...comes home from Russia and loses their passport??

I would make you guess, but to save you the time, the answer is "me."

Here's the story: We were getting ready to take down the guest bed this morning, so my first task was to actually clean the bed off. When we came home from Russia, I had unloaded all of our bags onto the bed and put things away from that location. All of our paperwork, ticket receipts, hotel receipts, passports, etc. were in one neat little stack. We closed the door so that neither of the dogs or cats could get in to mess with everything. We've slowly put things away in their place, and have grabbed things from in there, to work on updating dossier paperwork, but for the most part, I've known where everything is.

It has been a few days since I've been in there.

Until today.

Well, back to the story - My task was to finish putting things away off of the bed so we could take it down to store it. As I went through papers, I noticed that Nathan's passport was there, but mine was not.

I will sometimes put things in a "safe place" and then realize that the place is so safe that even I can't find it! But I looked in all the safe places I usually use (knowing, all the while it was a futile search because if I had consciously put my passport in a so-called safe place, then I would've indoubatably put Nathan's in the same place). But again I digress...

Suffice it to say that I completely tore that room apart. I went through every bag we took with us, and every bag I've carried since. Went through books & pictures. When I didn't find it, I proceeded to tear our room apart...and went on to the rest of the house, not finding this passport. I stayed rational enough, knowing that we had some time to get a replacement...but if I'd lost this passport, then all the really awesome stuff in it was gone, too...my Visa, and my stamps from my world adventures this past year (well...Germany, S. Korea, and Russia). Nathan got in on the fun and went out to tear the car apart. He asked me if I would've taken it to work for any reason, and I didn't remember taking it from the house, once we came home.

We didn't find it.

Then I remembered having it at work...at some point...because I remember a co-worker's child commenting on the fact that my passport picture wasn't so good because I wasn't smiling. So I came in the living room, sat down on the couch, and called K (my co-worker) to see if she could remember when that day was. We came to the conclusion that it actually was before we left, because I had taken my passport to work to make a copy of it.

In the meantime, Nathan had been out looking through the car, and he came in and started looking in the cushions of the couch. I was telling K that we had torn the house apart, and Nathan was even looking in the couch...that's how desperate we had become. I got off the couch to hang up the phone, and Nathan looked under the cushion on top of which I had been sitting while talking on the phone.

Guess what he found.

The cover was bent a little, but yes, it was my passport with all my cool stuff in it. Thank goodness...I would now not have to send off for a replacement! But the funny thing is: It had been under my rear end the whole time I had been on the phone, trying to figure out where it might be. Please do not ask me why it would've been in the couch? I can't answer that, because I don't remember ever taking it out of the baby's bedroom. I guess the important thing is that it is found...And...

I will be ever-grateful to my husband for looking in the last place I would've ever looked.

Rest assured, it is in a very safe place, now (a safe place that Nathan knows about and we will both remember) resting until we leave for Russia again.