Thanks!

Hi all! Thanks so much to everyone who is shopping Amazon and ordering Ross Roast through our blog! We've also received so many e-mails and FB messages checking in on us and asking about the adoption process. We love your interest in us and how this crazy process works!

This week, we were able to finalize round one of paperwork and funding. We've submitted everything to AWAA and are now waiting to be assigned to our home study agency and meet our social worker. Our next steps will include preparing our house for the home study. Our house is anything but kid-ready. All we need are outlet plugs, right?

Jimmy and I have both just finished up another school year. He's officially on summer break and hanging out with his brother, Thomas. We've been watching movies, staying up too late, and swimming. I, however, am back to work on Monday to finish up grades and settle in to summer slowly. Our BIG summer adventures involve hanging out in Pasadena and planning for at least one trip to Ethiopia next year.

Happy Summer!
Jimmy and Celeste


PS. Melissa Fay Greene's There Is No Me Without You was one of the first books that we read about Ethiopian adoption. If you are interested in learning more, you should definitely read it.

Coffee and Baby Ellie

Hi all! Thanks for supporting us through all of your amazon purchases! You are the greatest! We wanted to let you know about another fantastic opportunity to help.

Our incredibly generous friend Ross, CEO of Ross Roast Coffee, has offered to partner with us in our adoption journey. Ross will donate 50% of every bag of Ross Roast Coffee that is purchased from our supporters to the Ellie Fund.

Ross has a plethora of coffee options from all over the world, including a number of organic options. He hand-roasts all of his coffee beans so that they are never roasted before a customer places an order. It is definitely some of the freshest and most flavorful coffee that you will ever experience. 

You and your friends can order through http://www.rossroast.com/. When ordering, please note that you are ordering for the Ellie Fund. Again, thanks for your support!

Love,

Jimmy and Celeste

Diving Head-first into Fundraising

We’ve only dabbed our toes into the waters of adoption, and I have found myself stretched and uncomfortable in so many ways. For an introvert who can’t be measured by Myers Briggs, I find this process way too public. We’ve submitted every possible detail of our financial life to strangers on the other side of the country, and we’re waiting for a complete stranger to come visit us to decide if we are fit parents or not. This sort of nakedness in front of strangers feels much more comfortable than the unchartered world of building a fundraising network. I am not a fundraiser. I don’t ask for help. It’s a fault, I know. So, for the baby girl who will be waiting for us on the other side of the world, I swallow my pride.
 

For those of you who don’t know, over the next year or so we will need about $30,000 to finalize our adoption. We’ve saved some, but will need nothing short of a miracle to close the gap between what we have and what we need.  So, despite my hesitations, Jimmy and I have been working on a fundraising plan. Jimmy has been dreaming up ideas for how we can supplement our incomes to bring home Baby Ellie sooner.

Our first step is turning this blog into a source of income. You’ll notice more ads and links to Amazon.com. If you link to Amazon through our site and make a purchase, we will earn a percentage of your purchase. So, if you are a regular Amazon shopper, please link to their site through ours. If not, you really can buy about anything on Amazon, so link through our blog and see what you can find.

Love,

Jimmy and Celeste

Random Bits of Information

Blogging, after several failed attempts, still seems to be quite futile. What exactly are we supposed to write about and who do we think actually has time to read all of these words... wasted words. The bottom line is we've got lots of waiting to do. But, I guess blogging is what you're supposed to do during the adoption process; it seems like that's what everyone else is doing, so blindly we follow.

Since our initial entry, we've been working on making the blog pretty, plowing through mounds of paperwork, and researching adoption grants. Apparently the labor of adoption is a bitter mix of waiting and finding tens of thousands of dollars to bring your baby home. At this point, our blog is pretty; although much to Jimmy's chagrin, I'm convinced it needs just a little pink or purple for our baby girl. We've only made a minor dent in the paperwork and parenting classes that we need to complete. We've researched grants and found lots of promising options; however, this just leads to more paperwork. Let the paper chase continue!

In case you're interested:
- There are an estimated 153 million orphans in the world
- Of that 153 million, approximately 53 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Only 2% of Ethiopia's population is over 65 years-old
- On average, women in Ethiopia will have 6 babies
- The expected literacy rate for girls in Ethiopia (literacy defined as being over 15 years-old and able to read and write) is only about 35%
- About 32% of Ethiopians speak Amharic
- Grandma in Amharic: Sayt Ayat
- Grandpa in Amharic: Wund Ayat

Back to the grindstone :)
Jimmy and Celeste

It's Official!

Yay! We submitted our application to America World Adoption Association May 1, 2011 to begin our process of adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia. We found out last Friday, May 13, 2011, that we were accepted into their program. The road ahead will be long; we're expecting to wait at least two years before we finally get to bring her home. We'll do our best to keep the blog up-to-date so that you can know how the process is going.


Thanks for your love and support,
Jimmy and Celeste