May Yard Sale

We are working hard to get ready for our yard sale next weekend (May 7 and 8). Tomorrow Amanda and Chad (Chad's sister and brother-in-law) and Stefanie (Chad's other sister) are coming over to help us price things and clean out the garage. Many people have donated things for our sale and we are hoping to continue to receive more donations in the next week. We had our last official homestudy visit with our social worker this week and by next Monday we will have everything DONE. The next step is to review our homestudy report with our social worker and then forward all of our documents to our case worker at the adoption agency for review. We must get all of the documents notarized and once our agency approves our documents, I will drive to Springfield for them to be apostilled. Apostillization is a process in which the state government certifies that the notarization is valid. So many steps to the process! We hope to submit our dossier (a fancy name for all the paperwork) to Russia ASAP... of course with a large price tag attached! If you are wondering how you can help, here are some ideas. Either donate or BETTER YET shop at our yard sale! Collect aluminum cans and we will come get them from you! Praying for us is great as well (and may well be what we really could use)! The US delegation met with Russia yesterday and determined it was necessary to convene an "expert panel" to determine ways to protect Russian children following adoption. Adoptions are continuing in Russia as you read this, and we are optimistic we will be able to eventually meet our boys and bring them home. My sister Jessica is now engaged to be married to Matt Cargill. They will have a June 2011 wedding in which I will be the matron of honor while Sam and Callie will be junior bridesmaids/flower girls. My niece Christian will also be in the wedding. Jessica is hopeful the boys will be here by then so that they may be in the wedding as well; they will be the first boys of the Lydic family!

UPDATE

We continue to wait to hear from the Russian government if there will be any changes in the adoption process. Due to the volcanic ash in Europe's airspace, the US delegation was unable to fly to Russia for their meeting last weekend. They are scheduled to meet in Russia on April 29 and 30. Chad and I are feeling more upbeat as adoptions continue to move forward in Russia. It is particularly exciting that one family from our agency received their invitation to travel to Russia in early May. We continue to meet with our wonderful social worker to complete our homestudy process. On Friday Chad and I met with the psychologist to review our results. As we expected, she highly recommended us both as adoptive parents. We also took over 140 pounds of cans to the scrap metal place in Galesburg. We earned $74 dollars; thanks again to everyone for saving their cans! We will continue to do this. I have to admit I am getting a bit overwhelmed by the large amounts of money we are working to save. I cannot imagine traveling somewhere with thousands of dollars strapped to my body! We are holding our first GARAGE SALE on May 7 and 8. Please let us know if you have donations or better yet stop by as you may find something special you have been looking for! I am wrapping things up for the semester at WIU. Chad is expecting to get called back to work any day. Sam and Callie have field trips in the next few weeks and then they will be out of school for the summer.

Adoption Situation in Russia

Hello everyone. I know, it has been a LONG time since my last post. We have been quite busy with our everyday lives as well as completing tasks for our homestudy. We have been very lucky to choose a wonderful social worker whom is completing our homestudy this month. Chad and I have also had our psychological assessments completed at WIU. They were interesting to say the least. Our bowling fundraiser netted over $200. A big thank you to everyone whom attended and assisted in the day. For those of you who may be wondering what exactly is going on with our adoption plans due to the media reports regarding Russian adoption, here is the scoop. At this time (4/16/10 at 1:35) Russia HAS NOT closed to adoptions for Americans. I have cyberfriends whom are currently in Russia completing their adoptions today. However, nothing is certain at this time regarding the continuance of adoptions via Russia. Next week government officials will be meeting to discuss changing current agreements between Russia and the US to protect the children being adopted. Our social worker feels that Russia WILL suspend adoptions in the near future. I spoke with our caseworker at our adoption agency this afternoon to see what the agency's take was on the current state of affairs. She felt that adoptions will proceed without an interruption after the meeting takes place next week with some changes in the current agreement. I asked what will happen IF Russia does suspend or close their adoption program. If this does occur, we will be assisted by the agency in determining another country and moving forward with our adoption there. The worst part of the situation is not knowing, and then thinking about the boys we are hoping to adopt and what may become of them if we are unable to become their parents. We ask for everyone to be thinking of us during this time as we may have to make some very important decisions in coming weeks.