Communicating long distance, Paperwork, and Newspaper Articles

So quite a bit has transpired since our last post.  We'll try to go chronological order:

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The Letter to the Girls

First of all, Leah and Adam returned with news (and pictures) from Haiti!  Leah, with help from Pastor Riguad, read our letter to the girls aaaaaaaaaaaaand....

They would like to be adopted!

 Maudeline - (letter from my parents) - Guirlene - Pastor Rigaud

They were excited about the idea.  Apparently there was some initial confusion because Leah and Adam were reading the letter so they didn't understand who it was from, but then they figured it all out.  The next day they colored some drawings for each of us with our names on them.  Mom and Dad were especially touched by the drawings that said, of course, "Mom" and "Dad".  Copies of the drawings will be up after I scan them.

                                           Maudeline                                                        Guirlene

It was a really big moment in the process and we were really waiting anxiously to hear their reaction.  It's all very exciting.  But it begins the process of hurry up and wait.  Which brings us toooooooo...

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Starting Paperwork in Haiti

Thanks to the fundraisers and donations from the past couple months, my parents have been able to get a large part of the paperwork underway.  Last week Laurae took a trip down to Haiti and brought with her my parents official requests to adopt, as well as the release of power of attorney to Pastor Rigaud.  So that allows Rigaud to work on the Haitian side of the paperwork.  There, of course, is a lot to be done, (as will be the theme for a while it seems), but it's nice to be getting more and more things done.

(On that note:  My parents got their psych evaluations done today.  Apparently they passed!)

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Fitchburg Pride Article

And last, but certainly not least, a lovely reporter from the Fitchburg Pride heard about the adoption and called my parents requesting to interview them.  She came over a couple weeks ago and sat down with us.  The article is here.  Appaaaaaaaaaarently it was on the front page!  Really cool and big thanks to Caroline Keras for taking the time to write our story.

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That's all for tonight.  Still working on planning our next fundraiser party, which will be at Destare in Fitchburg.  The plans aren't set yet, but of course they will be posted once they are so be checking back in for that.

Party Report

OK, I know this post should've been up a couple days ago.  Forgive me.

First things first.

The party went down Saturday night and was a lot of fun.  We were so blessed by everyone who came out to spend the night with us.  Huge, huge 'Thank You's' to everyone who pitched in to make the party a success.  I can't think of a better way to raise money than to spend time hanging out and dancing with awesome friends and family (although I admit I spent too much time talking instead of dancing).

Speaking of raising money... between tickets, raffles and donations we raised about $1,000!!

Again, thank you all so so much.

That money has already begun being put to use.  My parents have been able to get the ball rolling with the home inspection now, as well as a collection of other paperwork.  If all goes well, we'll be able to have our packet ready to go down to Haiti when Laurae goes down in a couple weeks.  Everything will need to go really well to meet that deadline, but Mom and Dad are well on their way with that stuff now.

My parents still have a lot of expenses ahead of them (approx. $20,000+) and there will be some more fun events coming up in the near future, but for now this is an awesome jump start.


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P.S. If you were thinking the girl's names have been spelled different in several different places in this blog, that's because it's true.  We finally got all their official information...

Maudeline  DOB 7.7.96 (13 years old)

Guerlene  DOB 8.31.98 (11 years old)

...so from now on we SHOULD have the correct spelling and such.



(p.p.s. This was written for a couple days before I clicked "post" making it a couple days older than the date it looks like... my baaaaad)