Abel's coming home soon....

I'm so excited. I have such a heart for orphans and adoption and I cannot wait until my friends bring home their new son. His name is Abel (age7) and they are in Ethiopia right now finishing up everything to bring him home. We hosted their adoption party a couple of weeks ago at our house (see Carole's post in her adoption section) and I know they are prayed up and excited to bring him home. He is just so adorable and I can't wait to meet him. Pray they have a safe flight home and that he's not scared. Check out Carole's blog for updates. She's not able to blog, but she can twitter from her phone and those updates are on her sidebar.

Fun weekend...

Busy, but fun! Saturday, I had a cancellation on the schedule at church so I went to lead worship for the kids. It was a blast!Carly was also needed to make the announcements - she's awesome on stage. Not afraid to just get up and do it. I love that about her! She ain't scared. Check out Kari (front right) serving it up with a new little boy that's deaf. She jumped right in and helped him to understand our service, even though we don't understand it most of the time! :) We appreciate her and can't wait for this guy to come back to service!

After church, I was going to take Carly and her bff Lily to the movies. It had turned cold and was misting rain so it was nasty out. We got there and I let them out to get the tickets. As I was parking the car, Carly called and said to just pick them back up. The lines were too long and they didn't want to wait outside. So we tried another theater and got the same thing. Long story short - we ended up at California Pizza Kitchen. Carly and Lily - awwwwSunday, Carly really wanted to be at the Dream Center in the inner city. Since I had to sing at Highland, I asked Hope if she could drive her. She did and Carly had so much fun reconnecting with her friends down there! Thanks so much, Hope! I owe you!

Carly snapped this picture of Daniel teaching the children at the Baton Rouge Dream Center. Carly said he did an amazing job and was a natural. Daniel said he was nervous as everything. Believe me, brother! I know. Those children are awesome but very intimidating! :)

Honer Row....

*Lily and Carly*

Too funny....Carly is an amazing student. Through all her surgery, 6 weeks out of school because of the wheelchair, and missed days for doctors appointments, she still has honor roll. We are so proud of her. So today, I was excited to go to her school for the special assembly they had to congratulate the students and their accomplishments.

However, once I got there, there was something strange about the school sign. I'm not sure who was asked to post the 'Honor Roll Assembly' announcement on the sign but it's a pretty safe bet it wasn't the Valedictorian!

Great Dr. visit

Carly went today to followup with her Orthopedic surgeon. She has been going to physical therapy 3 times a week for the past month, so today she went back to see how things are going. Her doc is awesome! He pushed on it, bent it and told her that everything is healing really well and she should be able to start practicing for softball in February. He backed down the pt to 2 times a week and said for her to start pushing it. (this should be fun!) He added that her goal is to be able to bend it so that she can kick herself in the rear. Of course, if its necessary, I can do that for her! :)
Anyway, below is a pic of the x-ray taken today. You can see that its not completely healed, but he said its very close and looks great! Looks like he left something in there if you ask me!

Her Doc apologized for the scar. It was supposed to be about a 3in incision and it ended up about 8inches. Since Carly scars easily anyway it does look kinda creepy. But with her amazing attitude she told him, "That's ok. Scars are just like tattoos but with better stories." He loved that.....

Lolo gets the Gold...and Carly learns to park

We had an awesome treat today at church. One of our church members came home to share with us while Pastor is in India. Lolo Jones wrapped things up at the end of service and she truly deserves the gold medal! You may know her from this summer's olympic games in Beijing....but to us she is family. My friends and I are in awe of how beautiful she is...you can google her to get a better pic, but she is so pretty, inside and out!
She talked today about how during her run for the gold medal, she clipped a hurdle and in the blink of an eye went from first to seventh place. It was an awesome story and she seemed so real. I can't explain how touching it was and how great it was to hear her story. Thanks HPC, for providing the platform for her to speak. She's a gold medal winner.....

Another platform that HPC provided today was their parking lot. With Carly turning 15 this year, we are getting ready for driving.....yes, driving. Carly practices going up and down the driveway, through the neighborhood (with me sitting beside her with my hand on the emergency brake, of course), but today, I drove her to the church to teach her how to park. This proved to be a little harder than I thought. Carly drives great! She's careful, she doesn't give anyone a heart attack, she really does well. Parking....not so much.....She tried, but we need more practice. Here are some pics from our day.....

Both hands on the wheel - eyes on the road. Focused.Ahh...found a space (or two) Only (1) parking cone was injured during the making of this post.

Survey....

At breakfast, Mike, CJ and I discussed the likeness between CJ and Lucky - the Lucky Charms elf. I don't see it... Does anyone??? (besides Mike)

Mike's Birthday

.....a success. He worked all day, so we started the party around 6pm. I had picked up Sam and she was able to surprise him and go with us to dinner. We dined at Nagoya, a sushi buffet in town. Mike loves sushi.....me, not so much, so we went to Nagoya because they also offer normal, cooked, stuff. And, of course, ice cream for CJ. Here are some pics from the evening.

CJ finishing his 3rd bowl of ice cream....first chocolate, second vanilla, and third rainbow sherbet.

Mike, Sam, Carly and CJ

Me and Mike

Sam, Carly and Me.

Cj's quote from dinner....."Did you know that hamsters and gerbils can't have babies together, but they both like lettuce?" - He is so random, but his wisdom is amazing!

Happy Birthday, Mike!

Today is Mike's birthday and we have a big evening planned. He doesn't know about it, but I'm sure once he reads this he will! :)

The evening is a surprise, so I can't mention details, but if you come across my man today, wish him a Happy Birthday!

I love you, Mike!

The morning after....

Yesterday we helped host an Adoption party for our friends Carole and Dean Turner. What an honor. They are an awesome couple in our circle of friends that are adding to their family by adopting a child from Ethiopia. How exciting is that? I guess, exciting for us, but nerve-racking for Carole and Dean.

Some friends and I pulled together a quick party since they leave in a couple of weeks to bring home their new addition and along with about 50 of our friends we got them ready for their trip. The food was great and the fellowship was awesome. Thanks to everyone who came and helped. It was a blast. You can probably check Carole's blog later for pics. E was running around with a camera! :)

Here are a couple of pics I took with my go-go gadget phone.

Carole and Dean opening gifts.....

The amazing cake Summer decorated! It was gorgeous!