A Little Lady, Her Daddy and a Tractor.

Grace hated our old tractor, it was just too loud for her. Her daddy and PaulPaul left at 9:00 pm Friday night along with a friend a really big trailer.

Grace told him to bring her a small tractor for her. They arrived back home

shortly after 8:00 pm tonight. They drove nonstop to Ohio and back.

Needless to say, she was thrilled to see her Daddy. She was disappointed there was not a small tractor (this is a Big tractor). However once he cranked it and realized how quiet it was, she decided it was her turn.

So Grace now has a pretty red tractor. Hopefully I'll have a really nice yard soon.

At this moment the man child is still out riding the tractor in the dark. His dad told him that after tonight he is not allowed on it until he reads the entire manual. This could be interesting. I think I also heard him say something about washing and waxing it. Good Grief, its a TRACTOR!!!!!! I think PaulPaul is over the fact that its NOT GREEN!

Devan Marie

Its been four years but you re still in our hearts.

We love and miss you still.

All our love

An email from a friend

A Pastor with GUTS!


Thought you might enjoy this interesting prayer given in Kansas at the
opening session of their
Senate.

It seems prayer still upsets some people. When Minister Joe Wright
was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was
expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:


Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to
seek your direction and
guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but
that is exactly what we
have done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it Choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it Justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it Building self
esteem.
We have abused power and called it politics.
We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it
Freedom of Expression
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it
Enlightenment.
Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and
set us free. Amen!

The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the
prayer in protest.
In 6 short weeks, Central Christian Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor,
logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls responding
negatively. The church is now receiving international requests for copies of
this prayer from India, Africa and Korea ....
Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, 'The Rest of
the Story,' and received a larger response to this program than any other he
has ever aired.
With the Lord's help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and
wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called 'one
nation under God.'


Can I get an AMEN!!!!!!! This world has taken a serious turn for the worse. Where are the morals? If it is this bad now, what will it be like for our Children's children?

To the Mountains We Go

We took a long weekend to take Grace to the mountains. The weather there was soooooooooo nice. I can see why people love it there. I was very excited, in addition to going, we were going to get to see our friends Sara and her family and then meet (finally) Patricia and her family.

We left the office around 330 on Thursday. We were packed and ready to go. The planer that I am, I had the directions all ready. Now let me just say, on one of the routes I had planned out, it said 8 hours, and for some reason that stuck in my mind. It should only take 5 hours to get to Seiverville from here. ( I didnt know that then) After we got off 40, and driving these dark, CURVEY roads, it was about 830, Pauls GPS on his phone is going in and out. He finally says are you sure this is the right address to the hotel. I had the info in my phone and printed in my car in addition to those directions we were going by. So I pull over in a location where I was imaging a man with a big bloody ax coming out to add me to his storage of bodies. So, I pull out the directions and guess what!!!!! I'm sad to say I dont know where the crap I got that address from, but it took us to the middle of timbuck two and nowhere. I kept saying there is no way they have a Bass Pro Shop in the back woods. I still dont know where that address was for. You can read my husband like a book when he is mad. I am happy to say, he handled it very well, or maybe he was just too tired to fuss. So its 9 pm and I'm driving on no sleep. (the night before I helped a little boutique from Columbia set up for their big sale in Chas, just so I could shop before everyone - didnt get home until 11:00, then I had to finish packing and then I couldnt sleep at all. I finally dozed off around 330) So we get back to where his phone has service. I was really unhappy to discover we could have stayed on a MAJOR highway the whole way! Our heads hit the pillow at about 11:45 am.

Sleeping Beauty.

We had plans to meet Sara and her family on Friday mornig for Breakfast. Sara is in our LID group, we have actually gotten together twice before this. I love spending time with her. She traveled before us to adopt a little boy, and he is too cute. She also has two other kids, who Grace really likes.

After breakfast, we headed to Dollywood! It really wasnt what I was expecting and dont ask me what I was expecting. There is so much to do in the mountains. SO MUCH!!!!!!! hope we can go back next year and stay longer. And the summer after than is the D R E A M > > > > > >

Dad, doing what Dad does, WORK!
On the Teacup, she got mad at dad for spinning it.

On the elephant ride, she would not let Dad push the button to go up

I just love this sweet face.

Riding the horses with Momma

Grace loved the PRINCESS as she called her, she wanted a dress just like this one.

By 3 we were exhausted. We went back to the hotel and took a family nap.

Saturday morning, we got up, had breakfast and then headed to the mountains in NC to visit Patricia. She has 3 daughters from China. They were so beautiful. Patricia (and I didn't even get a picture of her, Next time) is also in our LID group. She traveled right before us. I mean, we missed her by a day or so. She is an amazing woman. I enjoyed our visit very much. (I made Paul drive down the part of your road that was OH SO STEEP) . She loved the bunnies that they had. I think if we didn't have to go back to the hotel, we may have been coming home with one. Not sure how Neli would like that.


That afternoon we made our way to the Bass Pro Shop, and we were only there a couple of hours. I didn't have to call in reinforcements to get him out.

We also went to a knife shop, a 3 store knife shop, they had every kind of knife you could think of. What did we come out with you ask? One Black Stuffed Bear! hehehehe Paul Ray said there is something seriously wrong.

BIKES, Bikes, Bikes and I'm not talking nice looking bikes, everywhere we looked there were BMW bikes.

We stopped at a little place in Cherokee on the way home, and we all had coffee. They had a kids coffee.

We had to make sure Grace got to see an Indian, here is some dancing.


She wasn't too sure what to think

For as far back as I can remember, Paul Ray always take this same picture, everywhere we go. I think I do too much driving.I did however get him to drive 3 hours. Our total driving time, just under 23 hours in 3 days. So here is one of him. He got the hat at the BPS. Maybe I can hide it.

We had a good time, got some rest and some quality time with Grace.

Dance

Well Gracie's Dad has decided Grace should just do ballet at a ballet studio. Watching the Hip Hop and imaging his daughter doing that was more than the poor man could take. So, I don't guess we'll be doing the competition teams. Now to decide where!

Full Circle

I mailed a letter with pictures to Grace's foster family several weeks ago. We were not sure if they received it or not. When I checked my email this morning, there was an email from China. They did receive the letter and my heart is overflowing this morning. I know my child was loved and I can only image the pain of her foster mother of three years letting her go and not knowing anything. It helps to know, that they know how loved she is and how well she is doing.

Grace talks about them alot and she does not know that we have corresponded with them, I think it would be too much for her to understand. But it makes me feel so much better knowing.

Chinese School LInk

http://huaxia-charleston.org/home.html


For those that asked, here is the link to the school. Its on Sunday afternoons in James Island.

Chinese School

I finally got a hold of someone at the local Chinese School. It starts on Aug 23. So Grace will be attending that on Sunday afternoon, in addition to school and dance.

She had her first melt down this morning as I was dropping her off at Ashlee Gails house. It was weired, seeing how she came dancing down the stairs this morning yelling Happy Cow Day everyone, I didn't even have to wake her up. Cow Day - Aunt Bonny is taking them to some event at the local Chic Fila today. Should be lots of fun. She ended up coming to work with me due to her melt down. But she is well now, and already has asked me 3 times how long before Aunt Bonny comes!!!!!!!! It could be a very long morning. But at least its Friday, and next Thursday we head to the mountains. Looking forward to it. We're going to Dollywood, I've never been so should be lots of fun. Our hotel is right next door to the Bass Pro Shop so I'm sure we'll have a trip or TWO there.

Have a great weekend everyone.