Court Date!!!!

That's right folks--we FINALLY have a court date!! We were beginning to wonder if those words were ever going to be written on this blog! Ha!

On our court date we will have been here 46 days. We never in our wildest dreams dreamt it would take this long. We have at many times, mainly as we met each delay, wondered what God's plan was in the adoption taking so long. We have never questioned his plan or his timing, but we have definitely wondered WHY?! Sometime I will write more about how God has used this time to work in Matt and I's hearts.

This morning Yulia went and got us registered with the court. In order to be registered they check every minute detail in the mound of paperwork we have acquired and make sure it is all perfect. Ours was, and we were easily registered. Then Oleg met with the judge who will be handling our case to again make sure everything was in order and to discuss a court date. Oleg also asked the judge about waiving the 10 day waiting period and the judge said no. So we will be waiting another 10 days with nothing happening. This was a bummer to find out for sure. But we can still pray the judge might change his mind, eh?!?

So Tuesday, January 18 will be the big day! We can hardly wait! Our 10 day waiting period will begin on Wednesday, January 19, and after the 10 days, we will finally get to pick Rance up!! Although we are definitely excited for our court date, we are most excited (and a little nervous!) about January 28--the day Rance truly becomes ours!

Today's visit with Rance was another good visit. Yesterday Cavin wouldn't leave without his punching balloon so today we took two! Rance and Cavin spent most of our two hour visit playing with their balloons. Well, Rance would play with his and Cavin spent his time trying to do everything Rance did. Too cute.

Everyday Rance asks questions in regards to becoming ours forever or us visiting him. Today he asked why we only come to see him once a day and only stay for a short time. We are hoping and praying that the orphanage director will allow us to spend more time with him after the court hearing.

Our return tickets were for Friday, January 14. When we booked our tickets and our adoption agency recommended that date as our return date we were sure we would have to pay to change them as our adoption wouldn't take that long. Funny. So we have spent this evening figuring out, more like guessing, what date would be best for our return. We have also been looking at our finances, as we planned on being gone for 6 weeks and will end up being gone for almost 11 weeks. Ugh.

We again thank you for continuing to follow our journey and providing us with support and prayers. It has been so hard to be here for so long, and each day it becomes more and more difficult to be away.