Final adoption court date set & visited twins from Thai Nguyen

Our big news is that our adoption finalization court appearance has been set for July 5th. After this we will be able to change her name to Ava Linh on all documents and will be listed as her parents on her US birth certificate. I had not really thought about the significance of this ceremony because it just seemed like another step in the process. I was very excited about the similar type event in Vietnam but anticipating this moment had not effected me the same way until now. When we received the letter confirming the date it said "Cameras and camcorders are allowed in court for this occasion if you wish...." At that moment it struck me as a very important event in of our lives. We will finally be done with the adoption paper chase and Ava will have the first name that we chose for her and the last name of her father - this is a very big day for us and we need to celebrate!

Last weekend we had a great time visiting a family that adopted twins from the same orphanage as Ava was in, in Vietnam. They were back in the US about a month before us. The twins are within days of the same age of Ava. The interesting thing about adoption twins or "virtual" twins as some people call them, is that they may not be birth twins but will grow up the rest of their lives with similar life experiences to birth twins. Due to the nature of the virtual twin process, Ava could easily have been identified as one of the twins - same orphanage born within days of each other. So, it is very special that we live within an hour of each other. The other really cool thing is that their parents met us online. We may never have known them if not for the online community. It was fun to watch the babies play and share our adoption and travel experiences in person. It was also wonderful to meet the twins' big sister, who was a big help when we tried to eat lunch - Ava warmed right up to her.