Presenting Ezekiel Eyasu Rice

On Monday, July 26th, our family got up and headed out at a few minutes after 7:00am in order to be in Champaign by 8:00. We were to meet at 8:20 with the lawyer who was assigned to represent Ezekiel in court at 8:45. This, my friends, is the end of the road, the road of securing Ezekiel legally into our family. With these proceedings, our little boy, who had been given the name Eyasu Benjamin Rice in the Ethiopian courts, became Ezekiel Eyasu Rice. It also allows us to get a birth certificate for him which is issued by the US government. Our lawyer, Ellyn Bullock, was excellent and is an adoptive mother herself. The first thing she did after greeting us was to present Zeke with a gift, which was an adorable book, 'Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes.' Then almost immediately she whipped out her photos to show us her three kids. Sweet. Ben and I had to testify about some basic information, who we are, the date we took custody of Ezekiel, his birthday, did we have health insurance for him, etc. Ben was slightly disappointed that we didn't get to walk up to the front desk next to the judge to testify. Ms. Bullock, for our convenience, asked if we could testify from where we sat, since Ben had Zeke on his lap. Oh well. :) Also disappointing was his inability to ever have opportunity to use the line he'd been practicing since the night before: You can't handle the truth!!! :D It was a special time.

Today (7.30.10), Ezekiel had his first dentist appointment with our favorite of all pediatric dentists, Dr. Tom Hall. They took a photo, but I wish I had taken one of Tom and Ezekiel together. Tom, who is a good friend from the church we went to for our first 4 years here in Bloomington, is 6'6" or more and makes little kids just look all the more tiny. He's very much the gentle giant. Zeke was totally fine throughout, and wanted to keep his jaws wide open even when no one was needing him to do so. (We had practiced quite a bit.)

Our summer has held many fun, festive experiences that will make for good memories. We've done our best to not forget that so many of the things we've done have been more firsts for Ezekiel. The pool, a roadtrip vacation up into Michigan, Whitton's baseball games, 4th of July fireworks, all new. Well, more later, much love. Good night. (We have a LOT of phots of all these things on facebook, if you're interested...if I know you well enough to befriend you. Heehee.)