The news is...

that we should have more "news" sometime next week, after Monday (which is an Ethiopian holiday) and after Tuesday (which apparently may also be an Ethiopian holiday...) I have to say this schedule is much more conducive to Ethiopian teachers than to adoptive parents, although I'll bet they don't have many snow days.
It seems as though the appropriate papers were accepted by the powers that be in the Ethiopian court system. It is unclear, however, if the amount of paperwork submitted is too much, not enough, or just right. At this point, I am just too tired to even venture a guess. We may or may not know something (although at this point-I can't even imagine what) next week.
On the plus side, it appears as though we may be able to afford the preferred flight option, which will detour the Boy and his dad from the Frankfurt airport and up the autobahn to our old digs in Giessen. They are planning to see where the Boy was born, check out where we lived, and grab a little schnell-imbiss before heading back to the airport and on to Addis later that night. Although it will involve approximately 36 hours (or something like that with the time zone changes, remember I'm tired) of travel the good news is (thanks for pointing this out CS) that they may as well sleep on the long, crowded, long, boring, and did I mention long plane flights instead of wasting valuable time on the ground sleeping or looking for a place to sleep.
More to come tomorrow, but for now, I'm going to see if I can curl up in an airplane seat myself and catch a few zzzs.