our amazing night and our court date

Wow. 

That's the best word to describe last night. We had strangers come who heard about our sweet girl. We had family members drive in. We had friends from near and far. And we got to show off gorgeous pictures of our girl to all of them. And one of our sweet little three-year-old buddies came up to me, held out a dollar, and whispered, "It's for the baby."

Beautiful.

We won't know exact totals until we wrap up the silent auction next week (that post is coming!) and until we hear from Chick-fil-a with the final total from them, but we have a general idea of where we'll end up.

Thankful.

Thank you to the many friends who came and who shared the news of our event with others.

Blessed.

And again, wow.

We have a court date. We've had it for a couple weeks, actually, but I haven't had the time to post about it. Court is April 10! 

And what does that mean?

Well, it means a lot and not a whole lot all at the same time. It means a lot because, at the court date, our in-country coordinators will represent our interests and Zoe's interests before the judge. All information and documents pertinent to the case will be presented. 

It doesn't mean much just yet because the judge doesn't decide anything at the court date. It's all about fact finding, somewhat in the same way that Supreme Court cases are done here. (And I'm sure my friend Audrey can chime in via comments about other parallels with our justice system!) 

After court, two decrees have to be issued by the judge. The first one comes four to six weeks after our court date. Then the second one comes 10-25 days after the first decree.

The cool thing about that second decree? As soon as it's issued, Zoe Amanda is legally our daughter in Taiwan.

It will take a few weeks for the US paperwork to catch up, since all the Taiwanese court documents have to be translated to English, reviewed by some folks at the Department of Homeland Security, and approved by AIT, which is the US Embassy-esque entity in Taiwan.

And then? We travel. And bring her home. 

So.

Stinkin'.

Excited!