In the very beginning of the long and winding China adoption road

we were very blessed to begin our journey with a group of families in our community that were also in the process of adopting from China. Its hard to believe that was almost 5 years ago now and it has been a wonderful experience to watch these children grow, celebrate fun times together, and become almost like extended family with them.

Even though as all the children get older and lives seem to become busier, it is still wonderful on those rare occasions when we gather and enjoy the incredible gift of these amazing little boys and girls we share. This, was one of these special occasions. As you can see in the pictures below, our "princess" was overcome and humbled by your kindness. Thank you friends.








A special welcome from visitors coming from Kelly's Korner linky!

Silly boys, pretty girls, and turkey~!

For weeks our children have been looking forward to their cousins coming in from out of town and it brought back many memories of childhood and the anticipation building for those special moments and times. Cousin Josh spent the night with us and you couldn't pry John away from his 'buddy'! We call him our cousin brother :)

The boys decided they wanted to watch a marathon of 'star wars' (VHS!) and we decided they have such little time during the hectic week normally, that we would let them do whatever they wanted.

Elizabeth was equally enthralled with her female cousins and there were very few moments that you didn't see them together. A very Happy Thanksgiving was had by all!! We are hoping to have Hannah (the oldest cousin ;) live a little closer as she starts college this coming fall and might be just a few miles down the road!

Next stop.. the Christmas tree farm~!

Mother expecting 3rd child challenges China's forced abortion policy

Even though we know this happens in China and elsewhere it is still very disturbing to read accounts of this. I am so very thankful to Elizabeth's birth mother and many other women in China who most likely endured many sacrifices to protect and preserve a life.

Below is the article. The link is at the bottom.
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Chinese officials have caved to international pressure and will now release a woman who is pregnant with her third child.

The woman was being held in a hospital in order to undergo a forced abortion. China has a strict one child policy, although two children are permitted under certain circumstances. Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute is thankful that officials have released the woman, but says now is not the time to forget her situation.

"She's been released now because the world is watching," he points out. "But as soon as the world blinks I'm afraid this woman could be rearrested and…[the child] forcibly aborted. She is by no means out of the woods."

According to Mosher, if she does have the baby, it will have to be in a government hospital because it is illegal to deliver a baby elsewhere. "And when she goes to the hospital to give birth they may very well take that baby and give it a lethal injection while it's being born," he warns. "That happens all the time in China."

If she gave birth privately, she would still not be free said Mosher. "Because she's given the population control police an enormous headache…they will be looking for her," he contends.

China plans to continue the forced abortion population control program another 42 years.
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Here is the link to the entire story.

Why is it a clean and empty refrigerator makes you think your whole house is clean? and..corn pudding!

After cleaning out the.. errrr humm,.. old stuff and sticky spills from our refrigerator, it feels like the entire house is clean. Gotta make room for the TuRkEy :)

The above picture has absolutely nothing to do with cleaning out the frig. it's just a sweet memory from last year's Thanksgiving day.

Here's one more recipe our family enjoys during the holiday season!

Holiday Corn Pudding

1 large bag frozen white or yellow corn ( at least 32 oz of corn- I use 3- 16 oz. packages and mix white and yellow)
7-8 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 - 3/4 cup sugar
4 T. butter

beat eggs, milk, and sugar. Melt butter in the bottom of a 13x9 pyrex baking dish. Pour egg mixture into pan and mix with butter.

Bake @ 350 for about 1 1/2 hours. (check it after an hour. It should be a light golden brown on the top when done.

ENJOY!

Need an example of Peace during a turbulent time?

If you haven't visited "Little cabin in the woods" ...
This is a real life Thanksgiving story to inspire all.

Move over Emeril!

update note: Welcome to those visiting visiting from Kelly's korner's Thanksgiving linky!
In a quest to diversify and expand John's horizons, I signed him up for a "Chef's" class at a quaint victorian tea house in our area. It is actually a children's cooking class but we decided to re-name the activity for the sake of gender security :) So, A culinary class for budding chef's began.

John actually really enjoyed it and they went into great detail about table manners (YES!), nutrition, kitchen safety, and of course preparation and finally ..the feast! It was a several day a week class and we went for 3-4 weeks. I have to say the recipe's he came home with were some of my all time favorites! We didn't waste much time trying a few things at home.

Here are recipe's of the winners from our home to yours!

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Crispy Brown Sugar Bacon!
Hint: Twist the bacon for a texture that's crisp on the ends and chewy in the center.

Ingredients
1 pound hickory-smoked bacon slices
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon cracked black pepper

Preparation
Cut bacon slices in half.

Combine sugar and pepper in a shallow dish. Dredge bacon in sugar mixture, shaking off excess.

Twist each bacon slice, if desired. Place bacon in a single layer on a lightly greased baking rack in an aluminum foil-lined baking pan.

Bake at 425° for 20 to 25 minutes or until crisp. Allow bacon to cool before serving.


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ApRiCoT-AlMoNd GrAnOlA! Without a doubt, the best granola we have ever had!


Ingredients
2 3/4 cups regular oats
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup coarsely chopped dried apricots
1/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1/3 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup butter, melted
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine oats, almonds, and next 4 ingredients (through raisins) in a medium bowl. Combine honey and butter. Drizzle honey mixture over oat mixture; toss to coat. Spread mixture in a single layer onto a cookie sheetl pan. Bake at 350° for 15 minutes; stir. Bake an additional 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely on pan. Break into pieces.

This didn't last long at our house! -so, the next time we doubled the recipe. We ate it warm served with vanilla yogurt :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Southern Living Double-Delicious Banana Cake

This was AMAZINGLY EASY and SO good!

Prep: 5 min. Ripe bananas, with brown speckles on the yellow peel, add the best flavor.
Ingredients are:

The Cake Batter:
1 (16-oz.) package pound cake mix
3 large bananas, mashed
2 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
Preparation
1. Beat all ingredients at low speed with an electric mixer 30 seconds. Scrape down sides, and beat at medium speed 3 minutes. Use batter immediately, following directions for desired cake.

Note: we used Betty Crocker Pound Cake Mix.

Banana-Pecan Cake Batter: Prepare Banana Cake Batter as directed; stir 1 cup chopped toasted pecans into batter. Use immediately, following directions for desired cake.

````````````
After making the batter you:
gather the following:

Banana Cake Batter
3 large bananas
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Buttercream Frosting (see below)

Preparation
1. Spoon Banana Cake Batter evenly into 3 greased and floured 8-inch round cake pans.

2. Bake at 350° for 20 to 22 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Remove cakes from pans; cool completely on wire racks.

3. Cut bananas into 1/4-inch-thick slices; toss with lemon juice, and drain on paper towels.

4. Place 1 cake layer on a serving plate; spread top evenly with 1/2 cup frosting. Arrange half of banana slices in a single layer over the frosting. Spread top of second cake layer evenly with 1/2 cup frosting, and invert, frosted side down, over the first layer, sandwiching the banana slices between the 2 frosted cake layers. Repeat sandwiching procedure with remaining cake layer. Frost top and sides of cake with remaining frosting.

````````````````

Buttercream Frosting:

Prep: 10 min. This recipe makes a generous amount of frosting for all the layers of the Double-Delicious Banana Cake. Halve the recipe for your favorite sheet cake.

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
2 (16-oz.) packages powdered sugar
2/3 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Preparation
1. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add powdered sugar alternately with milk, beating at low speed until blended after each addition. Stir in 1 Tbsp. vanilla.

If we as parents don't take a stand in shepherding our children's hearts ..

Who will?

I was particularly inspired this week by an elderly lady named Phyllis Burgess. She was attacked by G*y activists during their protest of the Prop. 8 amendment in California.

Alone, she peacefully held a cross and was there to support traditional marriage values. While there, she was spit on, verbally and physically assaulted, her cross was grabbed and stomped on breaking it into pieces, and this continued until the police were called. The elderly lady maintained a serene and non-combative attitude during the entire ordeal.

If this had been reversed and happened to one of the G*y activists (ie, being attacked, spit on etc..) by a conservative group can you imagine the headlines? As far as I can tell, this story has not been widely publicized.

As I tucked our children in bed this evening it really struck me how difficult it will be for them to maintain the values we hold true as our nation drifts further and further from Christ. It appears there is tolerance for almost anything except for conservative and or Christian viewpoints in many facets of our daily lives.

If almost 70 year old Phyllis Burgess can take a stand, so can I.

*A special note to Haley concerning her link here - Haley you have given us a very small glimpse of what Phyllis Burgess must have gone through that day and really triggered my thoughts above when I said goodnight to our children. For that, I am grateful.*

You can watch part of what happened to Phyllis Burgess HERE. It is well worth the few minutes it takes to view it. Be sure to watch the last half of the video as this is where you see her in great jeopardy.

Please consider passing on the link to the Burgess story. Thank you friends.

a pRiNcEsS tUrNs 4 ! ~ NEW UPDATE BELOW ~

Four years ago at 8:47 a.m. November 13, 2004 our telephone rang and as a daughter, I was suddenly hearing the words I have dreaded to hear my entire life. It was my Mom and she told me the rescue squad was at their home, and my Dad wasn't breathing. I had just visited with him only hours earlier the previous evening. One minute he was laughing and with us on this earth, and without any warning, he was ushered into the arms of his Heavenly Father.

That very same mid autumn morning four years ago, unbeknownst to me at the time, our daughter had just been born in a Province called Hubei in central China. 3 days later as we were preparing for my Dad's funeral she was found on a step under an overhang at a nursing home wrapped in a white blanket with blue animals printed on it.

We don't believe this was all by 'chance'. Rather, we know the intricate threads that brought our lives together almost one year later were woven by the hands of a loving and merciful God.

Elizabeth, our prayer is that God will always be the wind beneath YOUR wings.
Happy Birthday number 4 our precious sweetheart.

UPDATE:
Thank all of you so much for your kind wishes for our E'beth. She had a wonderful day enjoying simple little things like a new hair style and painted fingernails with glitter on them :)

We allowed her to choose a restaurant for dinner and of course she chose a Chinese one! They even put a candle in a piece of 3 milk cake :) and sang Happy Birthday to her in Mandarin!

.. after dinner the princess was escorted by her Daddy and brother to a play while Mommy dashed home with the balloons and cake for a "surprise" party. She opened her one special gift which was a cradle for her "Papa" (aka Panda). I wish I had the opening on tape. She squealed as if we had given her a bar of gold. Our precious sweetheart was SO appreciative of her present.

We are blessed.

(Welcome to those visitors from "Kelly's Korner"!)

Ever wonder what it's like to look out your window and see a moose or two staring back at you?

Spend ye nary another second wondering - . HERE it is!

Pretty clever costume IMHO :)

I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree..

Daughter of Military soldier mocked by teacher in class for her Presidential choice

Here are our tax dollars at work in a public school system in N.C. How would you feel if happened to your child on either side of the political spectrum? Also note the teachers incorrect grammar and use of the English language during her "lecture"..

Click Here to watch what happened.

UPDATE: Michelle Obama 'interviews' private schools for her daughters in Washington D.C.
Are the public schools our tax dollars fund not good enough for his own family? What about the people that would like to send their child to a private/ Christian school but aren't as financially able as Mr. and Mrs. Barack Obama?

Here is the info on the school the Obama children attend in Chicago:

(CNSNews.com) – As chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) from 1995 to 2001, Barack Obama helped distribute $49.2 million to help improve Chicago’s public schools, a task for the CAC that two studies showed had little or no impact on improving public education.

Despite his work to improve Chicago’s public schools, the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee sends his two daughters to the University of Chicago’s Laboratory School, a prestigious private school in Chicago – and he opposes school vouchers, which would allow parents to send their kids to the school of their choice.

Tuition for the Chicago Lab School where Obama’s daughters attend is $18,492 a year for grades 1-4, the grades Obama’s daughters attend. The tuition climbs to $20,286 a year for grades 5-8, and $21,480 a year for grades 9-12, according to the school’s Web site.

“That’s not unusual. Loads of people opposed to school choice send their own kids to private school,” said Dick Komer, senior litigation attorney for the Institute for Justice, which supports school vouchers.

“Wealthy people like Obama have school choice,” Komer told CNSNews.com. “This is garden variety hypocrisy.”
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Thank you Amy C. for bringing up the subject of the Obama daughters private education in the comment section under this post.

whoooa

a 41 foot wave that almost killed the surfer.

Do America's new young voters understand Socialism and Communism?

Do they just think it's a 'cool thing'? They are about to find out what its all about.

For example, talk to physicians and surgeons who practice in US cities that border Canada. Their practices are thriving in a major part by Canadians who have a 'government managed health care system' (lets cut the flack and call it what it is, a Socialistic health care program).. Canadians are crossing into the USA with cash in hand, to obtain lifesaving procedures such as bypass surgery etc.. It is either that, or die in many cases. The wait time in Canada for many potential lifesaving surgeries or procedures is like playing "Russian roulette" with your very life.

Anyone for major surgery in a Chinese hospital?

Oh, and BTW, Got a 401 (k) plan? Think you'll be able to keep it...??? Click Here.

Change

as defined by America's #1 most Liberal senator and his V.P. choice of the nations 3rd most Liberal.

May God grant mercy on our nation that has turned so away from Him.

You can decide..

The following is from a Hillary Clinton supporter who obtained a paid staff position on the Obama campaign. She exposes some of the internal 'strategy' of the Obama campaign.

------------------------------------
Here is the text/ post from http://hillbuzz.wordpress.com #18 on Oct. 27
---------------------------------
Ok, I want to clear my conscious a little. Hopefully you could make a blog post to help some fellow clinton supporters out.

I work for a campaign and can’t wait for this week to be over.

I was doing it for a job. I was not a fan of any candidate but over time grew to love HRC.

The internal campaign idea is to twist, distort, humiliate and finally dispirit you.

We pay people and organize people to go to all the online sites and “play the part of a clinton or mccain supporter who just switched our support for obama”

We do this to stifle your motivation and to destroy your confidence.
We did this the whole primary and it worked.

Sprinkle in mass vote confusion and it becomes bewildering. Most people lose patience and just give up on their support of a candidate and decide to just block out tv, news, websites, etc.

This surprisingly has had a huge suppressing movement and vote turnout issues.

Next, we infiltrate all the blogs and all the youtube videos and overwhelm the voting, the comments, etc. All to continue this appearance of overwhelming world support.
People makes posts to the effect that the world has “gone mad”
Thats the intention. To make you feel stressed and crazy and feel like the world is ending.

We have also had quite a hand in skewing many many polls, some we couldn’t control as much as we would have liked. But many we have spoiled over. Just enough to make real clear politics look scarey to a mccain supporter. Its worked, alough the goal was to appear 13-15 points ahead.
see, the results have been working. People tend to support a winner, go with the flow, become “sheeple”

The polls are roughly 3-5 points in favor of Barack. Thats due to our inflation of the polls and pulling in the sheeple.

Our donors, are the same people who finance the MSM. Their interests are tied, Barack then tends to come across as teflon. Nothing sticks. And trust, there were meetings with Fox news. The goal was to blunt them as much as possible. Watch Bill Oreilly he has become much more diplomatic and “fair and balanced” and soft. Its because he wants to retain the #1 spot on cable news and to do that he has to have access to the Obama campaign and we worked hard at stringing him a long and keeping him soft for an interview swap. It worked and now he is anticipating more access. So he is playing it still soft.
This is why nothing sticks.

The operation is massive, the goal is to paint a picture that is that of a winner, regardless of the results.

There is no true inauguration draft or true grant park construction going on. There will be a party, but we are boasting beyond the truth to make it seem like the election is wrapped up.

Our goal is to continue to make you lose your moral. We worked hard at persuasion and paying off and timing and playing the right political numbers to get key republican endorsements to make it seem even more like it was over and the world was coming to an end for you all.

There is a huge staff of people working around the clock, watching every site, blogs, etc. We flood these sites. We have had a goal to overwhelm.

The truth is here. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

I am saying this because I know HRC was better for the country, and now realize this. I was too late by the time I connected to her. To me Barack was just a cool young dude that seemed like a star. I didn’t know him or his policies, but now I understand more than I care to and I realize his interests are more for him, and the DNC and all working like puppets with dean. I always thought a president wanted the better good for the country. The end result I see is everyone dependent on the government, this means more and more people voting for the DNC. This means the future is forever altered. I don’t see this as america, so I am now supporting John Mccain.

Sarah Palin is a huge threat, and our campaign has feared her like you can’t imagine. If it seems unfair how she has been treated, well its because she has had a team working round the clock to make her look like a fool.
this is a big conspiracy and I am so shocked that its not realized.

We released a little blurb the other day that the Obama campaign was already working on reelection and now putting our efforts towards 2012. This was to make it seem like it was above us to continue caring about 2008. Trust me, its a lie. David is very smart, but its a sticky ugly not very truthful kind of intelligence.
Its not over yet, but I think the machine is working. And its a hill to climb.

I will be quitting my post on nov 5th and my vote will be for John Mccain. Fortunately, my position has been a marketing position and I don’t feel I had any part of anything I would feel guilty for. But I look forward to getting out of this as the negativity and environment upsets me.
I wish you all well, and goodluck.
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Han Li Rong. A day never forgotten

She came to us with a simple yellow bottle tied around her neck with a blue string, her layered clothing, and the Panda we had sent in a care package. Elizabeth and all her worldly possessions were suddenly in my arms 3 years ago.

One of our wonderful travel mates had a beautiful post about how brave these little girls are. I have to agree totally. They are taken from everything they have ever known (good and bad) and suddenly find themselves in the arms of total strangers who look different, smell different, talk different, and hold them differently.

Elizabeth my sweetheart, words simply won't come this evening as I reflect on how far you have come and how proud we are of you. We love you with all our hearts and you have made our home complete. My prayer is that I can be the Mother that God wants me to be .. for you. Your Daddy and I will always be here for you until God calls us home. Even in the absence of an earthly Mother and Father you might face someday (hopefully a very long time from now), we will teach you that you have a Heavenly Father that wants to live in your heart forever.

Wuhan Hubei PRC

And we were off. We boarded the plane that would take us to Elizabeths province and even though it was a reasonably short flight, it seemed like eternity. We landed and followed the mass of parents to be and other travel companions through the Wuhan airport terminal to meet up with our new guide/s. There he stood with the only English words in sight printed in bold red letters, so he would have been hard to miss.

Once again, after retrieving our luggage (keep in mind 22+ families packed for a +/- 3-4 week adoption trip to a foreign country) so you can imagine this was no small feat! :) .. we were ushered off to another large nice AIR CONDITIONED bus. Our new guide was amazing. She had ice cold bottled water for all of us and proceeded to give us information on the schedule from here on out. She handed each family updates on their children which included feeding schedules, sleeping schedules, and other small bits of info about our children. It was like Christmas Eve. Each little tiny bit of information was like a peek under the tree. We learned if all went well, the babies would be brought to our hotel the next morning. We would attempt to get a good nights rest (yeah right..) and be 'ready' to go early in the a.m.


It was about an hours ride from the airport to our hotel in downtown Wuhan, so all this information was given during the ride. What a blurr! Wuhan was a very different city than what we had just left. Situated along the Yangtze River, Wuhan is a more industrial area, I would say much like Detroit or Pittsburg, only MUCH more polluted. I think if you ask anyone in our travel group, they would agree the pollution is indescribable. What we thought was fog, was smog. It never seemed to leave. We were glued to the window of the bus as we traversed the city and attempted to soak the culture in despite the barrier of the bus walls between us.

We later learned that parts of the Yangtze River are so polluted that there are cities along it where the men won't choose a wife that was born there due to the very high cancer rates (and thinking she will die young). I can believe this after seeing some of these areas as we passed. Very sad.

Finally, our big bus chugged into the Wuhan White Rose Hotel parking lot and we all piled out marching behind Johanna (our new guide) like little soldiers. She was our security blanket for the next week. She truly knew her stuff. Obviously she had been there done this before.


We took the elevator to the 18th floor and stepped out, turned the corner, walked down the hallway, found our room, opened the door, and saw the crib. Suddenly, we knew this was it. It was real.

to be continued..

Madame Pearl

Three years ago tonight Dave and I were walking the streets of Mongkok, Kowloon, Hong Kong enjoying a brief few days of R + R before traveling to Wuhan Hubei ( central China) to be united with our new daughter. We were excited, nervous, exhausted from the trip over and trying to soak each moment in.

Each night we would walk back to our incredible hotel room and you could take a hot bath in the glass walled bathroom and look out over the Hong Kong skyline. It was magnificent. We were so glad to have arrived a few days early as it gave us both a chance to unwind and reflect on the changes and new directions our lives were about to take. Not that we hadn't fully understood the magnitude of the journey, but with all the preparations leading up to traveling and making arrangements for our son John during our trip across the globe, there simply wasn't much time to really absorb it. Now, we were only days away from meeting our Elizabeth.

We were to meet up with our travel group of approx. 22 families who were also adopting and the night before we were to unite, I came down with a very nasty bug. I was running a high fever, coughing, vomiting, sore throat, etc.. Dave went out on foot in an attempt to find some cough syrup that was strong enough to muffle it during our flight into mainland China. He succeeded and came back with some pretty putrid stuff called "Madame Pearls". After I took 2 tablespoons, I felt I needed to see the ingredients. On 2nd thought, I decided not to find out :)





Finally the day arrived where we were to have our luggage in the hallway and our guide gathered all 22 families and their travel companions together, piled us on a big bus and took us back to the Hong Kong airport. Our flight would depart from Hong Kong to Wuhan Hubei in the mid morning hours putting us at the destination where we would get Elizabeth sometime that afternoon.

There were indescribable anticipations.

To be continued.

Did you know?

I started to entitle this post "The Audacity of Obama", but have decided to keep this simple and to the point.

Did you know...

Mr. Barack Obama is a very articulate, well dressed, poised individual.

He also :

sponsored S.CON.RES.53: A concurrent resolution expressing the sense of Congress that any effort to impose photo identification requirements for voting should be rejected.

In 1999 Obama was the only Illinois State Senator to vote against a bill barring early release for (criminal) sex offenders.

He voted against filtering pornography on school and library computers and he voted for sex education for kindergarten children through the 5th grade.

Also, in 2001, Obama voted “present” on a bill to keep pornographic book and video stores and strip clubs from setting up within 1,000 feet of schools and churches.

He voted "present" 129 times instead of a yes or no during his term in Illinois. You won't be able to do this in the Oval office.

The Born Alive Infant Protection Act, was legislation that would require hospitals to care for infants who "mistakenly" survive an abortion. Obama spoke against the legislation in 2001 and 2002 and single-handedly defeated it in committee in 2003.

A friend stood in Obama’s path and said, “Senator, we are going to pass Born Alive here in Illinois this year.”

Obama smiled smoothly and agreed, “I think you will,” adding, “I would have voted for the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois had it been worded the same as the federal bill. I think that’s the position the Democrats should take.”

There’s just one thing he forgot to mention: Obama had stopped his committee from adding the federal wording.

With Obama no longer in the Illinois state Senate, the Born Alive legislation passed in 2005.

Mr. Barack Obama was ranked our nations #1 most Liberal Senator this past year.

Mr. Joe Biden was ranked # 3.

A simple click to see if there are any registered Sex Offenders in YOUR neighborhood

HERE'S a link where you simply enter your zip code and you will see a map of offenders that might be in your neighborhood, or nearby. With Halloween just around the corner, this is a great site to bookmark. You can also click on the offense and see the details. I was shocked at the number of these "individuals" that came up on the map surrounding our vicinity.

Any ideas on how to clean off spider droppings?

No Mom, please don't kill it! So, John named it Zig Zag (quite clever IMHO). We watched Zig Zag for several weeks. Zig had babies and that was it. Mom and Dad decided it was time to break the cycle of life. Now we have spider poop that is nearly impossible to get off our window sill. Any experts on this topic out there?

tagged

One of our incredible travel mates who happened to have the hotel room right next to us when we traveled to China for Elizabeth has tagged me. Patricia had to put up with lots of crying and noise from our room since we didn't have air conditioning and it was at times over 90 degrees inside even with our window open as far as it would go! Thanks Patricia for still being our friends despite the loss of sleep we probably caused you in China!

Ok, seven random/ weird facts..
1. I love starbucks pike place coffee after it sits in the pot and gets cold.
2. I try to call my Mom each day, several times a day sometimes just to say hello.
3. My husband and I went to the same high school during the same years, but didn't meet until college w/ 26,000 students.
4. Clara Barton (founder of the Red Cross) was my Great Great Grandmother's cousin.
5. My Dad played football with Buzz Aldrin (2nd man on the moon) and then went on to be invited to the Chicago Bears, and Cleveland Browns training camps.
6. God blessed us immeasurably with a son seven years ago despite many odds.
7. God blessed us a 2nd time with a beautiful daughter from China 3 years ago.

There are so many wonderful blogs out there, so please consider yourself tagged to all of you who have read this far! :)

Ever heard of

Beautiful Downtown Short Pump is just outside Richmond Va. and when I lived there many moons ago it was simply a small little gas station/ general store at the end of a 2 lane road just before you hopped on Interstate 64. Now, it is one of the 'thriving' areas of our country despite the current housing situation and realestate is actually doing very well. You would think you were in a suburb of Washington D.C. Well, actually I guess it is these days.

Anyway, last year we stopped at the Short Pump Town Center. Don't let the name fool you, it a very impressive outdoor mall with many interesting things to do besides shop if you know what I mean. One of the things John and E'beth fell in love with was a little house just their size. It was a simply constructed miniature version of what I remembered the old Short Pump gas station/ store to look like. The children had a ball with the pint sized furniture, desk, old adding machine, table etc.. E'beth was the waitress, and John was the customer. They played in this sweet little store for over an hour.

Wish we could build one in the back yard ;)

One of my favorite places to 'be' is Williamsburg Va. I love everything about it. I love the history, the architecture, the ambiance, etc.. A few years ago, Dave's sister and her husband moved there just minutes away from the historic area. Elizabeth doesn't remember much about it from our visit last year, but this year it will be so exciting to watch the wonder in little eyes as we 'step back in time'.

John is most excited about THIS though :)

Set aside Liberal vs. Conservative for a moment

I find this image and many more like this taken recently very disturbing. You obviously notice that Mr. Obama refused to honor the US Flag Code while everyone else depicted is respectful. Wouldn't you think someone running for the highest office in our nation would welcome this chance to honor our nation in such a way? According to Obama's campaign staff he "sometimes" salutes the flag and sometimes he doesn't... WHAT?? If prior to the election he is this disrespectful to our nation, its founding, and those that gave their lives for our freedom, what comes after if he is elected?

Then, you have THIS going on in Ohio which is a key state.

I'm hooked.

I found this idea for hanging all the backpack stuff I usually hang on my kitchen cab. knobs.. I think this might be a better option :) The thought is a big first initial letter for each child and the "M" will be mine (for Mommy). Above each hook, I'm going to tweak the idea a bit and put a single black and white portrait of each student.

Mommy will have her picture up as well as I still have SO much to learn!

This answers lots of questions..

Here is an article from the New York Times dated September 30, 1999. How did our country get into this economic mess in the first place? - Here's the reason.

Got these from friends B+B. Had to share...

Fabulous Middle Eastern Eggplant dip

This dip is easy to prepare, delicious and has only about 40 calories per 1/4 cup. What more could you ask? It can be served warm or cold. It's yummy served with baked whole wheat pita chips. (from CookingLight.com)
Here IT is:
1 large eggplant (about 1 1/4 lbs) peeled and chopped
1 cup red onion, roughly chopped
1 red bell pepper chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large garlic clove, chopped
1 tbsp tomato paste
salt and pepper to taste.
Combine first 5 ingredients, making sure everything is evenly coated in the olive oil. Cook on baking sheet for one hour at 350 or until roasted.
Transfer veggies into food processor and add tomato paste, salt and pepper. Blend until smooth (about 1 minute)

please pray for this family

Their 14 yr. old daughter went out for a walk about 4:45 in the afternoon and was tragically murdered.