ADOPTION UPDATE:

Referrals are arriving at Adoption Agencies today!! The CCAA matched through September 8, 2005 Log In Date for this month. We are getting closer!!! If the current trend continues we should be getting our information about our "Little China Girl" in May or June. It is possible that it may not be that long but it could be even longer. We are committed...the long wait will be a distant memory when we hold our little girl safely in our arms.

Has anyone heard the song Merry Christmas by Third Day? If not I recommend it. The whole CD is wonderful (Third Day Christmas Offerings)... Merry Christmas is very special to me.

Christmas Lights

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas on Wolfhill. Carmen and John are always the first to put up their decorations and tree. This is the first year they have put lights on the dormers because the roof is very steep. Recently John climbed up to fix the satellite dish in really windy weather to keep from missing an important ballgame, so Carmen decided he could manage to put up Christmans lights. Good job John.

I decided to eliminate outside lights after the new colored lights I bought a few years ago turned white because Ronnie left them on the house for 3 years in a row. Each year I would hint...we (meaning Ronnie) really need to get those lights down. Ronnie would nod and when Christmas rolled around again he would plug them up and they would work! This year I'm putting lights around the inside of my windows so I can take them down myself.

Happy Birthday Tristan

Tristan is nine years old!!! This evening we celebrated our great-nephew Tristan's Birthday in True Wolfhill Style... we had roasted hot dogs and delicious cake made by Tristan's Grandma, Doris. The guests keeping warm by the fire are Tristan's Pa Pa Rick, cousin Noutika, and little brother Austin.


Tristan with his bull riding birthday cake and cousins Shayna and Sunnie, and little sister Gwen.

Quotes

What we're really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving? ~Erma Bombeck, "No One Diets on Thanksgiving," 26 November 1981Forever, Erma: America's Best-Loved Writing from America's Favorite Humorist, 1996; CTO-->

For each new morning with its light,For rest and shelter of the night,For health and food, for love and friends,For everything Thy goodness sends.~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...Ephesians 5:20

Ronnie

We are Thankful

God has blessed us with five precious grandchildren (and we are praying for number six).

We are Thankful for our family. Misty, Wade, Carmen, John, Bethany, Jeff, and our grandchildren are a blessing to us each day.

We are also Thankful for Our Little China Girl, who is waiting for us in China. (We have not decided on an American name for her yet). We are hoping to have her home by this next summer.

We are Thankful for our parents. We have many precious memories of my Daddy, my Mom, and Ronnie's Dad. We love and pray for Ronnie's Mom and my Step-Dad each day. We are so blessed to have them in our lives.

We are Thankful for our extended family.

We are Thankful for the Gift of Salvation.

We are Thankful for our Church, Harvest Time Assembly of God.

We are Thankful for our Freedom

We are Thankful that we live in America.

And I am Thankful for Ronnie...my best friend and the love of my life.

Happy Thanksgiving

Becky

Quotes of the Week 11/15/06

Quotes of the Week

The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course. Billy Graham

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost. Billy Graham

I've read the last page of the Bible. It's all going to turn out all right. Billy Graham

CSI Wolfhill

One night back in the late summer I (Ronnie) had just gone to bed. Becky walked in with a container of packaged pudding in her hand and a very perplexed and concerned look on her face. “What is it”? I said. “Ronnie, this pudding has been tampered with”! “In what way”? I reply, trying to be calm and matter of fact in the face of Becky’s obvious intent to panic. “Look” she says, “there are dozens of little holes in the covering.” Sure enough, I looked and saw at least 20 or more holes punched all around the plastic or foil covering.

“Did you eat any yet?” “No, but what worries me is that Sunnie ate one just before she went home half an hour ago”, Becky replied. Well, now I began to be a little more concerned. Becky had looked at the 4 remaining pudding cups and each one had 10 to 20 holes in them. Sunnie we assumed had been the first to open the six packs by removing the cardboard cover. Becky retrieved the cardboard cover out of the trash can and found no holes in it. “It must have happened in the factory on the assembly line”, I said, “before the outer covering was put on”. This theory didn’t set well with Becky. By her estimation, if that was the case, the pudding would surely be spoiled and full of botulism by now. We applied the sniff test and it seemed like the pudding smelled just as bland and flavorless as perfectly fresh packaged pudding.

By this time Becky had called John, Sunnie’s dad, asking him if she showed any signs of sickness. She was asleep and Becky asked John to look closely at her or maybe wake her to be sure she didn’t have a stomach ache. “We may have to take her and get her stomach pumped”, Becky announced. “That’s a little drastic, don’t you think?” I retorted. “Well, I mean if she acts sick in any way, or we can’t find out for sure what happened. There could be some drug or poison in the pudding”. I knew now that this mystery had to be solved fast, or my poor little granddaughter had a long night ahead of her.

We put all the pudding cups on the bar and looked closely at them. I couldn’t imagine any scenario in a factory that would put holes like that in them, but what do I know about mass produced pudding. After closer examination, I did see that the holes seemed to be in pairs of holes that were evenly spaced, as if a two pronged object had punctured the seal numerous times. There seemed to be no other pattern evident. “Becky, what do we have in the house that might make a pair of holes spaced about 3/16 of an inch apart?” She drew a blank. “Are you thinking one of the grandkids might have punched the holes?” she said. “Well, maybe. Ever so often a kid does something totally inexplicable”, I mused. I looked at the holes again, and I had a thought. “Do we still have some of those little corn-on-the-cob holders?” “Yeah, right here in this drawer” and Becky brought out 5 or 6 of the little yellow plastic and two-pronged handles shaped like little ears of corn.

I took one and lined it up with 2 of the holes. A perfect fit. I tried it on several holes, a perfect match each time. Becky’s eyes lit up and she started examining each of the holders. “There’s no sign of pudding on any of them.” She said. She looked in the sink and then came back and opened the drawer farther. Back toward the back she found one more, and holding it up we could see the telltale pudding residue on the two prongs. Becky went to the phone and called John to give him the all clear. “Do you think Sunnie did it? Tyler was in there about the same time that Sunnie was.” I wondered. “I really think Tyler has about outgrown these kinds of stunts, but I can tell when I ask them by their reaction.” Becky replied.

The next day Sunnie came in a little while after Becky got home from work. Becky went to the refrigerator and got out a pudding snack pack. She called Sunnie into the kitchen and said, “Sunnie, we found little tiny holes in these pudding packs. Do you have any idea what might have caused it?” And my poor little granddaughter didn’t say a word, but her eyes told all that we needed to know. Another case solved by CSI Wolfhill.

Farewell to Buckeye

Last week our cousin Terry came and got the colt, we call Buckeye. The colt's sire is named Buck Hancock Gray. We are glad that the colt is still in the family. We will enjoy watching him grow into a fine horse under Terry's expert care.

Quotes of the Week 11/09/06

Quotes of the Week

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time. Winston Churchill

When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened. Winston Churchill

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear...Hebrews 11:3

Something to think about:

Have you noticed how fearful our news media seems to be here in America? Right now, the focus is on the upcoming elections, but think about some of the reporting in the last few years. Whatever happened to bird flu? A little over a year ago it was poised to decimate the world’s population with a pandemic after it morphed into human to human infection capability. I wonder has it stopped occurring or has the media just lost interest?

We have gone through several phases of fearful forecasts of climate change. Last year after a near record hurricane season, you would have thought that surely most of coastal America would be destroyed this year. We are near the end of the hurricane season, and I think our media was greatly disappointed that we have had no tropical storm catastrophes as of yet.

As I recall, it seems that during some unusually slow news periods, the media dredged up the possibility of an asteroid or comet hitting the earth. One of the networks had a special series depicting the numerous ways that life on earth could be cataclysmically ended.

I have asked myself why the fascination of our news media on such fearful topics? I think one reason is the dissatisfaction of the majority of the media with our present government and administration. Maybe they want to create fear, so that somehow either the present administration could be blamed for the fearful possibilities, or hinted to be unconcerned and unable to protect America from them. I had almost decided that must be the case, and then, out of the blue, maybe the true crux of the issue.

It dawned on me that we may be seeing a natural result of years of secular humanism that has been taught in our schools and colleges, and may form the foundation for the worldview that has been preached and propagated by our media. From Hollywood to New York, movie sets to newsrooms, it may be that the majority of those in power there tend to not believe in a creator designed and controlled universe. From what they tend to report, and how they portray religion, especially the Judeo/Christian type, I think that is probably the case.

When a person has become firmly convinced that there is no God; that our existence here on this planet is just a lucky happenstance of evolution, then it must become a very fearful world indeed. Humanity hangs by a thread. We never know what event may be about to wipe us all out. A comet, an asteroid, global warming, pandemic, anything could happen and eventually will. If mankind controls his destiny and no creator exists as humanism professes, then we must learn to control the forces that threaten our existence. We need a vaccine for every flu, we need to control the weather, we need a defense against rogue meteors, asteroids, and comets. And what are we to do about those pesky solar flares. And what if the sun starts to burn out before we have colonized other solar systems? Its enough to worry a newsperson to death.

Adoption Update 11/02/06

Adoption Update. Today the CCAA (China Center for Adoption Affairs) posted on their website that they have completed matches (matching a child up with a family's dossier) through August 25, 2005 LID (Log In Date). We are pretty excited about this news since it indicates a slight increase in the number of matches made over the past six to twelve months.

For those of you who do not know our LID is December 9, 2005. We were approved to adopt May 7, 2005 and began the process of getting our Dossier ready to send to China. We will share a little more about the process as time goes on. When we were approved the wait time from LID to Match was 6 months. During the past year the wait time from LID to Match has increased to about 14 months. The wait has been hard especially at our age...! Whatever happens we know when the time is right we will be matched up with the little girl the Lord has already chosen for us.

Sorry we cannot post the cute little box from the CCAA website, but we have not yet figured out how to accomplish that. May need to ask one of the grandsons!!!!!!!!!!!