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.
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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:
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| The Tired and Very Happy Crew!!! (Yes - I made the shirts) |
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| Future Adoptive Mommy & Daddy!!! |
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| "Big Sister" had to get in on the action! |
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| End of day one! (Sorry mom, I had to! Its a great pic of you!!) |
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| The BEST part!! |
