Adoption

To finalize Baby's adoption we returned to the state of his birth.  

And we borrowed warm clothes from friends.  Because...it has been about 65 degrees all winter long here.  And we were going to the land of frigid.  The forecast called for temps to be 9 degrees on the first day, 12 degrees the second day, and 18 degrees the third day.  So I geared myself up for that shock.  And I prepared Baby as well as I could.  

On one of the days, we drove to see some of his birth family.  He was in a pretty good mood while we were there and had a nice visit.  He even sat in a restaurant high chair for the first time.

Husband loves the architecture of the library from Baby's birthplace.  It is beautiful.

We stuck Baby's bottles in his carseat and threw a whole bunch of blankets on him to get him from the car to the hotel.  When we took off the blanket we found this.  Baby was packing double heat. 

Then we played.

When I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom, I heard a whole bunch of giggling.  When I came out, I saw these two...thick as thieves.

And then this.  Tickle time!

Adoption Day!

We got a great picture with the judge but forgot to get a picture with our lawyer and assistant who have been so fantastic throughout this whole thing.  Oops! 

After the courthouse, we went to celebrate at a restaurant. 

Baby immediately dug into his wipes container.

Hey!  Are you judging me lady?

Whatever, I don't care.  These are too good. 

Now let's get to the weather.  Remember when I mentioned the forecast?  Well, it was wrong.  So very, very wrong.  I had geared myself up for a daytime low of 9 degrees.  In reality, it was negative temperatures almost the whole time we were there.  

Negative three was the lowest we recorded in the car but we spent most of the time at negative one.  And yes, we are the two idiots from California who had the heater turned up to 81.  

If I had a bucket list, I would say that feeling negative temperatures at one point in my life would be on it.  Just to have an idea of what negative degrees feels like.  Well.  Now I know.  Negative temperatures are so cold that it hurts to walk outside for more than a minute.  

If I were to cop to another bucket list item, it would be to walk across a frozen water source.  Husband finds this ridiculously bizarre but we did pass many frozen waterways and he offered to stop for me.  I was tempted.  In fact, I almost attempted it.  However, as we were out in the middle of nowhere for much of the time, I felt it wouldn't be that smart to tempt fate in negative outside temps with the closest hospital who knew where.  So that one will have to wait for now.   

The trip went well, as in we didn't freeze to death on our adventure, and we were so blessed to have so many great people on the home end taking care of the three oldest boys.