November 21st

So, many of you may not realize that Josh's adoption is not finalized yet. Yes, we are his legal custodians but it takes several months for all the paperwork to be processed. When everything is complete, we petition for a date to go to court and meet with a judge. It normally takes three to six months for all that to happen. But it can take longer, and it did for us. Since Josh was born in New Mexico, we had to work with New Mexico and Arizona adoption laws and it just took a couple months longer than normal. And since his adoption isn't finalized yet, he hasn't been sealed to us in the temple. We have been super anxious to just get this all over with, and take our baby to the temple, and have him blessed in church. Not to mention, we would also like to claim the adoption on our taxes for this year. It was starting to look like we might not make it to court before the end of the year though. Until... I got a call last week! It was from the Maricopa county juvenile center. They had recieved all our paperwork and were ready to send the petition! I'll try and recap what was said:

MC (maricopa county) - Hello Gail, we have recieved your paperwork for the adoption of your son and would like to send in the petition paperwork to the courts.

Me - Oh great! That would be wonderful.

MC - Have you ever heard of National Adoption Day? It's on November 21st.

Me - Yes.

MC - Well, every year the city of Pheonix has a carnival to celebrate National Adoption Day. And we like to get all of the couples that are close to finalizing, to come to the courts and finalize on that day. There will be a lot of media surrounding the event and it will be in the news. Some couples don't like to finalize with so much publicity surrounding them. On the other hand, you would be able to finalize sooner than you normally would. Is this something you are interested in doing?

Me - I'd like to talk to my husband first but I don't see why he wouldn't want to go ahead and do it sooner than later.
(I call Diego, we talk, we want to do it, I call MC back)
Me - Yes we would love to finalize that day!

MC - Great! Well, you can invite your friends and family to the carnival that day. And just be warned that there will be the news and media there covering the event.

Me - Yeah, I don't care about that.

MC - Okay come in on thursday to sign the paperwork!

So, Josh's finalizationd day will be on National Adoption Day. Isn't that cool? We're so excited. I was starting to wonder if it would ever happen. Expect our temple sealing and Josh's blessing to be sometime very soon after! Yipee!