Results of our FINAL adoption fundraiser yard sale

This past Friday we held our final yard sale in Galesburg. Once again, our family and friends came through to help us out. Our friend Marlene Johnson allowed us to use her garage for our sale. My mom packed up and helped haul items to Marlene's. My friend Angi loaned her folding tables. My sister Jessica got up at 6am on her day off from work to help me run the yard sale. It was a very HOT day, but we earned $350 for the day's efforts. It is a comfort to see our total inch towards our next goal. Tomorrow I will travel to Springfield to apostille all of the necessary documents. On August 1 I will send our first dossier to our agency with our check for $6000. They will review our documents to make sure everything is in order, translate them, and forward our dossier to Russia! It is exciting to be able to cross items off of our list! While we await for our official referral of the boys, we will continue to work hard to save for our first trip to Russia. We will need to cover our expenses for travel (flights alone will be about 3200) and then pay the agency fees for that portion of the process ($6000). We have applied for two grants so far and have heard back from one that we did not meet the criteria for their program. I am completing a third grant application and hope to send that one out soon. Chad and I are considering our options for adoption loans as I don't think we will have much time in the next few months to complete new fundraisers. We will continue to collect aluminum cans. We are waiting for the price of aluminum to go up; right now it is at 35 cents per pound. We would like for it to get closer to 50 cents per pound again and then we will haul our bags and bags of crushed cans to the recycling center. Currently the girls are enjoying some time with their dad. I am trying to keep my days busy since I am "flying solo". I have been continuing with my private speech therapy practice and exercising. We started painting our fence as well. Chad bought me a spray paint gun but it is no longer working so I am doing it "Tom Sawyer style" with the paint brush. We will go on a short weekend vacation to Des Moines before school starts. I return to campus on August 17th, and the girls go back the following week. Callie will attend preschool at United this school year. She is so EXCITED to ride the bus with Sam. Chad has been working six days a week; he has worked more this summer than last and we are thrilled about it. He thinks his crew will be working well into December. Summers really do fly by, don't they? Thanks again to everyone who continues to keep us in your thoughts.