To celebrate this important occasion, Arizona opened its court houses on a Saturday to finalize more than 250 families' adoptions... including ours!
Here we are with the K. family (friends from our local Ethiopian Families' support group) who also readopted their son Tommy today.
Honestly, this day isn't quite as significant for international adopters as it is for domestic adopters. In domestic adoptions, this court appearance legally makes the child a member of his/her family forever. BIG deal, right?
But if you remember back to earlier this year, Dawit already legally became our forever baby at an Ethiopian court hearing in January. So this re-adoption process is only to get him a US birth certificate (which we need to apply for Dawit's American citizenship) and to legally change his name. Still exciting. But not huge.
So may I introduce for the first time since his name has LEGALLY been changed: Dawit Gerard B-P.
Just before 9:00 AM, my aunt Vicki, uncle Roger, Rich's mom Marilyn, and her boyfriend John all joined us for the festivities at the Durango court house. Our tour guide Jennifer escorted us all inside and took us to our assigned room courtroom where our case was heard by Judge Anderson.
15 painless minutes later we were done! We filed our paperwork, took lots of pictures, and enjoyed some frozen yogurt at the festivities set up outside the courthouse. By about 10:00 Dawit was WAY ready for his morning nap so we all called it a day.
Congrats to all of the families finalizing their adoptions today in Arizona and around the country!


















