We Have A Court Date!

May 20

in the court of

Orange County Florida.

Judgement will be handed down that Joanna Mei

was truly born.

She'll receive a Florida Birth Certificate indicating that her birthplace was Hunan, China.

(for a fee, of course)

IKEA Playroom

We took on the major task of re-locating JMei's playroom from our

spare room downstairs to the 2nd floor loft, adjacent to her bedroom.

We chose IKEA again for their creativity and price.

The additions brightened up an otherwise dark room.

JMei's tuffet for viewing her Disney & Blue's Clues videos.

At her musical playstation, a Christmas gift from Aunt Aly & Uncle Ford.

Toy storage doubles as wall decoration.

Waiting for a Court Date

Our petition for Adoption Certification with the State of Florida (giving JMei a Florida Birth Certificate) has been filed with the Orange County Court. In about 2 weeks, we'll receive a court date to finalize this ongoing adoption process.
We were fortunate to be referred to an attorney who adopted his daughter from China and now guides parents through the process and attends the hearing with the family. His assistant spent a year volunteering in a Chinese orphanage. We feel a wonderful team is representing our family.
In Orange County, the Adoption Certification hearings are clumped in with the non-contested divorce cases. When an AC item comes up, the attitude of the whole court changes ...... it's not in any procedure manual, it just happens. Judges will stop for pictures, interview the family and generally make it a happy and honoring occasion. We're looking forward to this family time with Joanna Mei. We'll post video if it's allowed ........

A Wash of a Weekend

Head on over to "The Other Blog - Content Questionable" and read about HomeDaddy's weekend .......

Our Testimony

Our church, First Baptist Church of Windermere, has been doing a video series called "Transformed Lives". Troy, one of our pastors (a really neat guy), realized that we probably had a transformation story relative to our adoption of Joanna Mei. He is right. We probably did about 5 minutes of video which was edited down to 60 seconds or so.

So folks, it can be a bit preachy - after all, it is a presentation for our church. Our faith is the major influence of our lives. Our faith makes us who we are.