"I was born with a bronze skin and I like it. Some of my friends were born white or black or yellow. They were not consulted. But that's all right. There are yellow roses, white roses, and red roses and the fragrance of one is about as nice as another." ~Chief Walking Buffalo

Sunday, May 24, 2009

G-Sale Success!

Ok, it's taken a week to finish uploading these photos and finally post about the sale. But better late than never!

We had an AWESOME turnout for the sale and I couldn't have asked for a better weekend! I was astounded by people's generosity and interest. We had 2 wonderful couples donate 2 truckloads of items to our sale. One couple are good friends, and another couple just happened by the sale on Thursday, thought our cause was a good one, and so they pulled up later that evening with another truckload of great items to replenish our sale! I should mention in those items were 2 large boxes of cloth diapers which are going to go to good use at the orphanage!

So, thanks to generous and thoughtful people, a lot of help from S's mom and dad, our niece (who, btw sweetly donated her babysitting money towards the orphanage fund), and some generous community support, we raised almost ONE THOUSAND dollars for charity in Ethiopia!! YAHOO!!

We are so grateful for the opportunity to bring funds over and support the country of our children's birth, and in tandem experience the caring and positivity of our family, friends and community.

I phoned our agency first thing (last) Monday morning and we were told that there are several ways we can use the funds. One way we will apply much of it is to buy formula for the babies as it is very expensive and always needed. In addition we plan to start collecting small toys and balls (deflated) to take to the orphanage as many of them are in a compound with no room for a playground and NO TOYS. We want to take as much over as we can to help make life for these children a little more joyful. So if anyone has leads to free/inexpensive toys, we will be packing as many hockey bags of items to bring over as we can. I may do another sale or fundraiser later this year as well.

In the meantime, I am overwhelmed by everyone's generosity and support and just want to sincerely say a great big THANK YOU! to everyone: family, friends and strangers who stopped by and showed their support.

AND it was GREAT to see some of the families currently in the process of adopting from Ethiopia in and around Edmonton!! I am excited to be sharing this journey with all of you and look forward to the days of play dates and picnics when we are all home with our children!!

BTW I have some extra t-shirts for sale for $12 each (pictured below in the g-sale pics on my handsome husband and cute little girl!) sizes as follows:

"Peace": child's 6/8, 10/12, Adult S,L
"Loved": child's 10/12, 14/16
email me if you are interested in purchasing one

Anyway, here is the photo summary of the weekend. Enjoy!
(Thank you, (you know who you are!) for the poster!!)

xo


























Saturday, May 23, 2009

JOY!

What an amazing weekend! Our garage sale was a HUGE success!! I am exhausted!

In all, we managed to raise a BIG chunk of money to donate in Ethiopia. An amount large enough that I will be contacting our agency for some guidance on where it should go.

I am so overwhelmed by people's kindness and encouragement. There are no words. I am just so grateful to all of you who helped us out and supported our sale and who gave so generously. THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts.

I am so pleased that I have such amazing people in my life and live in such a wonderful community.

Friday, May 15, 2009

“It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow.” Aesop quotes

We have our work cut out for us in the next few days because we are having a Garage Sale next weekend to help raise funds for our adoption!!

The times are as follows:
May 21 (Thrs) 3-8pm
May 22 (Fri) 3-8pm
May 23 (Sat) 9-4pm

We are working really hard to make this a success :)

We are going to donate 50% of the profit to an orphanage in Ethiopia when we go. We plan to hold the money in an account and take it with us to do something for the orphanage where our children are from. Obviously we won't know that until referral or travel, but we figured it would be good to start with raising donations now and then keep the money in a savings account until we leave for Africa.

The other 50% will go towards our adoption expenses which my fantastic husband is working very hard to pay off.

I am praying it will be a good turnout! I am having kids t-shirts made to help with the fundraising, and we will have chips and pop for sale too.

There will be !tons! of clothing - womens, baby, and maternity. Toys, baby items, books, dvd's, kitchen items, a microwave, electronics etc. etc.

Also, my neighbor(s) will also be hosting their own sales in the cul-de-sac as we have advertised a multi-family sale. So if you like garage sales and live in the Edmonton/Beaumont area, please come check it out!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Running for a cause

I was just on the yahoo message boards and someone is doing a Run For Water, to build wells in Ethiopia! I didn't know that this run existed. This is GREAT!! So now there are 2 organized annual runs (that I know of) with proceeds going directly into Ethiopia. Geez. I better get in better shape cause I want to do it all! (And move back to BC - cause both are there!) Anyway, just wanted to share because they both look like fantastic organizations.

www.RunforWater.ca - run is May 31/09 in Abbostford

and of course, the one I have already blogged about:
http://www.partnersinthehorn.org/downloads/Great_Big_Run_Brochure_2008.pdf - run is Oct.18/09 in Enderby
(find out more about the org on www.partnersinthehorn.org)

Happy Running!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Dwell in possibilty ~Emily Dickinson

Good news! We are finally approved to adopt siblings! We have been at this request to make a change to our dossier for a few months now, but it is finally complete. We will officially be welcoming 2 siblings under the age of 5 into our family.

When? I wish I knew, but they are still saying it will be about a 16 month wait until referral. Thankfully, our wait technically began when our dossier arrived in the country on Dec.27/08, so that puts us about 4 1/2 months into our wait. Only a year to go ;p. After referral we will still have to go through court, so we are aiming for Christmas 2010 to have our family intact.

I pray it will be sooner! I have actually been feeling kind of numb about the whole situation lately. I have really put it aside and am not as neurotic as I was back in Jan. Since I know it won't happen this year it makes it hard to be overly excited. It all seems surreal at the moment, like will this ever actually happen?? I know that Jan/10 will be a very exciting new year because that is when we will start our 'any day now' wait.

In the meantime, let the fundraising begin! We are having a fundraising garage sale May 21-23. We have a tonne of clothes, books, videos, DVD's, toys and, yes, baby clothes (up to 12mos) and maternity clothes! I am thinking about making up some t-shirts to help in the fundraising effort. I will definitely post if I can come up with something worthwhile. I will also be taking pledges for the Great Big Run for Africa.

I hope it will be a success!