SJ's Re-Adoption Day... B&W Wed

The Long Road to China & Back

Today was a 'sweet' day for SJ~

Re-Adoption Day...

Re-Adoption is not a requirement when both parents

travel to China for adoption

but is helpful for a few reasons:

~ Enables you to specify your child's name exactly

~ Allows the child to have a birth certificate in English

because if the foreign BC was ever misplaced,

it would be very hard to replace

~ Allows you to receive a final decree of adoption from the US

~ US documents are easily replaced... not so with foreign ones.

The beauty of the whole thing...

you can file the petition "pro se"~

(without legal counsel)

and that is just what we did today for SJ.

We were scheduled for court @ 9:30

and were led into Judge Bailey's chambers.

He looked over the documents since we were "pro se"

and approved everything signing our petition.

The whole very formal and legal meeting

took about 5 minutes...

and we were on to my favorite part~

the photos.

We thanked Judge Bailey and he so graciously said,

"It was my pleasure.

This is one of the only happy things I ever get to do in court."

Aunt Susan and Uncle Tony (Chief Magistrate Judge)

were able to be there...

and so was my mom. :)

The only part missing from this shot was our sweet Nana.

If Scott and I have said it once,

we have said 1000 times~

We don't know what we would do

if we didn't have the littles...

the bigs are gone so much our nest would be empty

WAY too soon!!!

Here is the guest of honor~

SJ herself... Judge Bailey gave her a little treat

for doing so well and smiling for the pics.

After filing everything with the Clerk of Court,

the girls were excited to get outside...

then head for home. :)

Now...

for a little blast from the past~

Here are the girls on the day we Re-Adopted EK.

EK and Judge Jackson

Our family photo way back on Oct 24, 2006.

WOW... seems so long ago and yet just yesterday. :)