And the beat goes on...

Cheers!
It has been awhile since our last post, but for a good reason! Many of you know my mom was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer 2 days before Mother's Day. (No cheers needed for that one!) I of course stopped everything and flew to Phoenix to help her with her doctors, tests, appointments, scheduling, driving, etc. After about a month or so she was able to transfer to a wonderful unit in La Jolla, CA just outside of San Diego. I stayed with her another month and a half to help with her treatment and unemployment, social security, medicaid, etc. Who knew so much was involved in trying to get someone help when they need it! Needless to say, I was happy to come back after almost 3 months to fresh new start at my new school, still teaching 1st grade, even though I miss my mom dearly while she's finishing up her chemo. She only has 2 treatments left before surgery and radiation! Woohoo!!!

This experience and journey has been eye opening and of course has brought us even closer to our desire to start a family! Patrick and I have grown stronger through this, When you think you couldn't love someone any more than you already do, well, life throws a curve ball and your love grows to a whole other level. I can't wait for my mother to meet our future children!

Patrick and our family and friends huddled around me to help start off the new school year and to lessen the stress. My new job couldn't have come at a more perfect time to alleviate some of the stress. And the new people I have met in the past month or two have been amazing and so supportive.

Today, some of my close friends are helping us fundraise at the NC State football game. We will be walking the tailgaiting aisles and selling bead necklaces for the game. Please share the word! We will also be going back to sell towards the end of October and November games. Can't wait to see the turn out from today's game! This wolfpack girl needs to reach our new goal of $3500 by Thanksgiving. That's $1000 past our current collection amount of $2500.

Our goal by the end of the year is $5000. Thank you again to everyone who has been so supportive and who have shared our story with others!

Stay tuned for updates about my mom, as I will be returning to California for Thanksgiving and Christmas most likely. Wish I could be there every day!!!

April Fundraiser with Scentsy!!!

I know its been awhile, but school has been keeping me busy and I'm finally on spring break! Woohoo!

We have received a few donations from friends since January (THANK YOU!) and not having cable has been AMAZING! We have been able to add some of our money from having no cable as well as some of our tax money. We are now almost at $2500 which has exceeded our goal of $2000 by the end of March. We are hoping to get at least $500 or more from our fundraiser this month. Think Mother's Day, Birthdays, Easter, and (dare I say it) even Christmas gifts! My sister-in-law Kate's good friends Michelle runs a Scentsy business on the side and has graciously agreed to give us 20% of all the sales using the link below for the 1st 3 weeks of April. Hip Hip Hooray!!! We are so grateful for Michelle and Kate for getting this rolling and we are excited to share this win-win opportunity for you all! Please share this post and the link with all of your friends, family, co-workers, and of course feel free to share it on facebook!

https://michelleuphold.scentsy.us/Scentsy/Home?partyId=232562084 
Click on the blue/green arrow at the top and select Crystal's Adoption - shop now!

Joyce (Pat's mom) and I will be having sample scents and products at both of our work locations in case you are not familiar with Scentsy and would like to see it in person first. I have 3 scentsy burners - 2 large ones and 1 wall plug in. I LOVE THEM! They smell delicious and last forever! I don't know if I'll go back to candles! ;-) You can even set them on a timer plug that will have it kick on 30 mins before you get home and go off at bedtime. AMAZING!

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On a side note, we are hoping to get a family friendly car this week to help us out when it comes time to sign the adoption paperwork. We have been sharing Patrick's truck (18 years old I think!) since August and boy has it been fun! haha Not really! We are excited to have saved up some money and are ready to get a new used car that will fit our future family! We were able to sell his car just yesterday (22 years old - his little honda prelude). I think 7 months of sharing a truck was just enough time for him to grieve the loss of his car ;-) 

Plus, I've been working on the side this quarter creating a fun research unit about the ocean, desert, rainforest, and arctic to sell on TeachersPayTeachers. I am $6 away from earning $300 and I have now sold 166 items! Business is picking up! I'll be working hard over spring break to get some more sales in!

Additional good news! I have accepted a new teaching job at Cardinal Charter Academy and will still be teaching 1st grade come August. The wonderful added bonus - a few more thousand in the bank each year, and it is about a 5 minute drive from our place and a 1 minute drive from Patrick's mom's house. We have been searching for a few years to find something close to our area so that we could start our family and the timing is perfect! We are ecstatic that we will be able to have more quality time with our future kiddos!

Here are some of our goals for the upcoming years - 

1) Raise $1,000 or more each quarter

2) Purchase a 2nd family car next spring 2015 (possibly sell the old but faithful truck?)

3) Have a down payment for our 1st house in spring/summer 2016

4) Get our home - home-study ready! Child proofing and all! :-D

5) 2017 hopefully reached our $20,000 goal and ready to adopt!

Here's some quotes of inspiration! Our vision is in sight and our goals are attainable!

“Live your vision and demand your success.” 
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“The first step toward creating an improved future is developing the ability to envision it. VISION will ignite the fire of passion that fuels our commitment to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to achieve excellence. Only VISION allows us to transform dreams of greatness into the reality of achievement through human action. VISION has no boundaries and knows no limits. Our VISION is what we become in life. ” 
― Tony Dungy

“Nothing is more imminent than the impossible . . . what we must always foresee is the unforeseen.” 
― Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Happy New Year

Hip Hip Hooray!
It's the start of a new year....FINALLY! Cheers to new goals, new experiences, and new friendships!

We have some good news! We weren't too sure about how our amazon link was doing and whether we were receiving a percentage of people using the link to make their purchases. Well, WE ARE! Our first deposit from Amazon has been made into our adoption account, it's not much but it's a start! We earned $24.55 just from people clicking our link over the past month and a half! If you haven't yet, PLEASE do!

Also, since I've been sick this week (can't seem to shake it!), Patrick checked the mail and we were happily surprised to find a $10 check from our JustLoveCoffee fundraiser! Thank you to whoever ordered coffee from our link!

We've also been getting some questions about our Coupaide Adoption Fundraiser link with restaurant.com. After a few emails, they have informed us that they are updating/upgrading their website and will be back online in a couple months. I'm hoping they'll be ready by March sometime, but we'll let you know as soon as we hear!

We have also sold another t-shirt to a woman who is also adopting all the way from Springfield, MO. It's so great to know that we are reaching people states away! Our first out of state sale was to another woman, also adopting, from Oklahoma! Good luck to them both!

Lastly, I've earned $12.08 this month from my teacherspayteachers account, which again, isn't much, but every little bit helps!

Our plan for the next week is to get our men's t-shirts ordered and in stock. Hopefully I'll have them ready to ship out the week after!

A bit of good news...I will be meeting with one of my students' parents who has her own online radio podcast called NapTimeRadio. She surprised us over the Christmas break wanting to help us out in some way so she will be having an adoption fundraiser for her 2000/week listeners. How exciting! Can't wait to meet with her and get it started! Stay tuned!

Our new total is $1067.63!
Only $932.37 until our 2nd $1000 benchmark and only 18,932.37 to go until our ultimate goal! Hopefully we can reach our next 1000 by April!

Hope you are staying warm and cozy!!!!

Our first $1000 benchmark!!!

HIP HIP HOORAY!
We are now past our 1st $1000!!!!
We have received two more donations since Christmas bringing our new total to:

$1012!!!!!!

Only $18,988  left to go! 

Thank you to everyone for helping make our dreams come true! Can't wait for a sweet lil buddy to snuggle up with especially on a cold wintry day like today!