A quote that fits me to a tee.....

"If I'm not back in five minutes...just wait longer!"

Ace Ventura

I'back.... but only briefly.....

Don Marquis said "Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. " and that is what I have been doing for the last year and a half. Man I'm getting good at it to. Wonder when my next post will be???

My mom always said.....

You will see..... When you have your own kids.... Again a truth that I wish wasn't true. R has as of lately started to become very argumentative. It doesn't matter what it is, she will argue for her point wether she is right or not. She believe wholeheartedlty that she is right of course. And that is no matter how wrong she is. And the thing that bothers me most about all this bickering with her is..... I recognize my self in her stubborn behavior. When I was about her age, I constantly drove my mother bananas with my arguing with her. Although, I didn't only argue with mom, I argued with anyone that bothered to give their opinion to a four year old. Well, I know now what I put my mother through and I would like to apologize to her for my behavior as a four year old. Let me tell you: Payback is a............

You never know what you gonna get.....

When my wife and I went to China for Christmas in 2004 to bring home our adopted daughter, we were literally living out Forrest Gump’s words. The only thing we had to go by was a couple of pictures and a brief description of her. It told us that she was a little headstrong but little did we know that a mule would be considered ultra cooperative compared to this little 15 month old girl. After collecting paperwork for months, being interviewed numerous times, fingerprinted over and over, signed dozens of times (all of which had to be notarized, county certified, state authorized, signed by the US Secretary of State and authorized by the Chinese government), waiting for months, the whole process reaches its climax in a hotel conference room in Nanchang, Jiangxi, China. There, at about 5:15 in the afternoon two days after Christmas, R is handed over to K and our lives are changed forever. R takes a look at me, then looks at her new mother, and starts crying her life is about to end within the next minute. Actually she kept on crying for about three days only stopping when she was sleeping. Numerous attempts on getting her to eat, drink, or even go potty was totally futile. At this point we get to see why it is so important to have good guides in the country you are when you are adopting. Our guide, Mary, sat R down, said something to her in Chinese in a stern voice, and voila, R was eating and drinking for us. I guess Mary told her to stop that stupid non-sense and start eating. After that R turned around and became a very happy little girl. As you can see from the pictures she has continued to thrive. She is still extremely headstrong but now she is using her stubborness in a more focused way. Isn't she beautiful?

Creativity?

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

This remark made by Dilbert creator Scott Adams is the essence of this blog at the moment. Please be patient while it changes around and around and around and......

Life is like a box of chocolate.....

Nothing is more true I would think.... This quote from the movie Forrest Gump pretty much sum up my life so far. When I was growing up I found myself in many situations that in retrospect I could have handled differently. Like when I was 5 or 6 and I almost set the neighbors shed on fire. Or when I was 8 and went out in our boat fishing all night. I almost got killed for that one, and I have one of the calmest and coolest moms ever. The rage was lightened somewhat by the fish I brought home. Even if I have made a few not so clever decisons through the years, I have also made some really good ones. Like when I asked my oh so beautiful wife to marry me. I think I surprised her quite a bit when I popped the question but thankfully she said yes. She would have to tell you herself if she ever regretted it. Nine years later we are still married and plan to stay that way for a very, very, very, very, very, loooooonnnnng time to come. God has also blessed me with two lovely, beautiful and rambuncious children from China. R is a firecracker from Jiangxi and we traveled to Sichuan to bring home M.

Hope you like the music from one of my favorite movies, Pinchcliffe Grand Prix. It is called Reodors Ballad and is the closing music of the movie.