It's Official!!!!!

Today, we had court and all went well! However, I should back up and tell you a little more about yesterday and then proceed with information on our court hearing. Get comfortable....this could be a long post. (I couldn't reveal all of these details until after court...so I am reverting back a few days).

First of all, when we landed on Wednesday, Lana told us that we would see Trey on Thursday and we would get to bring him back to the hotel. What???? We weren't expecting this! Anyway, we put together some clothes and some toys for our first and only trip to his orphanage on Thursday.

When we got to Trey's orphanage, we met with the Director for a few minutes. Then, in he came..... He was smiling (as usual) and seemed very excited that we were there! Shortly after, they told us to dress him in his new clothes....so we put him in some new duds. Everything looked great on him. The sizes were pretty appropriate. His pants were good length-wise, but they were pretty large in the waist. Thank goodness we brought along a really cool camoflauge belt. Nonetheless, he kept cranking up his pants as high as they would go the entire time! It was hilarious. After that, the Director of the Orphanage invited us to eat lunch with her. We accepted and enjoyed a nice lunch that was prepared by the orphanage staff. All of the ladies at the orphanage were sooooo sweet to us on our visits. Meanwhile, Trey was laying down in his room with his group. After we ate, we gave some gifts to the Director and then, we went to find Trey. We saw his room where there were about 10 children trying to nap. Trey was instructed to say goodbye to all of his friends. This was a very endearing moment. He went to each child's bed and gave him/her a kiss on the mouth (yes...on the mouth!). Anyway, it was very sweet. One girl started crying really hard. It was very sad to see her so upset over this event. You could really see how close these children become. After all of the goodbyes, we got into the van for our trip home.

The trip to the hotel went very well. Trey was very good throughout this 5 hour journey. I should also mention that we had the social worker (Tatiana) and the orphanage director (Natalia) riding along with us! It was a full van. Trey started looking tired during the middle of the trip. Therefore, I (Kathy) held him in my arms and he fell asleep for about an hour and a half. The last hour of the trip, Trey started to get a little stir crazy....but what can you expect? It had been a long journey for this little man. We were very impressed with how he handled this long car-ride.

Our first overnight went well. It took Trey a long time to settle in to fall asleep, but eventually, he crashed and he slept for about 9 1/2 hours. This morning, we had breakfast, went for a walk, had lunch, and then headed downtown for court. Irina watched Trey while we went to court.

Court lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes. Everything went well....the judge just had a lot of questions. Tatiana and Natalia also spoke on our behalf and had extremely nice things to say about us. We are very grateful for their support. As you can already imagine, we had a positive conclusion and now Trey is officially our son! We did not get our 10 days waived, so we will be in Vladivostok until April 17th. We would love to come home sooner, but we understand that we must wait during this time to leave Vlad. This may be ok too because we have a lot of bonding that needs to take place and this time will strengthen our (already growing) bond.

Tonight, we had dinner and then, we experienced our first melt-down. So...tonight we are growing together (learning rules, learning to communicate better, and learning to trust). Nonetheless, it's all good.

Shane is currently bathing Trey and he is laughing and having a good time with the bubbles. So...we are very happy and enjoying our first days together! We couldn't be happier right now.

Thanks for all of your support and prayers. God's Blessings from Vlad!