Waiting...

I really wish that I had news to update everyone on, but unfortunately I don't. Things are slowly chugging along. We are just waiting. On the positive though Randy has been working like a mad man, the fire dept. is short on numbers until the new hires get through their training classes so he has been able to work a lot of overtime these past three months. The only bad thing about that is Camden and I are use to him being gone for 24 hours at a time, but 48 gets looooong! I don't know how military families do it when one member is gone for months for even years!! Plus it helps us with financing our adoption. We have three goals financially for this adoption. The first goal has been met. The second goal we are about $5000.00 from meeting, and the third, ??. We will deal with that when we get there. These goals also include our travels. The third goal will be substantial because we will have the cost of being in Russia for almost a whole month in that goal. We are also waiting to hear back from our Grant Application. We should hear back by the end of September. Wouldn't it be awesome if they finished out our 2nd goal!! We will wait and see.

Many people have asked how much this adoption will cost, with travel and hotels, food, everything we are preparing ourselves for $40,000. That is almost as much as I made as a counselor before I resigned to do my current job. Mommy. It is an insane number but we know that God will provide!

Blessings to all,
Randy, Denise, and Camden

Patience

“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience.”-Unknown

It definitely hard and slow, but I am learning. I ran across a blog the other day that taught me that I was being so selfish being sad that we still have such a long wait. They have waited over almost a year for a court date, that is right, a year. Their child has aged a year since they last saw them, that had to be outright torture. The good news is, they get to go get their child in a few weeks. I am truly happy for them! Again, patience is not my virtue, but I just learned a huge lesson.

Denise

Movement

There is starting to be some movement for our agency. In the past two weeks, there has been 4 court dates set and two first trip dates given. That is giving me some hope. On the down side it looks like one of our regions is closing, not sure what will happen to those families who have traveled and met their children.

Again on the positive, our agency is trying to open up new regions so that they can get us moving along. Praying it goes good. It also looks like the end of August to beginning of September is when dates are going to be coming out for waiting families. We are back in the list so we are not expecting anything yet.

And the Winner is.......

We want to thank everyone who participated in our Raffle. Through our Chip-In Widget and donations made directly to us we raised $530 for our adoption. We greatly appreciate all of you for donations and your support!

Randy, Denise, and Camden

Quilt Raffle

$5 for 1 entry, $10 for 3 entries, $15 for 4 entries, $20 for 6 entries and so on! If you could spread the word through your blogs or social media that would be amazing! Full directions here!

1 Week Left

To Chip In to try and win the awesome homemade quilt that my aunt made!!! We will draw the name of the winner next Thursday at 6 p.m. Remember that 1 entry is $5, 3 Entries is $10, 4 for $15, and 6 for $20 and so on!!! We will ship so no worries if you live far away!!! See the Chip-In widget at the top of our blog!

Wow, that was fast!!!

We got our 171-H approval in the mail on Wednesday. Our agency needs a copy of it to send over to Russia so that they know we are approved for international adoption. So we made a copy of it and got it notorized and then on Thursday I sent it to Topeka to get Apostilled. We got it back today!! 2 day turn around. That is pretty good for a government agency if you ask me!! We sent it snail mail too, no FedEx this time. I applaud you State of Kansas!