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.

Home study

Today Chad and I had a phone conference with a social worker regarding our home study. LOTS of paperwork is to be completed in the next few weeks. I have to write a list of all the things we need to complete so I don't lose my mind trying to think of everything that needs accomplished. On Sunday we will have our Gipson Family adoption Bowlathon in Galesburg at Northgate Lanes from 2 to 4. This event was to initially be held in February, but the bowling alley unfortunately had a fire. We will earn a portion of every game bowled as well as the shoe rental fees. Chad's mom Jackie is making burrito pie and we will also hold a bake sale so please bring your appetite! Next week I will be on spring break from WIU but think I will stay busy gathering the necessary documents for the home study and CLEANING the house for our home study. Last weekend Chad and I went hunting for scrap metal (thanks to my dad) and loaded up quite a bit of aluminum siding to take in to the recycling center along with our many bags of smashed cans. We hope to see many of you on Sunday!

TACO DINNER RESULTS

I am snowed in again this morning! We have had an intense winter thus far. My birthday was this past weekend, and my dad wrote in my birthday card how the weather was similar this past weekend to the day I was born. I was encouraged to cancel our taco dinner (which was yesterday) due to the weather, but I decided since we already pretty much had the meat ready (a big thank you to Jackie Gipson) to go ahead and hold it. I am glad we did, as we earned a little over $800 dollars. Jan Winbigler won the 50/50 raffle. I would like to thank the following people who helped us in our dinner including my Mom (decorations), Jaimey (cleaning and helping with kids), Jess (decorating and serving food), Dad (50/50), Grandma Argyle (brownies), Grandma Jackie Gipson (made rice AND cooked 20 pounds of taco meat!), Grandpa Mike Gipson (ran back to Little York in a blizzard to get the hard taco shells), Aunt Stef Gipson (donated food items and helped serve food/clean up after), Aunt "Loony"Amanda Maleug (helped with food), Uncle Chad Maleug (entertained our brood), and Samantha for selling raffle tickets. As you can see, this was truly a group effort. We also appreciate all of you for donating cans and money to our efforts. Alan Otten from Cameron put our fundraiser on his sign in his yard. The final THANK YOU goes to Chad. He helped me stay on track and not get too worried about pulling it off; he sensed when I needed a breather and would give me a big hug and held on tight. We learned the downfalls of having fundraisers in the unpredictable winter months of Illinois. As for an update, we are awaiting to hear the dates to schedule our home study. After we complete the home study, we will be able to apply for grants. According to my fundraiser budget, we can just about cover the costs of the adoption itself with our savings/fundraisers, but the cost of travel is the area I am hoping the grants may cover. Many more people apply for grants than are available, so this is by no means a definite for us. Please send positive thoughts and prayers our way so that we may be awarded a few of these grants. I understand many of you wonder when exactly we will travel to Russia to bring the boys home. I wish I could give you a specific date, or even a specific month; we are simply unable to do so for many reasons. The biggest reason is we do not know how long the different steps of the process will take as there are so many different people and government institutions involved. You can believe we complete the paperwork as quickly as possible. At this point we are ahead of the game, and waiting for everyone else to catch up. We do know we will receive a telephone call from our adoption consultant and told to pack our bags and be ready to leave in the next two weeks for our first trip. I believe this could happen in the next three to six months. Please stay tuned as we will be rescheduling our bowling fundraiser to be in March as the bowling alley is opening next week!

TACO DINNER

I am writing this morning quickly before we head out to a full weekend of activities. I am SO HAPPY to be able to share with everyone the news of sending our application fee and necessary paperwork via FedEx yesterday. I don't think I have ever written a check that large before! It was gratifying to know how hard we worked to save the amount in such a short period of time. I had a coversation with the employee at the Fed Ex store yesterday. He sensed the anxiety I was experiencing in entrusting such an important package to him. He then said "hey, you are the woman who is adopting from Russia!" That helped me relax and realize the package will reach its destination. Today Chad and I will be returning to Behr Recycling in Peoria to take more cans. Then we are headed to Sam's Club to purchase supplies for the Taco Dinner next weekend. Unfortunately, County Market in Monmouth was unwilling to donate food to us for our fundraiser. The manager stated we did not meet the store's criteria of qualifying for food donations. He told me that although the store realizes many family's are experiencing hardships they are unable to donate to families. I then stated that this was not because we couldn't afford groceries, this was to help pay to bring two little boys home from an orphanage and give them a forever family. So, we are asking our friends and family to PLEASE attend our Taco Dinner to help support our efforts. It is on Sunday, February 21st from 4 to 7. We will be serving hard/soft shell tacos, spanish rice, drinks, and dessert. If you are unable to attend, we are having a raffle as well. We would love to hear from you if you would like to donate. My email is CheriGipson@live.com. Happy Valentine's Day!

February 2010

This month is a BIG month for us! We are holding our Gipson Family Adoption Fundraiser Kickoff on February 21st. Join us for a taco dinner at the Cameron fire station from 4 to 7! I am preparing to send our initial payment with application soon, which will allow our agency to notify the orphanage we are officially seeking to adopt the boys. This is a very important step, as it will keep the boys together in the baby house until we can complete the adoption and travel to Russia to get them. Besides the fundraiser this month, both the boys are celebrating their birthdays. I wish we were able to celebrate with them, but it is refreshing to think that this year will hopefully be the last they celebrate in the orphanage. Chad and I will celebrate our one year wedding anniversary this month as well as my birthday. I am asking my family to forego buying gifts for my birthday but rather contribute to our adoption fund. Samantha has begun her basketball season. She plays every Saturday morning at the school. Callie continues to attend preschool in Monmouth. She can't wait to ride the big school bus next year with Sam. We continue to collect cans and take them to the recycling center. We hope to take in some scrap metal this month that Dad had lying around. We hope to see you at the Taco Dinner!