More profound changes around here. Beth and I now have officially acquired a new daughter. Last Thursday we had a meeting with attorney Doug Lemon regarding transferring guardianship from the previous family to our own. He filled out the papers and set everything up for the court date the next day, with some cautions about what might happen…most notably her father could show up and challenge the petition. Our Friday morning court date came, and as we were waiting for our case to come up before the judge, the attorney came in through the back door and motioned for us. He told us that the dad was there, and he was going to fight it. But, he had counseled him that his options were in reality limited, and suggested we all meet. The dad was calm, and sober, and we talked for 15 minutes or so. We showed him pictures of the bedroom we’ve set up for her, and assured him that we only want to keep her safe and we don’t want to shut him out of her life. And, it turns out that I knew his father through Zimmer years ago. So after we talked, he dropped his objections and signed the papers. Then it was basically a done deal, and the judge signed the court order giving us guardianship. So she is going to live with us as our daughter, without limitations. There are probably going to be bumpy times ahead and a potentially long adjustment period but we now have 3 kids. And can you believe, the poor girl has never seen the original Star Wars movies. Or been to a Komets game. We’ve taken her to SOS already, while Beth and I shopped for a new mattress for her. After that Sam came over to play video games with Alex and we figured why not have him for dinner too, so Beth made the biggest pot of spaghetti I’ve ever seen, and after we’d all eaten, it didn’t look like there was any less in the pot.