Updates

We have several updates - most of them not directly related - so please excuse my jumping around in this post!  Last week was a very busy week for us as our big kids were home for their spring break and I made a quick trip to Houston for appointments.  But even though we were busy, there were some steps made in our adoption process.

We received our marriage licenses with the apostilles from Arkansas.  An apostille is like a more formal notarization.  All of our papers will require one but I will be able to take them directly to the Secretary of State's office in Mississippi.  Since we were married in Arkansas, the apostille had to come directly from there.  So we have that checked off!  Our last two documents we need for our dossier are in the works today and we should have them by the end of the day.  Then we will only be waiting for our I171 to come in from our government.  We also got our appointments for our biometric fingerprinting which has to be done for the I171.  Carlie will have hers done next week and Scott and I will have ours five days after her.  So that is a big step.  When we get our I171, we will have a complete dossier and will send it to Ukraine.  Then we will get our first appointment in Ukraine and can make travel plans.  I think....

Fund raising is going well.  Jewelry sales have been good and we set up an Etsy shop last week to sell through.  The shop name is 2Less.  We are very fortunate that friends have been helping with sales too.  Some are showing it around to their friends, at work, and to family members.  I can not express how appreciative we are!  We placed a t-shirt order earlier this week.  We ordered 130 and have 35 or so spoken for already.  We are steadily taking in donations for our garage sale that will be next Saturday, April 6.  There is a budget line set up for us at our church, Meadow Grove Baptist Church, where people can make anonymous donations, and we are very close to having an account set up with an organization called Share the Hope where people can make tax-deductible donations to our adoption costs.  Once that is completely ready, I will post more information on that.  And of course, I am busy applying for any adoption grants I can find.  I have never in my life tried to raise this much money in this short of a period of time - it feels like a full time job!

Then there is my health.  I went to Houston last week for tests and scans and there continues to be no sign of cancer.  Praise God.  I am going into all this, fully aware that the statistics are stacked against me.  Melanoma is a very serious thing.  There is a 10 - 20 % 5 year survival rate (depending on whose stats you go by).  But we have decided that I can not sit back and wait for death.  I have to live my life like I feel God is leading.  And there are people who never have another recurrence.  So no, I am not hiding my head in the sand.  But I am also not dwelling on the numbers.  I am choosing to trust in God and live out my faith like never before.  This is my eighth week off treatment.  I am feeling better every day.  I am cooking and cleaning (who would have thought I would have missed that?!)  I am exercising daily again, and I have not thrown up in 8 weeks!  Big, big steps.  I am hoping to start juicing soon (Gelaina, I need you to get home and teach me how! In all the free time you will have.  :)  )  I appreciate all of you that continue to pray for me and our family.

That is about it as far as updates go.  If you want a t-shirt or some jewelry, give me a call!  And drop by our garage sale next weekend if you live in the area.  We have some cool stuff being donated!!!