Adoption Day

I know many of you have been SO PATIENT to wait for this post, and here it is!

WOW! What an incredible day! From start to finish. Both good AND bad! However, I firmly believe your prayers for "no glitches" is what saved the lives of not only our family, me, Benjamin, Laine, Ezra & Chavalah, but also my dear sister, sister-in-law, and her kids! We had just gotten on the Casa Grande Highway and down right past the Ethinol plant when a woman driving her car headed TOWARDS Maricopa (opposite direction as us) lost control of her car and came into our lane HEAD ON and had it not been for Benjamin's instinct to take the chance and get over into the oncoming traffic lane, and AUBREY'S instinct of "following" what Benjamin did, we would both been completely destroyed! Closest I've ever been to that bad of an accident EVER! God was WATCHING OUT OVER US that day, WOW! After we had "avoided" the accident, we turned right around, went back to make sure the lady in the car was alright and called 911 to get help. Turns out, the lady actually ended up in the ditch and made it out OK! Unbelievable! Truly! Ben guessed she was going about 75-80 MPH as she passed us and then went onto the gravel, throwing rocks at a very high speed at our car and windshield. We will have to replace our windshield for sure as there are about 12 chips in the windshield, and one has already started to spread, but that's NOTHING in comparison to all of our lives. We are praising HIM for his protection over us that morning!

So, that didn't necessarily start my emotions out very well that day! I pretty much wept the rest of the way there! Basically in shock and my mind couldn't quit replaying the entire thing back over and over through my head and I was just so GRATEFUL that God didn't take all of us!

Got to the courthouse still on time. Spoke with our attorney and signed the needed documents and waited our turn. There were one or two other cases before us, so we waited just a tiny bit. We had a few special people come to the courthouse, my dear sister from Iowa, my grandparents from Iowa, mom and dad, Aubrey, Jack & Oscar, Jim & Deanna, Tricia and her two cuties Bella and John, wow are we loved and SO BLESSED! Hearing went great! Had some laughs, cries and lots of other little things! Took pictures with the judge after wards. Then we waited downstairs while our Adoption Decree was being officially "filed" and to get a copy for the name change and legal custody processes. VERY IMPORTANT DOCUMENT. There was another sweet boy getting adopted that day, his name was Michael, and of course, Laine made a new friend INSTANTLY! He was I think 11, and just this past April he met his new adoptive family! So he's only known them for about 6 months. It was just so sweet.

All the family went to a celebration lunch at Eva's Mexican in Casa Grande on the way home! Mmmm, mmm! It was yummy!

Yesterday was also extra special because it was my dad's birthday, and my grandma's birthday (the one that was at the hearing), so that made the day extra special!

Enjoy the video! :)