Thanksgiving Pics

The Gang

Marilyn calling Bingo

Tom and I, just before Bingo

Jared and Mikaela

Some of the Men relaxing after Dinner

Marilyn always has some fun prizes for the Bingo Game.

Here is Andrew with his prize.

It was a really annoying sword with lights and sounds!!!

Everyone after dinner getting ready to relax

We missed you Donna and Gerry,

Jon and Gina,

Lauren and Ryan

Hope you had a fun Thanksgiving

The Blind Side

THE BLIND SIDE



I simply can not say enough good things about this inspiring movie of love, hope, and courage.  Tom and I took the family to see the movie before Thanksgiving.  I don't know if it has the same meaning to those who are not adopted as it did to me.  

I remember while watching the movie that God put my parents in the exact time and spot to adopt me and in that, they pointed me to God.  No one can take that away from me.  What an amazing gift that He gave to me. 

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Another Week Gone

This week has gone by really fast.  Lets see, on Friday I left with Trevor, Andrew and 4 other kids and Kerry (my other soccer mom friend) in Toms Suburban and headed down to Germantown TN.  It was about a 9 hour drive.  The kids did great on the long drive.  We were headed to a soccer tourny and the boys played really well.  Unfortunately, they did end up losing 2 of the 3 games.  We played against other teams from Texas, Missouri and Springfield, IL.  The experience for Trevor was awesome.  We arrived home on Sunday night.

Monday just started with normal activities.  Trevor basketball, Austin Military camps, Tyler busy, busy, busy with the play this weekend.

Tonight I am serving pizza to 50 kids in the fall play, hopefully they will be grateful.

Friday Kelly and I will have about 20 6th grade girls at her house for AWANA section party.  Fun, Fun. Fun.

Saturday I am taking Kelly out for her birthday.  Happy 40th Kelly.

Oh by the way, Tom is off hunting again.  Are you really that Surprised?  Have a great week.

This weeks update

Well since "The Call" came, I have been doing more paperwork.   There is paperwork that needs to be completed now that we have accepted our referral, and then paperwork that needs to be completed right before we travel.  I talked with our agency today and it sounds like we will not be traveling until late January.  In Russia, their Russian Christmas is the first week of January and the whole government shuts down.  We will wait for them to tell us exactly what dates to travel.  We have to travel when they tell us or its a no go.  To tell you the truth, January is a perfect time for us to travel.  Tom is slower at work, hunting is done and he has more flexibility.  I know it is colder at this time, not like Mexico in February like last year, but exciting all the same.  The region we will be going to is St. Petersburg.  It looks like a beautiful city with lots of architechture and museums for Tom to look at. 

What we are doing here at home: 

Tyler, busy, busy, busy with getting the final preperations for the fall play.  He is the manager of the play so he is putting in some late nights.  Pray for him to keep up his school work and to have enough energy thru out the day.

Austin is done with most of his activities, he is doing Adventure Platoon at school, it seems like it is fun.

Trevor finished up football, soccer season has 1 big tourny in Germantown, TN this weekend that we will go to.  This is the first week of indoor soccer also which goes until the end of December.  Basketball has started at school and he does fairly well there.  He seems to play a lot of football on the basketball court which means he receives plenty of fouls/penalties.

Andrew is done with football and soccer.  Indoor soccer for him does not start until the end of December so a little break for him.  Basketball is coming up soon and goes for about 6 weeks.

Tom is off hunting again.  Don't know when he will be back.  Hopefully he will see/get his big deer he dreams of.

Sally, I'm still the taxi driver.  Loving it all.

Cheers.

Was that the Phone?

Yep, Yesterday as I was at home trying to clean the house, I heard the phone ringing.  I was actually outside with Marilyn as she had stopped by while on a walk.  I'm glad I heard it because at the other end of the phone was our Adoption Agency, she said Sally we have a REFERRAL for you.  What, Awesome I said.  She told me a little bit about her and I said "YES" we would like to accept.  The medicals look great and she looks very, very healthy and sooo soooo sooooo cute.  I'm in heaven!!!  Just this last week at my Bible Study class, I asked the ladies to commit to praying with me for our adoption.  I truly left everything up to HIM and laid it at His feet.  I no longer wanted control over the adoption.  Lo and behold, a referral.  I feel God working in His Mighty way that I can only sit back and say Great is Our God.

There is still a long road ahead of us, and anything can happen, but God is in control.

Halloween Festivities

Here are a few cute pictures of Andrew at his school

They had to do the "Great Pumpkin Race"

Andrew and his team won the race, Great Job kids.

Andrews team reading the next clue

I forgot to mention to you that Andrew now has BRACES.

He got them on Thursday

Boy, did his mouth hurt

No candy for him

Andrew carved his own pumpkin.  He did it all by himself.

I think it looks awesome.

Our halloween morning started with a playoff game for Trevor

His team lost, but he did a good job.

Considering his team only has 15 kids and the opposing team

has over 30, our kids did fine.

Trevor got a lot of experience playing, he played every single down

on offense and defense, he was also the kicker, and punter.

That is him #44, with the dirty yellow arms,

playing middle linebacker.

Every year we have a party at David and Kellys house for halloween

The kids are starting to get older now, so they want to go and do their own things,

here are the remaining kids.

All in all it was a great day, NO RAIN, not to cold and the kids had a blast.

Oh and I forgot to mention,

the best part about this Halloween,

Lauren and Ryan got engaged

He proposed in a very romantic way, aawww.

They came by the party to show off her ring (its gorgeous).

CONGRATULATIONS

LAUREN AND RYAN