Packing

Today we picked up Miranda's unabridged birth certificate (which we need to apply for her visa to enter the US).  We also picked up her temporary South African passport which will allow her to fly to the US.  Everything went smoothly and all the documents were in order.  Praise God!  It may seem like a small thing that the documents are correct but any mistakes cause delays of multiple days  There is a French couple staying here that adopted a child from the same orphanage as Miranda and when they went to pick up their paperwork their last name was spelled wrong on the birth certificate. They will no longer be able to fly home next week because of the error.

Since all the paperwork is in hand, we will travel to Johannesburg tomorrow.  We decided to drive instead of fly and expect the trip to take 5 or 6 hours.  Hopefully, we will see some beautiful scenery along the way.

After this morning's trip to collect the documents and extend our rental car agreement, we spent time packing and organizing our things.  Miranda was "helping" me pack.  This consisted of walking around in my shoes and wearing my belt.  She found the cable that connects the camera to the laptop and stuck it in her ear like it was an earphone!  Then she unwrapped a pack of gum so I gave her half a piece, but she didn't seem to know what it was.  She sucked on it for awhile but didn't chew it and then she swallowed it.  I tried to demonstrate chewing with my piece but that just meant that she thought she was supposed to show people that she had gum.  So much for giving her gum to chew on the plane to help her ears pop!  She also found some socks for her (it's been too warm to wear socks) and promptly put them on with a pair of larger shoes I brought since I didn't know her shoe size.  Then she went outside to play, took off the shoes, and walked in the mud in her brand new white socks!  Needless to say, packing took a little longer than I expected :)