Final homestudy visit is completed......

Woo!! What a day!! For the past few weeks we have been trying to plan our last two homestudy visits with our most fabulous social worker in the world and it just has not happened until TODAY!! We finally completed our last home study!! It took about 3 hours to complete in our home. She spoke with Carson and Hailey for a little while and then asked Steve and I some questions in regards to our take on how Carson and Hailey will adapt to having a new sibling that looks nothing like them and was not born here. The kiddos were fabulous and believe it or not, Hailey did clam up some. She was precious with her answers and Carson was very thoughtful and honest. He did a great job as well. Our  precious child that we will be bringing home will be so lucky to have them as a brother and sister!! We gave her a house tour and showed her where the babies room would be then back to questions!! Through answering all the questions and being faithful to God with our answers, we felt a huge weight lifted off of us when it was over. We thought and said to each other, we really stressed over this and cleaned as much as we could and we have made it through it! PTL!! God is so good and we have to remember, he is carrying us on this journey, why worry? This is fun for us!! This is an exciting part of this journey that is allowing us to reach out to so many people. To be able to share our story and experiences with our family and friends is such a blessing!! God is awesome!!

So, what's next? Well, we will wait a few weeks for our social worker to type up our homestudy report, then it will be sent to Immigration. It will then take Immigration up to 90 days to complete their process. During those 90 days, we will be finalizing our dossier and applying for grants. When the homestudy comes back from Immigration, it will be attached to our dossier and mailed to China. It will take China approximately 2 weeks to review and will then send us a LID (log  in date).  When we receive our LID, we will get to start the fun part!!! We will start the matching process of finding the child that God wants us to adopt and take care of!!! How exciting is that!!!! So, we are looking at January before we will get our LID. We are so excited! Please continue to pray for us and our journey!! It will be here before we know it.

What's next with fundraising? Well, we will be at Grace Life's 1st Annual Arts n Crafts show this Saturday at Shadow Lake from 8 til 2. We will have "Sow to China's" crafts out there and will be adding lots of new items as well. We will have the 1st Annual "Swing for Adoption" golf tournament on Thursday, October 13th at Timberline Golf Course. I have listed below the details on that as well. If you know of anyone that would like to attend, sponsor a hole or participate with a team, please contact Steve at the number below.

Time	Thursday, October 13 · 11:00am - 2:00pm
Location	Timberline Golf Club Calera, Alabama
More Info	4 Person Scramble Cost $100.00 per player Registration 11:30 Shotgun Starts at 1:00 Deadline for Early Entry: October 7, 2011 Enjoy a complete program of special events, 18 holes of golf (including cart), box lunch, soft drinks, water, door prizes, bonus round of golf to be used at a later date and a mulligan package (3) All for just $100.00 a player - Closest to the pin challenge - Top 3 teams will be awarded To help us properly plan for this event, please pre-register by calling Steve Boyd at (205) 288-1726 Sponsor a hole for $100.00 - If you are not interested in playing golf and would like to sponsor a hole, please contact Steve Boyd as well. All proceeds will benefit Steve and Julie Boyd's adoption fund.

We will also be having a few other things that I have listed below as well.

- Thirty One Party - Friday, October 21st
- Open House - Saturday, November 12th "Sow to China's" items

I am sure I will think of more things to do as the time passes!! God surely has blessed us!! Thanks so much for all your sweet prayers and thoughts!!

Blessings and Love,

Julie

Just waiting.........

Well, we are currently waiting for our scheduling of our last 2 homestudy visits and our CANs clearance to come back, then we will have a complete homestudy!!! Hopefully, fingers crossed, that will be by the middle part of September! God has been so good to us and has taught us lately over and over again that this is going to be done in his time. He has taught us that we have been so busy that we can not forget who is helping us with this journey and not to try it on our own. God is so good and he has revealed so much to us through this journey!! We have had a few fundraisers and have been so very blessed with the outcomes and how financially we are on track!!! We were able to experience for the first time this weekend the Butter Bean Festival in Pinson!! We had a great time, but boy was it alot of work to prepare for!! We were blessed to be able to meet some really great people and enjoy some great food!! The wonderful things that people had to say about our journey and how they would continue to pray for us was wonderful!! There is nothing more important and powerful than prayer!

I have attached below some pictures of the new frames that we are making to sell as a fundraiser item and boy have we had tons of orders thus far!! I have fulfilled orders, made orders for Butter Bean and when I added up the total outstanding to fulfill, it was 50!!! Praise the Lord!! He surely has blessed us with the hands to help from beginning to end!! The frames hold a 4x6 picture at $10.00 a frame.

The next few fundraisers will be the Boyd Adoption Golf Tournament on Thursday, October 13th and I plan to have a Pampered Chef party as well. Please continue to keep us in your prayers!!! We are a few steps closer to bringing home our sweet baby from China!!! We are so excited and blessed to know that God is getting the Glory and we are getting the Joy!!! Until next time.......

Love and Blessings,

Julie


"By adopting a child and helping them reach their potential, they help us reach ours. An adopted child is not an unwanted child; to the contrary. They are a child who was searched for, prayed for, cried for, begged for; received by arms that ached, making empty hearts full. Love is meant to be shared"