Matt & Darla's Many Adoption Fundraisers!!

Most of you already know, from our posts on Facebook, that Matt and I are currently in the process of trying to adopt a little Marshallese little boy, due September 14 in Arkansas. It's all come up really quickly and suddenly and we're just crazy busy right now, scrambling to get everything done that we have to do in time.

We've got about $6,000.00 more that we have to come up with between now and September 1 in order to make this happen. We are currently working on SEVERAL fundraisers, etc, to help us raise the rest of the money that we need to adopt this little baby boy. We've had quite a few family and friends come to us and ask us what they can do to help. Well...this is what we need help with right now. We need help getting the rest of the money together so that we can adopt this little boy!! We will keep everyone posted on what we get scheduled and where and all of the details. We welcome any help we can get at this point, in whatever capacity!

At the suggestion and request of several people, I've also created a little widget at the top, left corner of our blog in which anyone who wants to can donate and contribute through PayPal.

I apologize that this post might seem a little scatterbrained and all over the place.....it's kind of the way I'm feeling right now with everything going on. I apologize that I haven't really given a lot of details here on the whole story of how this has come about. I promise that I will do so as soon as I have a chance!

We can do this! Please help us get this little baby boy here!!

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (cont. #2)

In continuation of our time in Puerto Vallarta:

These pictures were taken of Puerto Vallarta as we were coming back in from being out on our excursion all day long snorkeling at the private island of Majahuitas.

Nice! Maybe someday? LOL Dream big! :)

I thought this old pirate ship was pretty cool looking.

Even Puerto Vallarta has Walmart! I just laughed and had to take a picture! LOL

We were coming back to our ship for a few minutes to leave our swimming gear and freshen up a bit before heading back out again to do some exploring.

Matt and I....Back on the dock.

The snorkeling excursion we went on took us about 7.5 hours, but by the time we got back to the ship we still had about 2 hours to kill before time for our ship to sail out. There was no way we were going to waste that time! There was still lots more exploring of the island of Puerto Vallarta to do! Bill & Karen Berg went with us and we had an enjoyable time. This is an open flea market of sorts to buy all kinds of things at.

We grabbed a taxi guy and paid him to take us on a quick tour of some of the island during the limited time that we had. He did a great job and got us back to our ship in time to sail out! These pictures were all taken on that short, quick tour.

Matt and I on the beach in Puerto Vallarta.

More pictures of Puerto Vallarta.

Matt & I.

Bill & Karen.

This guy had just been doing some fishing.

Some of the houses were gorgeous!

Again....Matt & I.

Still a few more pictures of Puerta Vallarta to come......

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (cont.)

Thursday, February 4, 2010: This is where the Catamaran anchored at the Majahuitas island that we went snorkeling and spent the day at. As I said in my previous post, this is a very small, very private island so we were the only ones there that day. Once the Catamaran dropped anchor, we all put on our life jackets and our snorkel gear and we jumped off into the water.

I must say that this time I was much more prepared and knew better what to expect with snorkeling than when we went in Aruba in 2007, which was my first time snorkeling ever. Getting the breathing down with the gear is a little tricky, but this time I was able to get it pretty quickly and had no trouble! I did well in Aruba, too, but I did have a little bit of a harder time getting used to the gear there. :)

More pictures of the Majahuitas private island.

Obviously, I didn't take any pictures on the island or while we were snorkeling because we had to swim the rest of the way in to the beach. Our camera is not waterproof and there was no way to carry the camera with me without getting it wet and destroying it. I could have bought a waterproof disposable camera, but I found that when I did that in Aruba the pictures just didn't turn out well enough for me to feel like doing it again this time. Anyway, we had to leave everything on the Catamaran and swim to the beach. Afterwards, we were all pretty tired, so they brought us back to the Catamaran in a smaller boat. These pictures are all taken as we were going back.

These pictures were all taken as we were back on the Catamaran and were heading back to our ship. We were all pretty tired at this point...since we had spent the entire day swimming and snorkeling...but it was so worth it! :)

These are all friends or ours. They are all coworkers/contractors of Matt's that had gone on this excursion with us.

Left to right: Matt, Karen Berg, Bill Berg, Brent Cardon, Marie Cardon, and Richard Harward (one of the owners of Sprinkler World and one of the guys we get our paychecks from!).

Left to right: Me, Matt, Karen Berg, Bill Berg, Marie Cardon, Richard Harward.

Matt and I....with Karen Berg to the right of Matt.

More pictures on the way back to the ship.

Part of the excursion on the way back included dancing, music, and entertainment provided by the crew. Brent Cardon is in the red shirt and Char'Ree Reynolds is in the white shirt. Both were from our group and were playing a dancing game. The other 2 people were just random people who were also on the excursion. These were the final 4 in the game and Brent and Char'Ree actually ended up winning it together. It was pretty fun and entertaining! :)

More pictures of Puerto Vallarta as we were coming back in.

Jeff & Char'Ree Reynolds standing. Karen Berg is sitting.

We had a really great time on the excursion!