Today is our first (yes first) homestudy visit! We hope to have everything ready to go by the first week in February - translation - it's gonna be a long couple weeks!
We are so happy that everything is moving along so quickly - we wish we had our homestudy a little further along, but there was no way of knowing Claire would be released before February. So we just gotta make every day count!
Last night we had about a dozen items notarized and faxed - if everything looks good they will make their journey via Fed Ex to a small city somewhere in Eastern Europe tomorrow! Surreal....
I'm about to take the kiddos to the park for a couple hours and then it is off to Chino for our appointment!
Will update soon!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Yet another 'fundraiser'
Our families budget is based completely on Daddy's income alone. Any money Mommy brings in with crafts, ebay, or her blog has always gone into the adoption fund account.
As random as it may be - I would love for you to check out my money saving blog http://sandiegodealsandsteals.com/ - shameless plug? for reals it isn't - this blog was created for a couple reasons....
1) to keep our family accountable to our finances
2) to hopefully make a little money along the way
3) to encourage others to save money and have fun while they do it
I hope you will check it out and also check out our advertisers on the site. Some advertisers pay per month, others pay per sign up, some pay a % of a sale that comes from our site. The amount of readers I have is very important to advertisers and I would really appreciate you subscribing and passing it on to a friend. Even if you are not from CA I often post money saving deals that are nationwide!
Bottom line - it is a great blessing to our family if this blog grows, but it could be a great money saving resource for you too! Thanks for checking it out!
As random as it may be - I would love for you to check out my money saving blog http://sandiegodealsandsteals.com/ - shameless plug? for reals it isn't - this blog was created for a couple reasons....
1) to keep our family accountable to our finances
2) to hopefully make a little money along the way
3) to encourage others to save money and have fun while they do it
I hope you will check it out and also check out our advertisers on the site. Some advertisers pay per month, others pay per sign up, some pay a % of a sale that comes from our site. The amount of readers I have is very important to advertisers and I would really appreciate you subscribing and passing it on to a friend. Even if you are not from CA I often post money saving deals that are nationwide!
Bottom line - it is a great blessing to our family if this blog grows, but it could be a great money saving resource for you too! Thanks for checking it out!
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Easy fundraiser - costs you nothing - saves you money - gives us $5!
Here is a SUPER easy 'fundraiser' we have been doing for over a year now.
We use Ebates for any purchases we make online (we don't buy much online, but even travel is on Ebates.com!) - thousands of retailers on on Ebates.com - you simply sign up and then when you are about to make a purchase online go to Ebates first then search the retailer - they will then direct you to the retailer and you'll get a portion of that sale (anywhere from 1% - 50% ) back in a quarterly check.
It is totally legit! We have been using it for over a year - we get a check every quarter (ours is usually WAY under $100 - but it is FREE money! we deposit that check right into our adoption account!) --we have never had an issue with spam and we always get the check as promised! Easy Peasy!
If you click the referral link and sign up OUR FAMILY will get $5 when you make your first purchase via Ebates - it will cost you NOTHING - but they will give us $5 - also YOU will get a bonus $5 plus whatever your percentage back is!
Nobody is gonna get rich using Ebates but it is a little extra back and we would be so blessed if you would sign up under us! You'll save money and we'll be $5 closer to our financial goal to bring home our little Claire! If you are adopting too or fundraising for a RR child - sign up and get your referral link and do the same! The little things all add up!
Thanks for considering!
We use Ebates for any purchases we make online (we don't buy much online, but even travel is on Ebates.com!) - thousands of retailers on on Ebates.com - you simply sign up and then when you are about to make a purchase online go to Ebates first then search the retailer - they will then direct you to the retailer and you'll get a portion of that sale (anywhere from 1% - 50% ) back in a quarterly check.
It is totally legit! We have been using it for over a year - we get a check every quarter (ours is usually WAY under $100 - but it is FREE money! we deposit that check right into our adoption account!) --we have never had an issue with spam and we always get the check as promised! Easy Peasy!
If you click the referral link and sign up OUR FAMILY will get $5 when you make your first purchase via Ebates - it will cost you NOTHING - but they will give us $5 - also YOU will get a bonus $5 plus whatever your percentage back is!
Nobody is gonna get rich using Ebates but it is a little extra back and we would be so blessed if you would sign up under us! You'll save money and we'll be $5 closer to our financial goal to bring home our little Claire! If you are adopting too or fundraising for a RR child - sign up and get your referral link and do the same! The little things all add up!
Thanks for considering!
Garage sale complete!
Quick note to say thank you so much to all that donated to our last minute 'adoption fund' garage sale - we made $346 which is not too shabby for being put together in 6 days right? Harry added $4 out of our change drawer and brought $350 to the bank right away - yay!
We packed the minivan FULL to the brim with donations for the Goodwill and took 3 storage bins as a 'starter kit' for our March 'adoption fund' garage sale. We held back a couple things to sell on ebay & craigslist and hope they will sell quickly and for a decent price.
Our dossier is to be submitted early in February and we will very likely travel sometime around April or May!
We are so so excited by how fast this is going, but again thought we had more time to fundraise. This blog is going to have links to our other fundraisers and I hope you will check them out! Our goal is to do this with as little debt as possible. We know with things moving as fast as they are we gotta be realistic and know that just might not happen, but it is the goal!
Weird prayer - but we've searched plane tickets to her country and the prices change DRAMATICALLY month to month - we are praying that when we get our itinerary it will be on the low end (about $900 a ticket instead of the high end - about $1600 a ticket!!!) both are expensive but it would obviously be a HUGE blessing if we could travel when it is less expensive - we have absolutely no control over that so we are just praying!
Keep praying for our cutie little 'Claire' - it is surreal seeing it all start to come together!
We packed the minivan FULL to the brim with donations for the Goodwill and took 3 storage bins as a 'starter kit' for our March 'adoption fund' garage sale. We held back a couple things to sell on ebay & craigslist and hope they will sell quickly and for a decent price.
Our dossier is to be submitted early in February and we will very likely travel sometime around April or May!
We are so so excited by how fast this is going, but again thought we had more time to fundraise. This blog is going to have links to our other fundraisers and I hope you will check them out! Our goal is to do this with as little debt as possible. We know with things moving as fast as they are we gotta be realistic and know that just might not happen, but it is the goal!
Weird prayer - but we've searched plane tickets to her country and the prices change DRAMATICALLY month to month - we are praying that when we get our itinerary it will be on the low end (about $900 a ticket instead of the high end - about $1600 a ticket!!!) both are expensive but it would obviously be a HUGE blessing if we could travel when it is less expensive - we have absolutely no control over that so we are just praying!
Keep praying for our cutie little 'Claire' - it is surreal seeing it all start to come together!
Friday, January 7, 2011
'Marissa is cleared.'
WOW! I published the post about our garage sale and not 30 minutes later we got an email from our director that 'Marissa is cleared, we need to send your dossier'
praise of course
our only problem - as stated before our homestudy visits are not complete! We were hoping to have them done before Feb 1st - now they kinda need to be done today - so in the midst of our excitement we are freaking out & just hoping we can do our 3 visits quickly! Like all next week if possible!
we are waiting to hear from our homestudy agency about the possibility of that.
please pray we are able to complete everything asap!! The only thing that seperates us from our little Claire at this point is paperwork!
praise of course
our only problem - as stated before our homestudy visits are not complete! We were hoping to have them done before Feb 1st - now they kinda need to be done today - so in the midst of our excitement we are freaking out & just hoping we can do our 3 visits quickly! Like all next week if possible!
we are waiting to hear from our homestudy agency about the possibility of that.
please pray we are able to complete everything asap!! The only thing that seperates us from our little Claire at this point is paperwork!
Adoption Fund Garage Sale 1/8/11
So excited about our 'adoption fund' garage sale tomorrow! We planned it just 7 days ago because my Aunt is having a moving sale anyway - we didn't know if we would even get any donations and we had just donated a carload of our extras two weeks before Christmas!
Well - our wonderful friends have delivered! Thank you so much to everyone who donated - we have a FULL garage that will easily take three well packed car loads to Aunt Lori's! We are so thankful for this boost and hope that it will help us raise money quickly!
If you are in the North County PLEASE come by! 925 Lilac Ct San Marcos CA 92069 8am - 1pm!
Update on our process - we have our first visit in Chino at the Bethany office on Tuesday afternoon. We'll have one more in office visit and then one in our home. Our social worker will be on vacation the last week of January which will make it difficult to finish our homestudy in time for the potential dossier submission in February - just hoping & praying that she is able to finish it quickly - all our papers are in order and we have done this before so we hope it is an easy process and papers will just be waiting for the OK from 'Claire's' country.
We of course pray that we will be able to submit quickly but also that we are financially prepared! At this point we are only about half way to the $$ needed when we travel! We are doing everything we can to keep ourselves out of debt this time around. We have both taken on some extra work as well as cut back as much as possible (but we aren't working with that much to begin with so it is not making that huge of an impact).
We are praying there is a HUGE turnout for this garage sale as well as the one we have planned for in March. We also are selling on Ebay & Craigslist (we made a little over $100 last week on Ebay - yay!)
We have partnered with a few blogs who will be getting a very cool fundraiser out to lots of readers (stay tuned for details).
Anyway - please pray for sunshine tomorrow, a quick meeting & easy commute to Chino on Tuesday, and as always that our process goes quickly and that Miss Claire's heart is prepared for us!
Blessings
Well - our wonderful friends have delivered! Thank you so much to everyone who donated - we have a FULL garage that will easily take three well packed car loads to Aunt Lori's! We are so thankful for this boost and hope that it will help us raise money quickly!
If you are in the North County PLEASE come by! 925 Lilac Ct San Marcos CA 92069 8am - 1pm!
Update on our process - we have our first visit in Chino at the Bethany office on Tuesday afternoon. We'll have one more in office visit and then one in our home. Our social worker will be on vacation the last week of January which will make it difficult to finish our homestudy in time for the potential dossier submission in February - just hoping & praying that she is able to finish it quickly - all our papers are in order and we have done this before so we hope it is an easy process and papers will just be waiting for the OK from 'Claire's' country.
We of course pray that we will be able to submit quickly but also that we are financially prepared! At this point we are only about half way to the $$ needed when we travel! We are doing everything we can to keep ourselves out of debt this time around. We have both taken on some extra work as well as cut back as much as possible (but we aren't working with that much to begin with so it is not making that huge of an impact).
We are praying there is a HUGE turnout for this garage sale as well as the one we have planned for in March. We also are selling on Ebay & Craigslist (we made a little over $100 last week on Ebay - yay!)
We have partnered with a few blogs who will be getting a very cool fundraiser out to lots of readers (stay tuned for details).
Anyway - please pray for sunshine tomorrow, a quick meeting & easy commute to Chino on Tuesday, and as always that our process goes quickly and that Miss Claire's heart is prepared for us!
Blessings
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Fundraising Garage Sale 1/8/11
We are going to be doing several fundraisers for the next couple months (or however long it takes us to raise the money needed to travel) as we've said before we had all our upfront fees (for our homestudy and our commitment fee for RR). We also had another $2,000 raised. Thankfully there is $840 in her fund waiting for our family when we go to travel - the problem - we kinda need like another $10,000 - $12,000 (WHAT?!) I know..... travel and in country fees are where a huge amount of the cost lies. We honestly thought that we would not be traveling quite so soon.
Our goal is to work extra, put on a couple fundraisers, and pray for a few donations through Reeces Rainbow (tax deductible by the way) - our hope is that we can bring her home without any debt....we'll see...
Since we should be able to submit our dossier in February there is very likely that we will travel this Spring!
That is A LOT of money to raise by Spring.
Here is our Ebay Store - we will have constant sales up there - I hope you will check it out.
Also - if you are local we are helping my aunt with her moving sale on January 8, 2011
We are combining to make it a HUGE 'adoption fund' multi-family garage sale! If you have stuff you were planning on donating to a worthy cause please email me at katehamernik 'at' sbcglobal 'dot' net and we would love to come and pick it up - items that do not sell will be donated to homeless families in the VUSD - another very worthy cause.
If you are interested in coming to our garage sale the address is 925 Lilac Ct San Marcos CA 92069
We will start at 8am and our stuff is going CHEAP!
Our goal is to work extra, put on a couple fundraisers, and pray for a few donations through Reeces Rainbow (tax deductible by the way) - our hope is that we can bring her home without any debt....we'll see...
Since we should be able to submit our dossier in February there is very likely that we will travel this Spring!
That is A LOT of money to raise by Spring.
Here is our Ebay Store - we will have constant sales up there - I hope you will check it out.
Also - if you are local we are helping my aunt with her moving sale on January 8, 2011
We are combining to make it a HUGE 'adoption fund' multi-family garage sale! If you have stuff you were planning on donating to a worthy cause please email me at katehamernik 'at' sbcglobal 'dot' net and we would love to come and pick it up - items that do not sell will be donated to homeless families in the VUSD - another very worthy cause.
If you are interested in coming to our garage sale the address is 925 Lilac Ct San Marcos CA 92069
We will start at 8am and our stuff is going CHEAP!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
