Adoption decree

N,M,F & J with our cook's 4 mo. old baby. They LOVE this baby and fight over who gets to hold her.


All dressed up to go to court yesterday. This is our "backyard."


We met a judge yesterday and he was clearly smitten with our little family and our lawyers were able to persuade him to issue the adoption decree today! Unexpected great news! So late next week we'll have new birth certificates for the girls with us listed as parents, and after that - ID cards, Ecuadorian passports, and finally visas and home..... We're still gonna be here a few weeks - (these things still take time!) but it means that instead of being home Sept 1, we'll be back (dare I say) mid-August. I should not be writing this, because I don't want to jinx anything - hope there are no new roadblocks or slow-downs.

Tomorrow we are off to Papallacta - hot springs about 2 hrs away. We'll stay overnight - we learned our lesson driving at night when we went to Otavalo - no need to repeat that experience. The kids will have fun swimming and hopefully this time tomorrow I'll be immobilized in an Andean mud-wrap or soaking in a hot pool of therapeutic water (with a rum and coke, just maybe?).

Then Tuesday we fly to Manta on the coast. We have rented a house for a week or two (until we are called back to Quito for the next process). The home has a pool and is right on the beach and is about 3x the size of our current apartment. Oh, heaven! The kids are really looking forward to that.

Thank you so much for all your support and prayers! We were in such a funk earlier today and this good news has turned it all around for us! Woo!