Friday, August 17, 2012

First visit to playhouse raffle

***This post was written a couple weeks ago, when we took our first trip out to the playhouse raffle at Edwards Theater in Boise, but I just got my photos today, so I'm posting it now****

What a great and tiring week it has been!  We went down to the Boise Spectrum Thursday night to support Christy and her awesome volunteers who were there selling raffle tickets.  As we walked up to the courtyard, we heard Christy on the microphone at the concert that was going on (they hold free outdoor concerts every Thursday evening in the summer).  She was telling the crowd about us and the playhouse raffle.  Wow!
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The kids were so excited to see the playhouse again.  We had a ball dancing to the music of the great band (local band Pilot Error) that was singing all the favorites.

Here's a video I took (and please rest assured Brian is not going to drop Jake...although the mother in you may think otherwise!)

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Kennedy striking a pose...oh my!
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Jake has been obsessed with his shadow since he was a tiny baby.  He danced and danced, watching his shadow dancing too.  

We met some really great people there too.  I am so impressed with the goodness of the people in this valley.  They really know how to rally for their own.  Just this week when Kristen Armstrong won the individual time trials at the Olympics, the community went wild.  Kristen is a native of Boise and is always doing community events for kids and adults alike.  She won gold four years ago, and decided to retire and have children.  Well, she had a son and then realized her desire to race wasn't gone and decided to try one more time for gold, this time with the goal of holding her son on the podium after winning the gold.  She was able to do just that, and it was so inspiring for all of us.  If a 38-year-old mom can be the best female cyclist in the world, then there is hope for the rest of us thirty-something moms out there!

Anyway, we received many kind words and were able to meet the owners of the Edwards complex there.  They were so, so kind and down-to-earth.  They were enthusiastic about the whole thing.  After the concert they had Christy get up again to remind people to buy a raffle ticket on their way out.  She had me and my girls come up to introduce us.  We were greeted with cheers, it was awesome!  One of the shop owners in the complex offered 30 free minutes of game time with every ticket purchased that night.
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Jake happy to be at the playhouse again
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Christy with her two devoted helpers, getting ready to get out and sell tickets.
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Leah trying on the "Big Bad Wolf" mask that comes with the house.
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The Stinker Gas Station mascot was there, notice Christy trying to persuade Jake and Leah to come out and say hi to him.
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This is where they were hiding-I love how Leah was hiding behind her big brother for protection from the scary skunk!

I hope so very much that every person who has purchased a ticket, said a kind word, or done anything at all to help us in this process has visited this blog so they will know how much we appreciate them.  Just last night Brian said, "how do we thank people?  'Thank you' just doesn't seem like enough."  I completely agree.  We say thank you for the simplest things, it seems a shame there isn't a better set of words for when someone does something that merits so much more than a humble "thank you."  So please know that if there were adequate words to describe how much we truly thank you, they would be yours.  You have changed the course of not only our lives, but the life of Arnold.  Oh I can't wait to meet this little boy, and to share story after story with him about all of you.

And on that note, an update on where the adoption process stands:

All of our dossier paperwork is in his country, being translated as we speak!  That should be done any day now, then our facilitator there will request an appointment with the Ministry of Education to "register" our paperwork.  If that goes well, the Ministry will issue us a travel date approximately 10-14 days later.  That means we could be traveling in the next few weeks!  I can't wait to update this blog when we receive our official travel date!!!

Our Visas have been in process as well.  We received our invitation to travel last week, so we then sent in our official visa application.  I believe it takes another week to get our visas back.  After that, we will be ready to roll and just waiting for our travel date!!

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