After about 15 minutes he called us back in (mind you- this is a room not much wider than the door itself and has a glass window in it and you pass things back and forth like a teller window. You could maybe fit 4 adults standing in that room)
Anyway, he said that he doesn't have any problem with their paperwork or their story but the twins grandmother has HIV so he wanted to boys tested (again) but by IOM this time instead of from the hospital. So now here we are. Everything went great, and this is something that can be easily done it just takes some time. We don't know how much time yet- it could go quickly. I will hopefully know more tomorrow when the lady calls me back to schedule an appt with IOM. After that, the results will be sent directly to IOM and they should issue the boys their visa's.
So all in all- a great, exhausting day!
