Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Some people call it Wordless Wednesday


I can think of a few captions though :)

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

*Warning this post contains disturbing subject matter*

Before reading further, I want to make sure anyone reading this understands this is a very disturbing subject having to do with forced abortions in China. This report sites cases from our own daughters finding area in China and once again, whenever I come across this kind of information, I have to stop what I am doing and thank God for His intervention in whatever her birth circumstances might have been. We are forever grateful to Elizabeth's birth mother for most likely taking great risks to preserve her life.

Below is part of the report and you can read the full story HERE.

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Physical coercion to terminate a pregnancy or undergo sterilisation was banned by law in 2002 but numerous reports in the Chinese media claim that it still goes on.

Chinese women are daring to speak out themselves. Zhang Linla, who has a four-year-old daughter, told a website in Shenzhen, on the border with Hong Kong, that she was subjected to a late forced abortion because she became pregnant again before the period officially allowed between births.

"Six days before the due date, 10 strong strangers came to my house, forced me into a truck then took me to a family planning clinic, where the doctor gave me an injection," she said.

"The child began struggling in my womb and one of these scum even kicked me in the abdomen. Then the baby came out and they threw it into a rubbish bin. I could even see it was still moving."

An even more horrifying story, reported on hundreds of websites, concerned a case of infanticide in Wuhan, central China, last September. A farmer named Huang Qiusheng said his wife, who was nine months pregnant, gave birth to a live child despite being forced to submit to an injection to induce an abortion. The infant was thrown into a urinal.

The next day an elderly woman named Liu Zhuyu heard the child's cries, rescued it, washed it and delivered it to a neonatal clinic. But the reports claim that five family planning officials confronted Liu, seized the child and killed it by throwing it to the ground.

The complexity of family planning laws and their arbitrary enforcement often contributes to cases of cruelty.

This month a newspaper in Yunnan province reported a case of compulsory sterilisation that has appalled commentators. It involved a woman named Zhang Kecui, who was ambushed in the street by family planning officials and dragged on to the operating table for a sterilisation.

Zhang has two children and according to regulations should have been sterilised after the second birth. Her husband has lodged a legal complaint but has little hope of redress.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

32,000 ft ~ 552mph ~ est. arrival 1:36 pm HK time


Thats their status as of 3:58 p.m. 2/17 thanks to Flight Tracker!

What amazing (and FUN) technology to track an international flight in real time! (It's even more fun when you know the reason for the flight!)

Monday, February 16, 2009

Back to our virtual trips of our favorite places to stay, here's one of our favorites and it's right at our back door! Just a short drive for us and it is an escape that completely takes you to another world.




Around the turn of the century, the Grove Park Inn was built by Italian stone masons who hauled tons upon tons of boulders up the mountain by mule and other methods that we would consider almost impossible by todays standards. The fireplaces inside the main lobby are so large, an adult can actually stand inside the firebox.
We especially love to visit this majestic inn during the Winter months as they keep a roaring fire going in the lobby 24/7. Along with the multitude of things to do we often simply enjoy sitting for hours enjoying the warmth of the fire rocking in the chairs positioned in front of it.


The views of the mountains and the city of Asheville are breathtaking and you can dine on the veranda overlooking them.

Take the elevator to the lower level and viola... you once again are taken to another world. The spa, the indoor pool, the waterfalls, etc.. are simply amazing.

Best news?.. they have a fabulous special going on right now!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

'Twas the night before China...

and it's so exciting to have friends leaving TOMORROW!

I can't be reading this correctly!?

The full article is HERE.
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By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in migration assistance to the Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.

The "presidential determination" which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4.

President Obama's decision, according to the Register, was necessitated by "the urgent refugee and migration needs" of the "victims."

Few on Capitol Hill took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006.

The charter for Hamas calls for the replacement of the nation of Israel with a Palestinian Islamic state.

Since its formation in 1994, Hamas has been responsible for hundreds of terrorist attacks, including the 2002 Passover suicide bombing. The leaders of the movement signed the World Islamic Statement of 1998 – a document, penned by Osama bin Laden, which declared war on America and Israel.

President Obama's executive order is expected to bring hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, many with ties to radical Islam, to our shores...

More..

Thursday, February 12, 2009

a few more :)



Way to go boys!!!
Ok, I'm done :)

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

There's an old saying...





that if Gymnastics were easy it would be called football. :)

Sunday, February 8, 2009

that was then...


and today he won 3 medals in the state gymnastics meet! Way to go John! Breakfast of champions..Toss the Wheaties and go Cheerios!

Thursday, February 5, 2009

A sad day for our military and families of those who gave their lives


and 245 more suspected terrorists may soon have charges dropped and could be released to "other nations".

Wonder what their new found freedom plans might entail?

Gifted Hands

I was so excited to hear about an upcoming documentary on Dr. Ben Carson. I have followed this gifted surgeons career for many years and am an totally inspired by his life.

If you have time, tune in on Saturday Feb. 7 @ 8/7c. You won't regret it.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Stolen lunches?



This ought to do the trick. Get yours here.

And speaking of stealing...
Here are some of the things in the $819 Billion Stimulus package reported by Newsmax:
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For starters — and this will shock you — both the House and the Senate programs have a loophole that even gives illegal aliens cash payouts.
Here’s how The Associated Press explained it: “Undocumented immigrants who are not eligible for a Social Security number can file tax returns with an alternative number. A House-passed version of the economic recovery bill, and one making its way through the Senate, would allow anyone with such a number, called an individual taxpayer identification number (TIN), to qualify for the tax credits.”
In case you didn’t know it, any illegal can get a TIN number from Social Security, no questions asked.
This means illegals who broke the law to get here will be eligible immediately for federal cash — up to $1,000.

More than $4 billion is earmarked for "neighborhood stabilization activities" — money that will go to groups like ACORN, which worked closely with the Obama campaign, the same group accused of massive voter fraud.

Almost half of the proposed spending will directly benefit the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions, or other Democratic-controlled unions, according to writer Ben Stein.

600 million goes for new cars for top government bureaucrats.

Obama promised major infrastructure projects — yet only 5 percent of all the money goes for this.

$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. (Take a look at some of the things your tax dollars would be going toward here) There are many MANY ways to foster Art without letting this type of "Art" become included as the National Endowment for the Arts has allowed.

$650 million for the switch from analog television to digital.

Just to show you the tremendous waste, there is so much money appropriated in this bill you could give every unemployed person in the nation a check for $75,000 for the amount being spent.

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Copy house


Elizabeth told me we live in a copy house. What? I really try hard not to copy others and have our own junk (err, I mean style).. so I continued to quiz her a bit more. "Really" I said? .. She was insistent that indeed we live in a copy house.

Ok. I said. What did we copy?

"Our house copies our voices Mommy" she replied.

"Oh you mean it echo's"? I said?

yes she tells me. It copies.