Today marks another milestone for us: an official end to four years of paperwork! We had our court appointment to complete Caitlin's re-adoption this afternoon. This was not necessary, but it will give Caitlin an American (California) birth certificate. We felt that was very important for Caitlin and will make life easier for her. This way she won't have to produce a mound of Chinese paperwork and translations, and answer a swarm of questions about why sometimes her Chinese name is written "Jiang Xin Er," and sometimes it's written "Xin Er Jiang" (in China they put the last name first), or sometimes her first and middle name are combined into "Xiner" (things get lost/confused in the translation), every time she applies to a school, or for a passport, or for a drivers license, etc.
So after filling out one last mound of paperwork the past couple of weeks, this afternoon we went to the court to have the judge sign off on our paperwork. I had heard that the visit with the judge was rather anti-climatic, and it was, but it was still pretty neat and very special to us! We were only in court for about 5 minutes; the judge asked us a couple of questions, then we all signed a paper, then everyone clapped, and it was done.
Then the judge asked if we wanted a picture. We stood with her behind the bench, and she asked if I'd like to sit in her chair! Caitlin and I felt very important sitting in such a special seat! We took a few pictures, then it was over.
Yay! No more paperwork!!!
Afterwards we tried out a new Italian restaurant to celebrate.
Caitlin loved her pasta bolognese!
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