It's a Wrap!

I admit, it has been over a month since I last blogged about our process.  Some of you may be wondering what is happening in our journey to bring home our little guy.  Well, A LOT.  We are in the stage of massive paperwork, interviews and training hours.  So, it may not seem like we are making progress, but it is happening.  Our home study is in it's final stages of APPROVAL which now makes us eligible to apply for adoption grants!  We will also have a phone meeting with the "Bethany China Team", which will help us better know what specific medical/special needs we can properly care for and parent successfully.  We are pretty excited about the next step and continue to be very hopeful of what is to come. 

We had a special visit from KOTA news station.  KOTA is doing a special at the end of November on adoption.  They interviewed families and agencies about the process.  Our hope is that it will help educate and encourage others in our region to also choose this adventure!!  

As you can see in the picture, Reese stayed to her "true" self.  Never a dull moment in our house.  It will be interesting to see what they edit out.  ;)  uh, probably a lot.

  Shoe Drive Ends!

 

Our fundraising efforts are always in full swing.  After many months of gathering (and begging for) athletic shoes for our Angel Bins shoe drive, it finally came to a CLOSE today, October 23!!  Adam and I stayed up late making sure the shoes were properly boxed and taped.  We then got up at 6:30am to place mailing labels on all of the boxes so they could make their journey to Angel Bins headquarters in Los Angeles, CA! 

Total count of shoes was 600!

We should hear from Angel Bins next week on the total amount raised.  It all depends on the weight of the shoes.  Ah, the suspense!  But even better, think of all the people that will get a pair of shoes that they are much in need of!  ALL OF YOU did this!  We thank you for helping us bless others and for the financial blessing it brings our family in getting closer to our total adoption financial goal!  God is good - all the time!

 

Our cheerful helpers!

  

14 XL Boxes full and 1 Medium Box full -- total 15 boxes!

600 pairs of shoes going to meet their new feet in South & Central America!

The UPS driver didn't know what to think pulling up to a residential pick-up and seeing all the boxes.  He asked what on earth we were sending!  Ha!  He couldn't believe we had that many shoes in our garage!  I am going to give a shout out to my awesome neighbor, Gene for helping load the boxes!  (I am pretty sure the UPS guy thanks you too!) Also, to our dear friend, Margaret who would weekly go to our drop off spots and bring me all the shoes!  That helped me immensely since I have the kiddos in the day. 

We can't tell you what a relief and feeling of accomplishment came over us as we watched that big brown truck drive off with all of the shoes we have been collecting over the past 6 months. 

Check out the video ;)  

So now that the rummage sale and shoe drive is done, what will Adam do with a clean garage?   I am sure he is open to ideas.  Because who actually parks in their garage these days?

The next few months bring more scrambling of getting paperwork done and getting closer to actually getting our referral/match with our son.  Every day closer brings much anticipation to seeing his face.  Thank YOU all again for jumping in with us on this journey and for the encouragement and prayers!  

Blessings to you!