James William Horn

After a great deal of time and thought, it seemed as though James William Horn was a name more befitting of our boy than James William Durden Horn.  Grammy and Poppy had gifted our family an Alaskan Disney cruise for Christmas and I needed to procure passports for the kiddos because we would be traveling to Canada.  I felt an urgent need to legally change James' name so that his passport would reflect the correct one.  Little did I know how complex the process would be.  On New Year's Eve 2019, I started the day at the Alameda Courthouse in Hayward to file the paperwork.  I learned then that I needed to place an ad in a local newspaper with our intent to change James' name and have it run once a week for a few weeks.  After that was completed, we had a court hearing to finalize the process.  With all of the certified documents in hand, I could finally change over his social security card, birth certificate and apply for a passport.  Our court hearing was February 21st at the Superior Courthouse in Oakland. James woke up feeling crummy and it was clear he needed to stay "home" from school.  I was worried how that might go given my very important date at the courthouse, but it turned out to be a beautiful blessing, because he was present for the judge to officially declare him "James William Horn."  We celebrated with lunch and ice cream sundaes at Fenton's, it is a memory I treasure.

I illegally snapped a photo of my boy in the courtroom. He was by far the youngest person in there!

It's official!

We colored and cheers-ed to his new name!