"Fun"raisor supporting Haiti and Congo

Yes, cheesy title, but GREAT cause with a chance to win a week's stay in Florida.  Just hope on over to THIS blog and check out the details!

Basketball

Basketball....I know nothing about it other than the main objective is for your team to get an orange ball into your team's assigned basket as frequently as possible and more times than your opponent does.  I suppose I also know that there are a lot of rules related to how one's team should and should not go about doing this, but I don't really know the ins and outs.  While I'm not opposed to basketball or have any moral issues with the game, it is just not a sport I ever bothered learning anything about.  Until now....well, I really don't know much about it, but am in process of learning...since....Sarah decided to try out for the team this year.

If you didn't know that Sarah was a basketball fan, you are not alone. Apparently, Sarah didn't know she enjoyed basketball until she was asked to try out for the team by a friend (who didn't want to try out alone).  Well, you guessed it.  She made the first cut, then the second cut....then earned a place on the Seabrook Spartans Girls Basketball Team!!  YEAH SARAH!  They've only played a couple of games and are in the midst of thier first tournament this year (I'm at home on break typing this up). 

I've attached a video of Sarah playing in the game. She's in the white jersey, number 20. Its from my phone so its hard to follow her....but when you see someone with a white jersey making a basket a good distance away from the said basket (in my opinion)..Yup..that's Sarah!




By the way....all those other "Sarah's Basketball Game" YouTube videos that come up at the end of this one....belong to someone else's Sarah.

Not Me Monday

Yes, I'm getting in on the fun. Yes, I do follow MckMama's blog.....what can I say.

So, I certainly did NOT offer to 'have dinner' for my church small group tonite with the express purpose of getting rid of several days of leftovers due to my 'experiments' with my new CrockPot!

Of course I did not give in to the plea for breakfast from Whataburger from my 10 year old just to give myself an excuse to purchase, and eat, one honey buttered chicken biscuit.  And of course I did in no way, shape, or form also eat the hash brown sticks that came with 'the meal' that seemed cheaper to order than just the coffee and sandwich.

Lastly, I did not call my husband two times this morning with the express purpose of finding out if he signed all our adoption paperwork before he left work so I wouldn't have to wait ONE MORE DAY to get it in the mail.

Nope, not me :)

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds

So this morning I stayed up late after getting in from work to go here:

So that I could mail this......

Yup, the adoption has reached its 2nd level of official-ness.....the initial application has been completed and mailed.

Money, Money, Money

Do you realize that it is SO much cheaper to give birth to a child than to adopt one? (well, for those with insurance anyway). I've decided that I am going to lobby my employer to increase adoption benefits and I think Tony should do the same. Both of our insurances now cover infertility treatments (10k for my company and 15k for Tony's) but only reimburse 3k and 4k respectively for adoption---and adoption is typically a sure thing--especially for the company because they only reimburse adoption after the adoption is final. Don't get me wrong, I think infertility benefits should be covered and at a higher rate than what they are, but I also think that adoption can be just as or sometimes more expensive than infertility treatments so I really feel like that should be reimbursed at least equally--maybe a lifetime maximum of 10K for adoption like you have the lifetime maximum of 10k for infertility treatment. I need to figure out who I can write a letter to at my employer.....

So, on with the saga of trying to figure out how to pay for this. Ultimately, even with reimbursement as it is now (3k for me, 4k for Tony and 12k tax break), we should only have to come up with about 6k out of pocket. Not too bad. The girls are all on board with saving money, especially Sarah who declines stops at McDonalds for breakfast and Sonic for drinks so that 'we can save more money.' Our plan is to tremendously cut back on dining out (our biggest vice) so that we can save a few hundred a month to put towards our expenses. Yes, you read right, a few hundred, I am very ashamed to admit that we had gotten so busy and lazy that we were often eating out a couple of times a week plus a few fast food stops. We went all of Nov with only one dining out adventure (after the girls swim meet). We also only went out maybe 2x in Dec. So we know it can be done, and we ended up being pretty happy with eating home everynight. You know you've been dining out too much when you offer the kids McDonalds and all they want to do is go home and have soup and a sandwich. Right now cooking at home is easy but when Sarah starts swimming again in a few weeks (insert 3-4 days/week of afternoon practice) the whole cooking at home thing will certainly get tougher...of course I am now armed with a new appliance, a beautiful 5.5qt Crock-Pot complete with built in timer and a new cookbook!! (This is in addition to a small 1.5qt and 4qt cooker that has been serving us well the past few months.) Thanks Mom and Dad! So right now we are fine tuning recipees to figure out how long they need to cook so I can figure out what I can put in there in the morning, cook while working, and eat in the evening -- without setting off the smoke alarm or catching my kitchen on fire!

As far as where the cash will come from to finance the adoption -- I've been looking into different options.  We can always take a loan out from Tony's 401k, at least there we are paying ourselves interest for using our own money, but it also stops growing too so if the market suddenly skyrockets (yea, stop laughing) we would miss growth.  Also, if something happened to Tony's job (unlikely-yes) but we'd be hit with really outrageous taxes.  Too, when we need access to the bulk of the money is somewhat up in the air, but when we need it we will need it quickly, so I also hate to draw the cash out and just have it sitting there while we pay interest on it. 

I've also been looking into a line of credit with Navy Federal Credit Union (any armed services member is eligible to open an account there).  In that case we can apply for a 15k line of credit that we can access with checks and/or a debit card and just remove money (and pay interest on) what we are using.  It also solves the problem of keeping everything we spend on the adoption separate since that will be from its own account.  It is a little less than we were anticipating needing, but it will cover pretty much everything up to the travel point and that probablly won't come for at least 9-12 months (early time frame) so we would be saving up cash during this time.  We're still thinking and looking at all our options.

We could save travel money by just the two of us going, but we feel that it is extremely important that we take both Sarah and Hailey with us since they are old enough to understand. We also feel that since the trip will probablly cost us around 10k for four of us traveling there and 5 back, we should spend a few extra days (in light of the fact that airfare is going to be the most expensive expense). We're hoping to spend 10-14 days in country instead of just the required 4 days for the adoption.

So, as that old ABBA song goes....Money, Money, Money.

It's About Time

So we're doing this. Yes, really doing this. After first thinking about adoption 15 years ago when we were trying to get pregnant with Sarah, to not thinking about it again until 6 years ago--when we were trying to get pregnant after having Hailey-- then being off and on and considering adoption from at least 6 different countries, we are finally doing this....we are Ethiopia bound.


When we talked to the girls a few weeks ago, we promised we would have a decision about where we were adopting from by New Years Day and that decision came about 1 am this morning. We had really been going back and forth on where our son or daughter should come from. When we looked at international programs, Ethiopia made the most sense. There are a large number of orphans (some reports are that 1 in 10 children are orphaned in Ethiopia), a limited amount of resources (more kids than orphanage space, limited resources for school, medical care and work), and a relatively stable process in terms of international adoption. We also looked at adoption from the US foster system. That made sense too. Kids who have gone through a lot of upheaval and trauma that needed loving parents and a stable home, a standard adoption process, a good local agency, virtually no cost--why not? You see the problem.


Every time I tried to rationalize, make lists, compare pros and cons, I would just come up more confused about what to do. I don't know why God just doesn't send us emails with step by step instructions. Frustration about making a decision was starting to set in mostly because we felt so strongly the call to adopt but we just didn't know from where. A couple of days ago after we had been talking through our options--again, I asked Tony to just make the decision. I felt like whatever decision "I" made I would be second guessing it forever. So, since God gave me the most awesome gift of a patient, level headed and Christ loving husband, I decided that I should put said gift to use so I asked him to make the decision (I hope you've recovered from your shock enough to continue reading).


So, while I am scared to death (sort of like I when I first saw those 2 'yes you are pregnant' lines when I first learned the girls were coming) I am also at peace and SO excited. I can't wait to move on with this journey to meet our new son or daughter. My goal is to chronicle our process through this blog so that it may 1) Give our child a sense of what our life was like while we were waiting 2) Keep all our friends and family updated as to the progress of our journey and 3) Maybe help other people as they too are starting on thier own family journey.


So---follow along.