This is a VERY busy week for us on the adoption front. We are having our first big (hopefully) fundraiser this weekend with a garage sale. It's the classic adoption fundraiser, but has the potential to bring in some good money. So, we sent out an email to friends and coworkers to donate items and come shopping. We have gotten a good and big response. So, now we are a little overwhelmed on how to organize it all. We have some nice things, and all we need now are shoppers with lots of money!
So, I guess it's been a couple of weeks since we've felt Satan attack our finances, but never fail, here we go again. On Sunday night, with a garage full of stuff, the spring broke on the garage door as I was trying to put it down. It wouldn't go up after that. Of course, the one part of the house that needs to be in working order for this fundraiser is now broken. We were able to get a good recommendation for someone to fix it and it was back in working order yesterday ($200 later), just in time for several guys to bring several loads of stuff over for the sale.
This has made me realize that this child is very important and is meant for our family. The more that happens to try to get us down during this process, the more I am beginning to feel connected to this little one. I am digging deeper to keep on fighting because I know it is worth it and this child deserves a BIG fight.
We are moving forward. We had our first visit with our social worker tonight. We have been really stressed out this week with all that we have going on, so are relieved to have this piece over. There was really nothing to stress over with this visit. We cleaned the entire house, but she didn't even want to look at it. Oh well. Now it's clean for Adam's parents, who arrive on Thursday. She didn't have any hard or uncomfortable questions for us and was here less than an hour. Grayson was a little handful and wanted a lot of attention, so the process was a little chaotic. I think she understood our constant running around to try to keep Grayson entertained and quiet. She will write up a lengthy report about us and will be back next week for us to proof it. Then it's off to the main office to be approved. Our home study is nearly finished! Yay!
We had our first big adoption fundraiser last weekend and to say it was a success would be an understatement. It was a very stressful week with the garage sale, our first homestudy visit from the social worker, and Adam's parents coming into town, but it finally all came together. We only heard about our neighborhood garage sale two weeks prior, so we started the planning and rounding up donations. We were so blessed to have such wonderful friends donate so many things. Becuase we had so much stuff, we couldn't walk through the garage by Thursday, which made the organization piece really difficult. We posted ads and Adam made some great signs to advertise and try to round up as much traffic as possible. We opened Friday morning to people already waiting and in the first hour had made nearly $100! We had a steady stream of people ALL day long. There was no lull like most garage sales experience. We finally decided to close the garage around 5:30 and someone came and knocked on our door to ask if we would open it for her. Then we had 3 families (close friends) come by that evening to shop. Saturday was another great day with lots of people coming by. I've never seen a sale like this with so many people. We had several people come by, buy stuff, go home, and come back with a box of things they wanted to donate. We gladly took it, but in the back of our minds were thinking, "we're trying to get rid of all of this stuff, not take more." We finally closed the sale around 4:30 on Saturday after two LONG days. We were all exhausted, but so pleased with how it turned out. We were so blessed with good weather all weekend, lots of shoppers, so many donations, and in the end, a VERY LARGE grand total!! God is so good to give us the encouragement and confirmation we need when we start to feel discouraged. We know we are on the right track and are even more excited to bring our little one home as soon as possible. 
