Jen here. Steve and I just returned from our precourt hearing with the judge. As you can see from our pre-precourt photo, we are looking quite spiffy. The court house photo is taken post-precourt (but pre-court). The whole precourt hearing took about 15 minutes.  The judge was mostly interested in asking questions of Steve.  Steve had to begin by making a formal request - to adopt Aidos, to change his name to Benjamin Aidos Szydlik, to leave his date of birth unchanged, to change his place of birth to Uralsk, and to have us named as the parents.  (Steve had to make these requests from memory - he didn't screw up).  The judge then asked several questions about our jobs and care for Aidos.  We also listened to the director of the babyhouse speak about Aidos and to the minister of education help make our case as to why we should be allowed to adopt Aidos.

Tomorrow is the BIG day - the final court hearing.  We'll answer many of the same questions we did today, but in a more official capacity and with more people present.  We'll also present our petition for immediate execution (of the adoption, that is).  If that is granted, and we sure hope it will be, we'll still be on schedule to be home by Christmas.  Otherwise, it will mean two additional weeks in Uralsk.  Recent national orders in Kazakhstan seem to indicate that immediate executions are going to go the way of "Immediate Execution" (the kind where people are put to death).  However, we are optimistic about having our petition granted as this judge has never failed to do so.  We don't want to be the first couple he has said no to!

The judge has set our final court time for 2:30 on Friday - which will be exciting because our flight leaves for Almaty at 6:40 that same day. So here is how tomorrow is shaping up for us: visit Benjamin Aidos in the morning and have a farewell ceremony at the babyhouse, have lunch, get dressed for court, adopt Adios, file paperwork,  head to the airport, fly to Almaty.  Oops, we forgot, we have to pick up Benjamin Aidos at the babyhouse on the way to the airport.  Just a typical day!

With all the excitement, we likely won't get to post an update to the website tomorrow.   Steve will also need to figure out the whole Internet thing again once we get to Almaty.  If all goes well in court, you won't hear anything from us until Saturday (and later if we have Internet problems).  If court doesn't go so well, then we'll have plenty of time on Saturday to update the site from Uralsk.  Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers!