I had planned to post an update today in honor of National Adoption Day, and because it's been a bit since we shared an adoption/life/fundraising update.... but fun fact: National Adoption Day is not always November 21st. It's the Saturday before Thanksgiving each year—whoops! You learn something new every day, even when your life feels like it revolves around reading about, saving money for, and planning an adoption. HOWEVER, one year ago today, on National Adoption Day 2020, we officially launched our IOWAdopt blog and announced our plans to adopt.
Though there has not been movement in our adoption process, we've spent the majority of our time since our last blog update fixing up our house to prepare to sell it. HUGE shoutout to our parents, brothers, aunt and uncle, and friends for helping re-side and roof our house and garage. We've since also put up new gutters, painted, and more. It's been an intense few months of work, but will be so worth it when we're able to sell the house and move into something bigger. As I mentioned in our last post, we need more room to move forward with the home study process and adopt siblings!
It hasn't been all work and no play as of late... We took a break from house work for a Cubs game! Then in October, almost exactly 1 year after getting married, we got the chance to celebrate our marriage with our Wisconsin family. This was our last wedding festivity; feeling equal parts blessed and relieved. Then we got to celebrate our anniversary watching the Packers beat the Bengals in Cincinnati, and check another NFL stadium off our list 💚💛 AND we made a quick trip to Florida to spend time with Jedd's family and catch a tan. Oh, and throw in a some Halloween festivities -- our favorite holiday 🎃
The last year has been so fun posting life updates, what we've learned about adopting, and sharing fundraisers on IOWAdopt. To date, we've had 1,573 people visit our blog!
We just received a large donation of shoes for our shoe drive that nearly DOUBLED
what we have collected. Thank you x1000 to everyone who's donated shoes so far.
We are still collecting new and used men's, women's, and kid's shoes {more info here}. Our initial goal was to collect 300 bags of shoes, but holy moly did I underestimate how tough it would be to round up that many shoes AND store them. So, we've adjusted our goal to 100 bags (2,500 pairs) for a $1,000 grant instead. We're currently at 10 bags. Please let us know if you have old shoes you'd like to part with. We'd be happy to pick them up any time!
Thank you also to all those who donated to our Iowa Rivalry Squares fundraiser. It was so much fun! All of the winners donated winnings back to us 🤯 (Thank you Mary Spidell, Lynn Lewis [who won twice!], and Toni Lewis!!) Stay tuned for Super Bowl LVI Squares In January/February.
You blow us away time and time again by reading our stories, donating to our adoption fund, sharing our blog posts, and asking how you can support us.
Since launching IOWAdopt one year ago today, you have helped us raise $6,408 for our adoption.
We have a couple of small fundraisers in the works. More on that very soon... but until then, THANK YOU.
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