$4,000!! AMAZING!!!!

So, the past 2 weeks have been crazy busy trying to get ready for the silent auction/cocktail party we had here in our backyard on Saturday.  Now that the house has (almost) returned to normal and I'm basically recovered - I can post our amazing, fabulous, astounding news:
We raised just over $4,000!!! 

Crazy! Wonderful! Awesome! (can my BA in English come up with any more adjectives???)

I thanked them on Saturday night, but I"m going to do it again here for all the blogging world to see.
Mom - she's Just Grand! and that's pretty much it.
Chanda (and her hubby Joe) - the food was Amazing, Incredible, Delicious, Yum-O, etc etc etc.  You're better than any caterer (and I'm not just saying that because a caterer would have sent me a bill :-) Your unending support was what made this event happen.
Jamie - the best neighbor a girl could have!  ( I think I've said that before, but I'm going to say it again) she just keeps showin' up! and we are so grateful for her, and her "never stop" energy.
Matt & Rita in Ohio "steel"ed our hearts away! (Corny, I know, but I had to do it).  Rita is the prez of her family's Steel fabrication company and last wednesday a pallet showed up at our door with 5 AMAZING, hand crafted, steel pieces for the auction.  We knew something was arriving, but they purposefully didn't tell us what.  I about cried when I unwrapped the pallet.  (photos are coming as soon as I find the cord for my camera :-(  Those 5 pieces alone brought us $720!!  Williams family - YOU ROCK!!!  and the best part is that the fire pit only went across the street (to Jamie's) so I can visit it any time I want.

Thanks again to all of you who came, ate, drank, and supported us on Saturday - it was a great evening!!

Look at that tree grow!!!

Two very happy future adoptive parents!

Garage Sale Update...and 1st Adoption agency orientation

This post is WAY overdue.  After the garage sale, I honestly wanted nothing to do with any of it, and then we just got back from several days of camping.  So my sincere apologies!!
But the good news is that we raised
                           $2,632
We are so excited!!!  It was a huge success! And we had LOTS of help!  It wouldn't have been near as successful without family and friends that kept us going: Thanks to the entire Landmann family for setting up, being cashiers, and packing up both days, plus just keeping us company (and sane!).  Craig's buddy Mike came over and declared himself head of security (by sitting in one of the easy chairs all day "watching for shoplifters" :-) Chanda & Joe Perman fed us AMAZING food both days - how wonderful to be taken care of!  Jaime, our "guardian angel" neighbor came out of nowhere and made brownies to sell, brought over half her garage for the sale, bought about as much to take back, and earned the saleswoman of the year award!! She was amazing and the burst of energy we needed!  And then there's my mom.. She's just the best (nothing new).  It started Thursday when the three of us pulled EVERYTHING out of the garage, sorted it all and then put it back in the garage.  This seemed crazy, but with all the donations from everyone we didn't know what most of it was.  Friday we spent the day pricing everything, and fielded all passers-by thinking the sale had already started and wanted to buy stuff.  Saturday morning we were up at 4am, even had help getting stuff out, and still weren't ready by 8am. 

There's a few pictures from the weekend below.  More on my FB page.
*******
The Tuesday before the sale, we were scheduled to go to an orientation for Adoption Connection.  The agency is based in San Francisco and Craig's cousins Jeny & Nick have successfully adopted through them recently and had a great experience.  I got a call from my cousin that morning and ended up babysitting due to a small medical emergency.  (Everyone and everything is fine now).  So rather than bagging it, Craig went by himself to the orientation and took great notes.   He had a good experience with the agency rep, and she was able to answer most of his questions.  We don't have anything to compare it to yet, and would like to visit a few more agencies before making any judgments/decisions, etc.   We did make one realization, though:  The fact that we both have social services backgrounds will be helpful.  Craig was able to pick up on some things in the orientation that most "civilians" wouldn't have - like her case load size and how the agency handles certain situations.  I'm hoping this continues to be an asset for us.  My fear is that we might become too skeptical of all agencies and never find one that's a fit for us.   The most sobering bit of info he brought home was the "Fee Schedule" (which, thanks to Jeny, we already had).  Without going through all the details: Our $25,000 estimate is right in the middle of what we need.  There are many variables that make the costs go up or down, so in a perfect (and much cheaper!!) world: Our birthmom match needs to live in NorCal (to save out of state fees and travel costs), birthdad needs to be involved and already given up parental rights (believe it or not that a whole extra chunk of money if he's unknown or hasn't yet been involved), and she needs to find us right before going into the hospital.    However.  That's just an overwhelmed and poor Prospective Adoptive Parent (PAP for short - thats our new titles) talking.   If (no, when!) we are matched - none of those parameters will mean anything.   Craig & I know we will do what it takes to bring Baby H home. 
Ok - enough with the serious stuff - here's some pics:

The Tired and Very Happy Crew!!!  (Yes - I made the shirts)

Future Adoptive Mommy & Daddy!!! 

"Big Sister" had to get in on the action!

End of day one! (Sorry mom, I had to! Its a great pic of you!!)

The BEST part!! 

Complaining...like when your clothes are baggy because you lost weight.

Laundry. 
Now - I'm not complaining about the amount of laundry I am doing today; if I did I would have 2 sisters-in-law and all my mommy friends annoyed at me.  My complaint is my laundry area.  Our washer/dryer is in the garage, and we don't keep our cars in the garage so I usually have plenty of room to sort clothes and juggle my laundry baskets back and forth between washer, dryer and back into the house. 
Not at the moment...

 
I have *just* enough room to open the doors, let alone move around.  It's been driving me nuts since I started the laundry before 7am this morning (I'm a little behind :-{.   But here's why:

We are practically bursting at the seams with donations for the garage sale!!!! I'm so exited, and frankly, overwhelmed with how generous friends and family (and people we don't even know!) have been. 
So, while I complain about having no room to do laundry - I'm thrilled that I have no room to do laundry!!!

Starting to fill up!

The leaves on our tree are starting to fill up...

...and so is the garage!! (We've still got a path from the cars to the door, though.)

And the best thing is that stuff is still coming in.  We're going next week to get a big load from Marin, and I've got a couple trips to Stockton planned.  We've really been touched by how willing people are to donate to our "cause".   My goal is to completly fill up the garage by Friday, 6/10!!
Craig is now officially on summer break - so give us a call and he and his truck will happily come take stuff off your hands!! 
(And hope that people will bring lots of $$ to take all this fabulous stuff away)

A small step

We have decided that we really can't "choose" an agency until there's more money in the bank.  Just opening the figurative door to an agency cost several thousand dollars.  So our focus has switched to the garage sale in June.  After that, I hope we can feel a little more comfortable talking with folks. 
I did sign us up for a informational orientation in June (ironically, it's the Tuesday before the garage sale) with Adoption Connections.  They are based in San Francisco, and do these orientations frequently at their office in SF; however the one in June is in Sacramento (Yay! no driving!).   Craig's cousins Jeny & Nick successfully adopted through them and had a great experience, so we are excited to learn more about them.  It's also helpful that someone in the family has recently gone through the adoption process - makes it just a little less intimidating!

A shout out to our Easter Bunny (well, bunnies, plural) who brought us a BE-U-TI-FUL dining room table and chairs a couple weeks ago!! We've been wanting a new dining room set since, well, we got the old one.  (It was a hand-me-down, and while it served it's purpose quite well - it wasn't the most stable and had seen better days).  The "new" one is also a hand-me-down, but you wouldn't know it, and the best thing is that it all matches!!!  What's also exciting is that now we get to sell our table at the garage sale. 

   Thanks, EB Perman!

Following Our Blog

Ok - so for the past hour, I've been trying to figure out how those of you who do not already have a gmail or yahoo email address can follow our blog without having to set up a whole new email account WITH gmail or yahoo.  (Why did I think this whole blogging thing would be easy???!?!?)
Apparently, you only need to set up a Google account.  A Google account doesn't mean a new email address, it's just their way of having access to you.  I didn't realize this when I started, and thought (ignorantly) that all one had to do was go to our blog, click on the "follow" button and be on their merry way.  So I do apologize for the inconvenience, but we do hope you take that extra step to set up a Google account and "follow" us - we'd love the support!

And if there are any fellow, more seasoned, bloggers out there who know of a different way, or know of something I can do to make it easier -- PLEASE let me know!

Still learning!

Our Thermometer

So, this is our newest wall decoration in our dining room.  I made a thermometer to help keep us encouraged in saving money.   As we receive donations (garage sale stuff included!), each donor will have a leave with their name on it.  The leaves are as a form of gratitude from us, and I want our kid to know how many wonderful people helped to bring them home!! 



Yes, the top of the thermometer says $25,000.  OUY!  We won't know for sure until we decide on an agency exactly how much money we're going to need, but $25,000 seems to be the average from all the research we've done so far.  Once we have picked an agency, we'll know for sure.

 Got to start somewhere, right???  "1 down, 24 to go"  sounds so much better than "1 THOUSAND down, 24 thousand to go"  :-)