Our First Home Visit and the Simply Love Fun Walk/5k

We met a couple of weeks ago for a brief get-together with Judy Young to discuss paperwork requirements for our homestudy. Judy works for Holt International and was our social worker for Aidan's adoption. When we chose to work with the agency A Love Beyond Borders we knew that they would not be able to provide our homestudy because they only have the one office in Colorado.  We have to have a homestudy done by an approved adoption agency in the state of Missouri.  Holt's main headquarters are in Oregon, but they have a branch in Kansas City, MO.  So, for Aidan's adoption, we were able to just work with Holt.  For this adoption our primary agency will be ALBB, but our homestudy agency is Holt.  So, after a bit of finessing and communication between the two, we now have a contract with both Holt and ALBB.  Our first home visit was this past Friday, May 17th.  Since, Judy already knows us and has been to our house on numerous occasions, we were able to just have a quick Q & A and go over some of the paperwork that we had already completed.  She said that she thinks she can have our homestudy completed and approved within 3-4 weeks.  This is excellent news because as soon as we have a completed homestudy, we can apply for grants.  We can also inquire and ask for more information about Kapend.  So, this is where we're at right now in the adoption process.

In fundraising news, we held the first annual Simply Love Fun Walk/5k, Bake Sale and Craft Fair on May 11th.  I included some pictures below.  My great friend, Bobi, came out to raise both awareness about malaria and money to buy mosquito nets for the southern region (Kembata tribe) of Ethiopia.  This is where Aidan and two of her three girls, Ella and Faith, were born.  I also had another good friend, Hiwot, there.  She is from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and made injera (complete with lentils and shirro) and coffee for people to sample.  All and all, it was a great day and we raised around $3,500!  Together with our salsa sales and donations page, we've raised just under $6,000!!!  Praise God!  Next up is our Simply Love Zumbathon on June 28th. 

My handsome hubby

Me and my little man

Check out the picture of Kapend on my hip

Just a few of my awesome co-workers and some of the volunteers at the event