Signing Day

All went well on Wednesday with our "Signing Day."  We had a peaceful, uneventful trip to Birmingham (it ended up feeling sort of like a date day thanks to Molly's willingness to have LJ and Emma for the day...Eli and Caroline are still on their choir tour/mission trip).  In hindsight, maybe we should've done something more like what football players do when they sign on to an NFL team...hype videos and various hats and jerseys and stuff...it could've been so much more exciting.

Zoe slept right through the vast majority of everything.

Recap of the day:  We signed some papers at a lawyer's office (and by "some papers" I mean very important documents that will play a significant role in Zoe officially becoming a Cash)...met some dear, dear friends for lunch....went and had our 5th set of fingerprints done (seriously. 5th - granted 2 were for the foster care process...but still...why in the world is there not ONE fingerprint database?  just one.  maybe even every person could register their fingerprints...and then the fingerprints would BE THERE and there would be no need to pay upwards of $300 having fingerprints scanned again and again.  I'm not befuddled at all. I'm assuming it makes sense to someone...so it's ok if it doesn't make sense to me!)(and I'm still grateful that fingerprinting isn't painful or embarrassing - no need to have needles stuck in us...or urinalysis drug tests in front of strangers -- pants down, turn around, pee in a cup...yup.  that happened.)(so sorry for that tangent...back to our regularly scheduled programming...)

...and then we found the Lifeline office (which happens to be in the WMU headquarters...brought back some Camp Pinnacle memories...)...signed some more important papers...and then got in the car and headed back to Columbus (with a stop for gas station pizza on the way.  we really love hunt brother's pizza...and there is NONE to be found in Columbus!  i found the flaw with our city.)

When she was awake, Zoe shared more smiles than ever.

Isn't she lovely?

We are amazed by this precious gift...and amazed by the way God is providing for this adoption through so many incredible and wonderful people.

So now we're just waiting for a letter to show up in our mailbox that will summon us to court in Gadsden, Alabama (since Zoe was born in Alabama we were counseled that it would be wise to submit our adoption paperwork to the great State of Alabama) ...it could in the next few weeks - or it could be in a month or 2...my understanding is that it depends on how busy the court is (all of the waiting periods that we would've needed to happen have already happened).

Thank you all for your company on this journey.  Thank you for your prayers.  Thank you for your support - financially, emotionally, spiritually.

Surely there will be more to come.