Sorry for the highly infrequent posts. Life has taken me on the fast lane.

Things of note:

In a shade of brilliance Benny's MaMa convinced him of trading his NuNu's (pacifiers) for a fish. We went to Petco, asked a kid about the best fish for a little boy. Of course the answer....goldfish. "They live a really long time", he said. So we bagged the fish, bought the required stuff, and paid for his new pets. MaMa told Benny to give the lady at the register the NuNu's. He did, and promptly hugged the bag of fish all the way home. This was last Monday. Fast forward to Wednesday. Coming back from church, we discovered that the "really long time" must have been 2 days. And now there is one. Benny hasn't even noticed.

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Benny has his neurons firing. He is counting and starting to say the ABC's. The other day he counted to 7. He is also expanding his vocabulary something fierce.

Hailing from the plains of Kansas, he certainly became a great general. The more I read about him, I appreciate his words:
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Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
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How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.

Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Here are a few verses I have been dwelling on:

Ephesians 5:19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord

Proverbs 3:9 Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of ALL your crops

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10 years ago last month I moved out to Colorado. Geri followed me out after we got married. My excuse was simple. I had to be near the mountains. There was an itch in my soul needing to be scratched. Now that we have moved away, I find myself being pulled back to visit for an entirely different reason. We managed to befriend some great people out there. Sure the mountains are nice, but you can't have a relationship with a mound of dirt and rocks.

For someone who has confessed in the past not to like change, I think change is a good thing. For starters migrating from OK to CO to MO has brought about many good friendships. I like to think about our friend Edith in OKC. She died not long after our wedding, but she was a great friend to us despite a significant age gap. I also think about Barbara in Golden. She was the friend of a funny lady (Tootie), who started bringing her to church. She was divorced (I think), retired, and a bit rough around the edges. Her and Tootie lived at the trailer park down the road. She had a love for golf and had a great laugh. I believe she had cancer, but that didn't quash her spirit. The most important part of her story is that she became a Christian not too long before she passed away. We still have a driver she gave to Geri. I'm sure it saw better days when Barb was playing with it. This brings me back to Tootie. She was funny without even knowing it. Geri remembers her saying: "I don't know why they started calling me "Tootie"...when I was a kid, I had a dog named Tootie!".

We don't have plans on moving, but here is our family motto:

If you hate where you came from, you won't like where you are going.

The Math Adds Up

6 Eggs + 6 Dishes + 6 Spoons + 6 Different Colors = 6 Broken Easter Eggs + 1 Happy Boy

As our Bambino grows older, I find myself fondly looking back at our first days with him (this pic was taken on our Gotcha Day in Guat City). I am ready to experience this again.

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Looking for a Servant Heart? Click on the Touch A Life Blog on the right side column. Pam has some stirring observations, which one day should be put in book form.

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I was commenting this evening how the nature of my thoughts have radically changed in the past few years. I love to travel, and always seemed to be planning our next trip to Europe, to the mountains, or wherever. Since getting Benny, I just want to get home and hold him (if he'll let me). He is our little joy, but I know there is more in store for our family.

We recently got DVR services from our cable company. One nice thing is that we can tape shows and watch them later, while fast-forwarding the commercials. We have "Adoption Stories" set to record each time it come on the Discovery Health channel. Tonight I was catching up on old shows, and it featured twin Korean girls from our agency, Holt International, being adopted by a NJ couple. I tell ya, how cool would that be. Some folks might be overwhelmed at the prospect of 3 Geri's running around the same household. Not me. I say bring it on. We have many miles to go before we finish out the paperwork/homestudies, etc... But I think that would be excellent. Geri isn't quite convinced on travelling to Seoul, but I would do it in a heartbeat.

Purina Farms

As we are finding out more and more, St Louis is a great place for kids. There's the Zoo, Magic House, Science Museum and several more attractions and parks. We just learned about Purina Farms ( www.purinafarms.com ) and promptly headed out on Saturday. We started off watching their resident dogs perform stunts for the audience-which was quite large since the farms are out in the boonies.

After seeing the dogs perform, we toured the barn. Benny was in his element petting the pigs, puppies, lambs, goats, sheep, bunnies...and even a chicken. He is so gentle and fun to watch around the animals. We will plan on going back.

Geri and I marvel at how much we do here in St Louis, when compared to when we were in Denver.