Success at Court!

We had our court hearing today. I am very happy to report that our application to adopt was accepted. We start our 15-day appeal period tomorrow. The last day must be a business day; therefore, our appeal period will end on Monday, April 7. We should be able to bring Erlan to our Kazakh apartment on April 8. We then have another week before we can head back to the States. Hopefully, the next 15 days go by as quickly as the last 15 days went by.

The hearing itself went very quickly. Ben read our prepared speech. I added two sentences. A representative from the orphanage told about Erlan's history. A representative from the Dept of Education read their conclusions about our bonding with Erlan and that they supported our application. We were asked no other questions. The whole thing was done in 20 minutes.

This is a picture of us in front of the court house.

This is a picture with our driver Ceric. He and Bayana are our favorite people in Kazakhstan.