Learning to Liv...: Readopt Final

Friday, February 19, 2010

Readopt Final

We had a special day today because Liv Tunsitu Aster Elkins adoption is final. This means she gains her US citizenship. I was lucky enough that my good friends Kris and Terry could join us (Kris went to Ethiopia with me) as well as my nanny Tomoko. LT is very attached to this group and I'm so happy they could share this day. After the 15 min. hearing we went to a cool lunch spot downtown and got to snap a couple pics in front of the street art.

While the hearing today is really just a formality it was terrific to have a day honoring our union. What wasn't so great was as the judge was uttering the official words, LT was repeatedly smacking me in the face pretty hard. I have a no tolerate hit policy = timeout without warning but in this instance all I could do was chuckle and think...I may not have a 24 hour labor story to hold over your head but NOW I have a smack story. LOL.

5 comments:

msl said...: Congratulations to our new little American!!!!; February 19, 2010 at 5:44 PM
Heather said...: Congratulations! Such wonderful photos!! P.S. that was our judge too... wasn't he sweet!; February 19, 2010 at 6:52 PM
Jebena said...: Ahhhhh...we were there in spirit! Congratulations to the two of you (and I love, love, love the last picture of the two of you)!; February 19, 2010 at 9:02 PM
InventingLiz said...: Congratulations to you both!; February 20, 2010 at 1:47 PM
Stacy said...: Hi! You don't know who I am but I've been following your blog for a while now. We adopted our daughter from Ethiopia as well. I just wanted to tell you that the readoption doesn't make her a US citizen (we thought that too, I don't think they do a good job of really explaining the citizenship process). Anyway in yet another red tape chase, you have to file with USCIS to get her a certificate of citizenship. They'll tell you what time you have to appear for your interview and if you pass, then she's a US citizen(This interview took us about four hours). They'll take her permanent resident card and give you the certificate of citizenship in return. Until you do this, she'll only be a permanent resident here in the States and won't be eligible for certain jobs or a US passport. Feel free to write me if you have any questions. stacybarton@hotmail.com
Good luck!
Stacy; February 25, 2010 at 8:14 AM

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Flag Meaning:

The colored stripes on the Ethiopian flag are significant - the red stripe stands for power, faith and blood; the yellow symbolizes peace, natural wealth and love; and the green represents the land and hope. The colors were also interpreted to have a connection to the Holy Trinity, and the three main provinces of Ethiopia. The star represents unity of the people and the races that make up Ethiopia. The five rays on the outside of the star represent prosperity and the blue disk represents peace.
The three equal horizontal bands of green (top), yellow, and red with a yellow pentagram and single yellow rays emanating from the angles between the points on a light blue disk centered on the three bands; Ethiopia is the oldest independent country in Africa, and the three main colors of her flag were so often adopted by other African countries upon independence that they became known as the pan-African colors.