Finally at the consulate!

We are now in Chicago and have been to the consulate and it looks like we'll be getting our student visas! (barring any problems). Even though we are still waiting for the original document to come from the University in Italy for my daughter's prooof of enrollment (i got mine like 5 days ago), the consulate said we could start the paperwork with a fax from them.
So Thursday night at about 1 am we called the university and asked them to fax a copy to the Chicago Consulate, and at 1:30 am we headed out to drive the 7 hours to Chicago. We got here at about 9 am, no sleep, didn't even shower or anything, and got papers together to go to the consulate.
We catch a cab to the consulate, go up to the 18th floor and there are like 15-20 people all sitting down waiting. By now it's like 10:00 and I am even more panicked, but it turned out most were for passports. Only three were ahead of us for visas.
The gentleman(sp??) who was doing visa apps asked if anyone was going for student visas, and had everyone take a paper saying that if you didn't have everything on it, you could not apply. Of course everyone started to panick, and starting calling home to get someone to get plane tickets for them , etc....
We had about a 20 minute wait, and then somehow we managed to jump line. (Would Italians be proud of me? )
My daughter and I went up to the window together. The man, not even having spoken to us goes, "Yes I received the fax."
My daughter and I were speechless! Then he asked "Mrs Ortega?" I'm like freaking out by now. And he goes, "I figured it was you, you are the one who sent like thousands of emails to us!" I think coming up with my daughter gave it away, and Ok, I sent about SIX emails in the last two years to them, (and maybe a couple of phone calls) but we thought it was cool he knew who we were! Well, we were hoping it was good and not bad. I don't think he was too impressed with me, but he was very nice to us.
Anyway he starts asking for and going over our paperwork. We had everything except the original for my daughter from the University. I had also picked up the wrong itinerary, an old one. so we bring that in on Monday. I also had to run down and make copies of our passports and licenses, otherwise everything was in order.
There was not one other person there who had even close to everything. When I went downstairs to make copies Jess said she saw him mark everything accepted for the student visa so I am hoping we are set. We asked him to call us when the visas were ready, that we were not leaving town and counting on even fedex.
We now fly out of Detroit (5 hour drive from here) at 7:30pm on the 3rd of July, missing the first two days of school, but the flight is nonstop so the animals won't be sitting out on the tarmack any longer than they have to, that makes it well worth it.
One of the consulate's first words to us was: "don't tell me you need this by today or tomorrow or yesterday!" He was pretty frustrated by everyone coming at the last minute.
I told him that we were supposed to fly out today, but that we had rescheduled the flight for a week from Sunday, he seemed pretty happy about that.
I have to tell you that I was so nervous, papers were flying everywhere, I couldn't find anything, my daughter said I was driving her crazy. But let's face it, this is the most important person you will me, they decide your fate. No student visa, no part time work etc.
So anyway, barring my daughter not getting the orinigal paperwork in the next week, we are finally on our way!
We celebrated with a nice dinner in Chicago tonight, tomorrow it is back to cheap food.