And the winner is.....

Fishing trip ~ M. Weeks Holispheres ~ Sarah - Owens mom 20 heb gift card ~ Frani D. Thank you all so much! We are so excited to bring Hannah into our family are are so thankful for everyone helping us!

Sold out!

We have sold out of fishing tickets! We will be drawing tomorrow night and postng the video Saturday morning at the latest. Thank you so much to everyone who donated to help us bring Hannah home. We are truly blessed to have so many people who careabout Hannah and really want her home as fast as possible. We have made all our adoption payments. We only have our final trip to pay for which will probably be between August and October depending on our court dates.

Our article 5 appt is May 31st, please keep us in your prayers!! Thanks!

Fishing

4 more days until we draw for the fishing trip, we are at $4720 today on our FSP funds. Hoping to $5000 BEFORE Friday. That is $280 or 28 people buying one ticket. Can you help? Can you get us closer to Hannah?

Fishing on Friday!!

So y'all know my husband loves to fish. If we weren't so darn busy he would be doing it every weekend.

His brother - loves fishing even more. He loves fishing so much that he got his licence and became a guide. His brother - he also loves us! So much so that he donated a guided fishing rip for three to help bring his niece home.

Do you like to fish? Can you get to the Galveston area?

If you are looking for the perfect fishing trip out of Galveston I have one for you!http://notoriousguideservice.com/

The trip is valued at $550 and we are so excited to see who is going to win it!
Not a red fish fan? (well you are a little nuts because they are yummy) You can choose what type of fish you are looking for, check out his web page for more information. Raffle tickets are $10 each or 6 for $50. You can write us a check made to Reeces Rainbow, sponsor Barlow, or donate using Heaven's picture. Please let me know how many tickets you buy and an email address.

The drawing will be held May 25, 2012

Captain Thomas, thank you so much for this donation! thank you for helping bring your beautiful niece home to Texas!

Grand Prize - Fishing Trip

http://www.notoriousguideservice.com/

1st Prize - (3) Holi-Spheres
http://www.holispheres.com/

2nd Prize - $20 HEB Gift Card

Thank you and God Bless!




Grab This! https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/events/289766711115257/ A friend is also doing an auction for us on Facebook. Please take a look! Some gift cards and gift stuff available. Just click the above link to get to it.

Random...

Sitting on my couch watching Allison take a nap and I am so thankful for her. I am so thankful for my life. It isn't always easy, but it is always worth it.  I miss Hannah so much. I know her schedule, she eats, sleeps and snacks, but I wonder if she thinks about those people who came and visited a week and then disappeared. I hope her teacher reminds her everyday about it. Let's her know we are coming back, we were real. Today I was watching a video of when I was tickling her and she was giggling. It was the first time I heard her giggle and we have a beautiful record of it. I have a video of the first time she gave her daddy a hug, pulled away and then went back for more hugs and I cannot watch it without my heart breaking. The hardest part adoption is learning you have to totally let the control go. You can do all your paperwork in a day but once you send it away you are at the mercy of someone else and their time frame may not and probably will not we the same as your time frame. Gods greatest lesson to me, let it go. If I didn't learn it the first time, He showed me the lesson again..... And again. We sent our 800 off on Saturday. I believe it takes around three weeks to approve. All of our paperwork is completed. We have to make one more trip to Austin to get everything  apostled and off to bulgaria again. I am such a random thoughts writer!  Saturday morning was hard. Which is why this has taken me this time to write about. I knew we only had an hour and a half and that would be the last time in months we would see our daughter. I tried hard not to cry. I made sure if I did I cried away from hannah. Bobby would see me start to get teary and focus her attention elsewhere. Once I started crying the psychologist started getting teary. I guess that is a good sign she can see now much we truly love Hannah.  We had tons of fun with her Saturday morning and she was laughing and having fun. We stayed over our time and the director came in to let us know. The truth is I wanted to grab her and run. The thought of leaving without her - painful. I promised my husband the day we committed that I would do everything 100% by the book (its Hague you have to anyway). That means the running was not an option. So we walked her to the elevator and said goodbye while people stared at us. We hugged and kissed while I prayed holding my baby and husband and then we let her go and left.  It was a beautiful and painful moment. We are thankful she is very loved where she is and they treat her well. It is not a family, in no way like a family situation and it is so hard to see kids who have no idea what a mom or dad is.  I am so thankful to Reece's Rainbow. I am so thankful for nogreaterjoymom and nogreaterjoydad whose blogs helped show us that it would not be easy, but it is worth it. I am so thankful to Shelley who has held my hand through mounds of paperwork and who really gets it. Her family is completing their 5th adoption.  I am sure she has heard every single question and always answered nicely and never made me feel crazy. Believe me, I have had some crazy questions. Thank you to everyone who has supported us. Your prayers lift us when we are low and rejoice with us in the good. Your donations are changing this little princesses life. We can't wait until we are finalized so we can show you pictures and videos! She is so fantastic I want you to see her!

Leaving

Bobby and I are home safe and sound. We came in Sunday night at 9 pm and had to be at work Monday at 8 am. We are pretty beat from our emotional journey and the LONG plane ride. One thing is for sure, I am thankful to live in America. I have not been able to blog about our last day because it was so emotional. I still don’t have my heart wrapped around the situation yet. We are ready to send in our next set up paperwork, just waiting for the agency to send the final papers. I wish we knew when she would be home, we don’t. Anything we say is just a guess. We have no control over anyone or anything but ourselves. If it is in our court, we do it right away. I can’t say that everyone else in the process feels the same urgency that we do.

We need $1900 more to complete our last payment.  We are doing a drawing for a guided fishing trip and tickets are $10 each or 6 for $50. You can donate via pay pal or write a check made to Reeces Rainbow with sponsor Barlow in the memo line.

We are so thankful to have said yes, we want to bring another daughter into our home. She really is fantastic and we look forward to bringing her home.  If you see Bobby, give him extra encouragement. He is going on the pickup trip.

MMG Friends

On behalf of Hannah and the many other orphans you gave shoes, we would like to say,

Thank you so much!

We collected 35 pairs of shoes that will make a difference to many children.

It certainly gave our little one something extra to smile about!

The Barlows

Bobby, Nancy,

Allison and Hannah