Crisis Averted

Talia leaves for Israel on Sunday for 11 weeks. She's going to a program at the Alexander Muss high school in Hod Hasharon which is outside of Tel Aviv. She's traveling with 45 of her classmates from Gann Academy. Lucky girl actually spent 5 weeks in Israel this summer with Camp Young Judaea. She will be in the states for only a month before she leaves again.

SO HOW DID WE LOSE HER PASSPORT?!?!

Two weeks ago at a parent meeting at gannacademy.org, I listened to the teacher tell horror stories of missing passports, parents chasing the bus down the highway, or flying to New York to deliver the passport just before the kid went through security and that's why they collect the passports 5 days before traveling. I sat there smugly thinking that would never be us, I'm too organized.

Yesterday morning I told Talia to grab her passport from our lockbox before she left for orientation. " Mom, it's not there!"

Panic ensued.

She left and as I searched all the logical places, a full blown panic set in- this was a crying, hair pulling, clothes tearing kind of panic. If you read this blog 4 years ago you know that 5 days before our trip I discovered that my passport was expiring -  and it was an expensive, time-consuming, and worrisome process to get a new one on time. I couldn't imagine going through that again but Talia missing her flight wasn't an option.

I pulled myself together and after a little bit of research was able to make an appointment for 8 am today in Portsmouth, NH. As we sat with our fellow travelers waiting for the office to open, we shared our stories and compared driving times. (We slept at our house in Ogunquit, Maine so had the shortest drive.) We were the first in line and at 8:00 am, they opened the doors. We had all our documentation and finished in 5 minutes.

I won't rest easy until UPS shows up at noon tomorrow.