Bake Sale Test Run

Since I'm planning on having the first bake sale in a couple weeks, I decided to do a test run.  Doug was all for it since he got to be the official taste tester! For the most part everything turned out.  I have a few filling recipes that I will be tweaking, but all the crusts came out amazing. Plus our house has been smelling like heaven since yesterday morning! 

On the bake sale list thus far we have challah, kolaczkis, and mazurek cake (a Polish Easter cake).  Sorry for all the dishes Doug!

All About Fundraising

As Doug and I get further along in the adoption process, the checks we are writing are getting larger and larger.  We saved up for several months beforehand and are currently budgeting carefully and putting everything we save into the adoption. To help offset some of the cost, we have starting bouncing around fundraising options.  Luckily there are other adoption blogs out there full of time-tested fundraising ideas that many adoptive families have utilized.  As most of our friends and family are not in Maryland, we will be relying on fundraisers that can be done mostly online.  Hopefully we can organize one or two of these in the next couple of months.

Please let us know what you think, if you have any other ideas, or if you would like to help with a particular fundraiser!

Bracelet Sale 
The Apparent Project - Items are handmade by Haitians as a means of providing for their families. Half of the cost goes to the person who made the bracelet, half to our adoption.
http://www.apparentproject.org/  & http://www.walkingbytheway.com/blog/favorite-adoption-fundraiser-ever/

T-Shirt Fundraiser
Chrome Buffalo - Half of the proceeds goes to our adoption.
http://chromebuffalo.com/

Bake Sales
We will be selling cookies, kolaczkis, challah, and any other goodies we think of!

Sponsored Inline Marathon
Athens to Atlanta - Doug and I are planning on participating in the longest inline race in America, 87 miles!
http://www.a2a.net/

Homestudy Interview

After arriving at work early to get caught up from the snow days last week, I headed to our homestudy agency for my individual interview.  Helene asked about my family and school life growing up, friends and interests, and my relationship with Doug.  Lots of fun memories that I haven't thought about in years!  Afterwards, we signed a few papers, I dropped off some more documents with the coordinator, and headed back to the office.  Helene will take all of the documents we've submitted and her notes from the interviews to write up our homestudy.  We should have the first draft in 3 weeks to review.  I'm kind of curious to see what a condensed yet exhaustive interpretation of our lives looks like!

Taking Nashville by (Ice) Storm!

This weekend, Doug and I traveled with my hockey team to Nashville for district playoffs.  There are four teams in the Southeast district, and the winner goes to Nationals in Green Bay.  We ended up winning all of the round-robin games and moved on to the championship game Sunday morning!  My original flight was scheduled to leave before the game, so a couple of my teammates worked to get me on a different flight.  While Doug left Sunday morning on our original flight, I geared up for the game that would decide if we moved on to Green Bay or if our season would be over.  The game was crazy awesome!  Crazy in that the refs were horrible using a 3-man system (all season they run a 2-man crew) so the game became dangerous very quickly.  Awesome because that meant since the other team could get away with hitting my teammates, and especially my goalie, I could get away with hitting them right back!  Now for those of you who aren't as familiar with hockey, when I say "Hit" I don't mean throwing punches (I know I'm aggressive, but I'm not violent!).  I mean some body-checking, and becoming a brick wall in front of my goalie when she had the puck.  90 minutes later, we were crowned the Southeast District Champions!  Instant flashbacks to being 12-years-old and having an award ceremony with medals and parents taking team pictures on the ice!

The celebrating was short lived when I found out my afternoon flight had been cancelled due to freezing rain in the DC area. All flights in and out had been grounded.  Having to spend the next 36 hours trying to get back to Maryland and taking a day off of work was not ideal.  On the other hand, our team played well, both goalies were AMAZING!  Best of all, WE'RE GOING TO NATIONALS IN GREEN BAY!  (Did I already mention that? . . .)