Case closed and case opened

In case you don't remember, there was some unpleasantness related to the car rental in Germany en route to Ethiopia to bring home H and Baby T. Many of you sent your suggestions and shared your own car rental experiences (read: horror stories) with me and for that I will be forever grateful. When the entire matter was resolved, I promised, I would fill you in on the outcome. So, after some hard work and determination, the matter has been resolved, to our satisfaction and fortunately-- for the world at large --our story will not become one worthy of Yahoo! news. In the end, we paid for our car rental and the rest we chafed out and blew away with a breath of thankfulness (particularly to the woman at Avis' customer care center, who was our tireless advocate as well as Ameri-German liason).

In the second case, we have our re-adoption process in the works. Thanks to friends of ours, who used this same attorney, our case will be handled swiftly and with the experience that a big-city lawyer can provide. Otherwise, there were concerns that our small town county seat judges just might not have seen as many adoptions, let alone international ones and from Africa at that. So, after the case is filed, we'll make a day trip into the city for our court date and be one step closer to seeing the end of the paperwork jungle that is international adoption.