Panama

We may or may not be spending a month in Panama for John's work.  We may or may not be leaving on an undetermined date for a month, or shorter, or longer.  We may or may not have enough cash / credit to finance this trip since John's work isn't fronting the money (which makes no sense to me), though they will be reimbursing us once we return.  The only sure thing I do know is to travel out of and into this country, John, Alex and I need to have valid passports.

The passport thing is quickly becoming frustrating since I don't seem to have any proof that Alex is the biological child of John and me nor do I have proof that he was born in this fine country.  For some damned reason they won't take my word for it.  He has my eyes, people, my eyes!  When we had Alex, we thought we had ordered two copies of his birth certificate.  They never came.  Now, I have to pay another $40 and order them all over again and wait a possible two weeks for them to arrive.  Then John and I have to go in together to apply for Alex's passport and provide proof that we are his parents since he is a minor and can't apply on his own.  It could take 2-6 more weeks to receive his new passport and we're supposed to go to Panama next month!  In the meantime, I've lost my own passport which means I need to go through the process of applying for a brand new one, which again, is 2-6 weeks.  In the end, all this passport nonsense is going to cost us upwards of $350! Ugh.  At least John's recently renewed his, so he's good to go.

On top of proving we are US citizens and paying and waiting and waiting and paying, we also have to figure out the logistics of actually leaving for a month.  Do we just lock up and go?  What about the cat?  Do they take Discover in Panama? 

All that aside, I am really excited!  Panama is a place I'd probably never visit on my own, and to get to spend a month there is bound to be an adventure!