Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Pennies.....

So today I went to the bank with our garage sale money, money from some bags I have sold recently, and with our change jar. We have been collecting pennies for a few years now and guessed we had about $20 in our little bag. We also had some other change in another jar so I decided to take it all in and just count it with our garage sale total. I was amazed watching the coin counter total go up. There was almost $30 in just pennies! Aren't pennies wonderful?!?! That pretty much made my day! Total we had $96 in change alone.
I am so grateful to everyone who has donated money towards our adoption. We really can't do this without you. I grew up hearing the African saying "it takes a village to raise a child." I definitely know that is true; and I know in our case, it's also taking a village to bring our child home!
We are getting close to having our first payment in. Hopefully we can get it in before the end of the month and start the next set of paperwork called the Dossier. The Dossier is the set of legal documents and other paperwork required for an international adoption. There are a bunch of forms that go into a dossier and from what I understand it can be a very long process. Please continue to pray for us during this process. We know its going to take a lot of organization and patience to complete everything needed, but the end of that process means we are at the referral stage and will one day get to see a picture of our new little addition!!!
I know I will be saying this a lot, but Thank You, Thank You, Thank You to everyone for your prayers, donations, and kind words. We are so excited to continue on this journey with the help of our friends and family.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

1st Garage Sale = Success!

We had our first garage sale this past weekend. I was a little nervous since it was a holiday weekend but we decided to just go for it since we had a bunch of stuff all ready to go. We held it at my sisters house because she has a prime location for garage sales. She lives on a busy street and has a huge driveway to set things up in (as well as a garage for storage).

We decided at the last minute to start the sale on Thursday. It was about 10 am and we had only pulled about 2 tables out of the garage and people were already stopping. It was pretty funny. We had one lady who hung out with us over an hour just waiting to see what else we would bring out.  We did the sale through Saturday but it seemed like Thursday was our busiest day. I will definitely do a Thursday again.  Saturday was pretty slow but the wind and the heat kept things interesting. My parents are doing a remodel at their house and gave us some doors and windows to sell. As a man was standing there wanting to buy a huge 8 x 5 ft picture window a gust of wind blew it over and it shattered all over the grass. (I gave it to another guy for free later, hopefully he can find new glass for it). We had many things break over the course of the day, but since it was so hot there weren't many people in the afternoon and we started cleaning up kinda early. We were able to organize everything that was left and nicely stack it in my sisters garage. We are hoping to get some more donations (plus everything we have left) and have another garage sale at the end of September at my parents house (another prime garage sale spot).

Thank you to everyone who donated for this sale! We made over $700 and are so excited to be 1/4 of the way to our first goal. We are actively seeking more items for our next sale. Let us know if you want us to come by and help you clear out some stuff.  ~ April

Our first fundraiser... Hood to Coast

We just wanted to take a minute to thank all the wonderful people who donated to our first fundraiser. Aaron's mom has been thinking a lot about using her running as a way to raise funds for an organization. So with only a few weeks leading up to Hood to Coast she decided to put her first fundraiser in motion. She asked for people to donate money to her in support of our adoption fund. It was highly successful and we are so grateful to everyone who participated. Terree was able to raise over $500  $680 in just under 2 weeks (I'm pretty sure thats the final count but you never know, checks just keep coming in). 


For those who don't know Hood to Coast is the world's largest relay race. It starts at Mt. Hood and runs 200 miles to the Oregon coast. Each team has 12 members who switch off running between 4-7 miles 3 times each. It is a very exciting and tiring event that so many people love here in Oregon and all around the country. Hood to Coast is very competitive to enter because more than 3000 teams try to enter the race, but only 1500 are allowed to participate. It was disappointing last year because the team didn't make it in after over 10 years of participation. But that didn't stop them and they successfully made it this year and had a blast. Even with some injuries they came in very close to their projected time; completing the race in 28 hours. 


We are so blessed to have so many people in our lives that are willing to support us in our adoption adventure and we want to say Thank You!