Awesome Fundraiser!!!!

We had the conclusion of our biggest adoption fundraiser, "Bears for Claire" last night. It was completely overwhelming how many generous people were willing to help! I truly thought we would struggle to reach $1,000 in donations, but once again God was so good to us and we ended up raising a little over $3,000!!!! AMAZING!!! Thank you to everyone who donated your services or prizes and asked for nothing in return! Thank you so much!! If you know me well, you know guilt could be my middle name, and I was so sad last night that I couldn't give every single person that donated a prize of some kind. I wanted everyone to win! I kept telling Greg how nervous I was every time I drew a number for a prize. I truly am so thankful for everyone who helped us, and I pray that someday I have the opportunity to help you!!! Because so many gave so freely to us, we wanted to take part of our donations and give them to help another family adopting a little girl from Taiwan as well (They are naming her Claire too!! Good name!) So, please know, if you participated in any way in "Bears for Claire", you helped two families bring their Claire home! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

Our First Update!

We received our first update on Claire today from Taiwan. We only received this one little tiny picture but it's so great to see something current. We wish we could know what she's thinking... our first thought was that she looks a little bit sad but maybe that's just how seeing pictures of her growing up makes us feel. Regardless, she's still a cutie and we still can't wait to bring our little girl home! It looks like any hopes we had of her coming home with long hair are out the window as it looks like they're keeping it cut really short. Taiwan in the summertime is very hot from what we hear so that makes sense.

Here are a few highlights from her update:

• She's working on potty training at home.   That's a good thing!
  
• She's still taking 4 bottles a day.   I think this is cultural... children there tend to stay on bottles and formula longer than children here. 
• Her favorite solid foods are watermelon and papaya.   Do they have papaya at Kroger? 
• It says she is "outgoing and adorable" and she "makes funny face to make people laugh".   Sounds like her brother! 
• It sounds like her language development is coming along well.   There is no mention of whether or not she is learning any English but we are not expecting her to have ever heard any English at all when we pick her up. 
• Other than that, it sounds like she's a typical two year old for the most part... some minor behavior issues that sound just like things Connor did when he was 2.   Nothing to worry too much about.  

And that's about it.   Everyone keeps asking if there's any news so this was exciting to get in the mail today.   We're still waiting to find out how our court process is going so we can travel but we're just 2 months past referral.   Typical time from referral to travel is 5-8 months.   At the absolute earliest we would travel late October / early November but it is MUCH more likely that we would travel in late December or January and quite possibly as late as February / March.   That seems like an eternity right now.... these past two months have just crept by. 

We're supposed to get an update about every month so hopefully sometime around late September we'll get another update.  

Bears for Claire

Jessica and I are going to be having two adoption fund-raisers this fall to help us cover the costs of our travel to Taiwan to bring Claire home.   Airfare could be as high as $10,000 due to the fact that we'll only have 7-14 days notice before we have to travel.  We've been able to cover our expenses up until now but that daunting total has left us needing to get creative and so, we are excited to present... Bears for Claire

Here's how it works:  Make a donation to our adoption fund and you will receive a "Bear for Claire".  For $5.00 you get one bear, for $10.00 you get three bears, and for $25.00 you get eight bears!   Each bear enters you to win one of over 20 prizes.   We have had some AWESOME prizes donated including: 

* A BRAND NEW NINTENDO WII! 

* Free Chick Fil-A for a Year!

* Tennessee Football Tickets (box seats) 

* A prize package from the Food Network and HGTV

* A prize package from Love 89.1 Radio

* Regal Cinemas Movie Tickets

* Many more!  Over 20 prizes!

The drawing will be held on Sunday, August 30th at 7:00 PM.  We'll actually be webcasting the drawing so people can watch live.  

For all the information you need to participate in our fundraiser, and to purchase you chances to win the Wii and other prizes, please visit: 

www.bearsforclaire.blogspot.com