LOA Today!

Our agency called today to say that we had LOA. LOA stands for "Letter of Acceptance". Which means that all our paperwork has been approved by the Chinese government. We should be traveling in November! What a feeling! This means we really have to kick in hard with the fundraising and number crunching! The only thing that could have topped this was an update on Mia!

Mia & Anna's Adoption Fundraiser! WOW!

The fundraiser was a huge success! We had the most beautiful volunteers show up for the evening. WOW! All of Claude and Ruthi Coats' daughters came all dressed up, long hair curled with head bands, brightly colored clothes that would fit right in with the 70's "flower power" child. A very good friend, Margie DuBois came early and didn't leave until she knew we were in good shape. She knows the church hall like the back of her hand. Our daughters, Jen and Julie, and grandsons, Austin (6) and Matthew (4) came early and stayed late! The little boys kept the girls busy with their "super hero" stories! Vicky was especially sweet and patient with the boys. The girls were so enthusiastic about there jobs and went right to it. Some of the other special highlights was when Morgan came in from walking down to Casey's for an ice cream cone and told Phil that he was going to be proud of her for giving someone directions on how to get here to the event. Phil later found out that Morgan had given directions to his mom and sister. Penny sat next to me at the ticket table and handed out "live auction" numbers and expertly wrote down their information. She welcomed everyone who came in and smiled so sweetly! She said she felt so important with a clipboard! Kate wanted to handle the raffle tickets and was so excited! She would get bored and get up to socialize but while she was gone someone would come up and Penny or Gracie would help them out! When Kate would come back they would tell her she had a customer. This went on for most of the night. Gracie sat quietly at the end of the ticket table. I would look over at her and she would give me her sweet little smile! Ruthi had Kim, Judy, and Addie helping her with the dessert table. They would help everyone pick out their desserts while flashing their smiles and showing their charm. They were a lot sweeter then the desserts!
Speaking of desserts, we had so many beautiful desserts from family, friends, and the community! There was a lemon meringue and coconut meringue pies, apple pies that were "heavenly", an ultimate lemon cake, key lime bundt cake, pecan pies, and all kinds of chocolate!
I think everyone got to go home with something either from the raffles, silent auction, or live auction. I had some of the younger kids pulling out names for the raffle and Kate ended up pulling out her own number. She was so excited! Those moments are what makes for a successful evening. We had so much fun!
The live auction was done by Joe Orwig. He has to be the best auctioneer in the country! He would "egg" them on and tease while the prices of things climbed! He played husbands against wives, bidders against bidders, and sisters against sisters (especially when it came to an IPod Touch).
Clean up went fast! The only hitch in the evening is when we went to lock up and had no key. We stopped by the home of a neighbor to call someone with a key and they came out to lock up. You can't think of everything!

This was sent to us today from our "Secret Pal"!

We received a special package today! Phil opened it and then gave me a call to let me know that we received something from our "Spring/Summer DTC Group". Once he got a good look at what was inside, he gave me a call and told me to stop off and pick up more Kleenexes because we were going to need them. He wouldn't tell me what was waiting for me at home, only that we received a package. The package had two handmade necklaces. And if that wasn't special enough, one necklace said "Big Sister" and the other "Little Sister" both in English and Chinese. And if you looked really closely, you could make out a map outline of China. Once I got home and saw them for myself, we were both crying and absolutely amazed at what we were looking at. We know that Mia and Anna will be our daughters, but to think about them as sisters comes to the forefront when you glimpse the necklaces. This special person was so detailed in this design. We love it and I know the girls will love it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!