Our great friends the Stranathan Family and Lighthouse Baptist Churchare throwing an adoption party for the Hines Clan. If you haven’t heard, we are adopting Collin, Abbigail and Ethan Thursday the 17th in Mississippi.

WHOOT!!!!

Please RSVP by Wednesday August 24th if you will make it.

We sincerely hope you can join us for this celebration.

Tommy cracks me up … but that is a nice picture. For those of you who can’t quite read the text, click on the image to enlarge it.

Tracey’s mom works for Kraft, and Tracey loves Kraft Macaroni and Cheese – so you can see how we arrived at this situation. Perhaps I’m being a wee bit unfair here; however, for the first seven years of our marriage I only experienced my wife  boiling water, soaking some noodles, and either pouring something out of a packet or out of a jar onto them – and there is the meal! Well, she could always bake cookies like a champion – mmmm snickerdoodles!

Anyway, one day in 1998 I was in my home office working on some code. I had very unstable logic construct in my head and was sorting out how best to stabilize it when my lovely wife barged into my office and demanded to know from me what I would like for dinner – and it was only two in the afternoon.

Frustrated that I lost my train of thought, I snapped back that I didn’t really care, whatever she cooked would be fine. I didn’t say it, but I was clearly thinking I’d be getting drowned noodles again with something poured on top of them. Tracey had about enough and she dressed me down about being unspecific with what I desire to eat and how she wished, just for once, I’d be specific.

I determined that I would teach her to mess with me! I quickly replied that I would like to have Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes w/Gravy, Turnip Greens, Cornbread, and Peach Cobbler. She immediately left my office and shut the door securely behind her. “Ha!”, I thought, “That will teach her, now I can get some work done.”

About ten minutes latter, I hear the front door open and close and the car noisily pulled out the drive. I began to think that maybe I had pushed a little to hard, but I had work to concentrate on. Some time passed and I heard the family return and they began making noise in the kitchen. I ignored them and focused on work.

Eventually, Samantha hesitantly stuck her head in my office and quietly advised me that, “Mom said dinner is ready.” I sighed, stood up and stretched, and headed to the dinning room. The first thing I noticed was that the table was loaded down with precisely what I had ordered for dinner; and I immediately realized that I was going to have to eat it, all of it, and pretend to not dislike it.

After the blessing, I got started. It was odd, everything looked “just right” and I took a bite of the chicken … it was good. Not good in the sense of “Hey, this tastes alright” but good in the sense of “Wow, mama could take lessons from you!” and my mamma can COOK! I quickly tried everything on the table and it was all fantastic, which just made me angry!

I threw down my  utensils and said, “Tracey! We have been married some seven years and all you have ever cooked was noodles and some thing from a jar!”

“If you could cook this well, all this time, why in the universe is this the first time you have cooked me a real meal! Why have been eating macaroni and cheese from a box!” I demanded.

Tracey calmly explained, “In seven years of marriage, you have never once told me what you would like to eat. Every time I asked you would say something like I don’t care or whatever or something hot and macaroni and cheese is simply one of the simplest things to cook, so I always make something like that.

Well, suffice it to say that since then, if Tracey asks me what I want – I am very particular with the details. It turns out that she is a gifted culinary artist and even if she has never made what I request, she figures it out and makes it taste good anyway! It might also be noted that after this event I began to seriously gain weight – which I am still doing to this day!

For example, we have Twitter for micro-blogging (or mini-updates) throughout a given day, then we have the H57 Blog for more structured updates. The H57 Photo Album attempts to capture and archive those significant (and perhaps not so significant) events that occur in our lives. We can all be found on Facebook in some form or another, and this provides for much more group interaction on topics. Finally, we have the email, which has been our primary method of dispersing information for the past year or so.

We have even taken some steps to integrate these things in the past year. For example, anything that is posted via Twitter updates our Facebook status – allowing people to respond to Tweets via either tool. As a side note, this might confuse some people (not Tommy Jinks) – if you are on Twitter  and Facebook,  and someone sends a Tweet that updates Facebook, where do you respond!? The easy answer is, “Reply in Twitter  if you are both in Twitter , otherwise reply in Facebook.” Your mileage may vary on that, but typically it seems the thing to do.

Even when we post a new Blog Entry, it gets sent out via Twitter , which then gets posted via the Facebook status. You might deduce that we have set up everything to funnel into Facebook. Why?

The majority of you don’t use an RSS Reader, don’t have a Twitter account (or don’t actively use it), and some portion of you might have a Facebook account. We believe Facebook is the social networking site – and if there is any technology we might convince you to actually use, it will be Facebook. Lets face it, if we put forth a phenomenal effort to keep you updated with the latest information, and you aren’t listening, then what is the point of talking?

We will keep the emails going, but we are likely to begins linking back to the H57 Blog for the emails. We would highly encourage you to go create a Facebook account and get connected with us there as well.

• I became a father of five
• Tracey became a mother of five
• Samantha suddenly had two younger sisters and brothers
• Bethany suddenly had two younger sisters and brothers
• The F150 turned into an E350
• All the bedrooms were populated
• The brief moment of more toilets than necessary returned to dreamland

I’d be dishonest if I were to say that there were not day’s when I seriously wondered what I had gotten myself into, perhaps even considering any possible options to get out of it. However, that being said, it has been a fantastic experience! Many moments in the past year have been utterly sublime:

• Watching Ethan sleep in the crook of Tracey’s arm.
• Collin getting out of daycare and running to hug me, the whole while hollering, “I was good at school today dad!”
• Abby, blinking both eyes when you wink at her or otherwise comment on how pretty her eyes are.
• Collin doing a flip off the side into the pool, after overcoming a paralyzing fear of the water to begin with.
• Abby dressing up as a princess and dancing through the house
• Ethan, just last night, pointing to and feeling of my nose, eyes, ears, hair and mouth – while naming them

I’ve lived a broad life. I’ve experienced things that others continue to shake their heads in disbelief at. I’m often accused of being Larger Than Life. I have saved men’s lives, I’ve lead others to victories they didn’t believe they could achieve, I’ve achieved things no one would have considered me a contender for.

Yet it all pales in comparison to this. The Good Lord has entrusted five precious souls to me, and I see nothing that I have done which would compel Him to do so. All five of my children are so wondrous in their growth and surprising in their insights. Who would have thought, Beth, of all people, would have such a passion for playing …. the Tuba!? Samantha brought home a young man that she is inclined to pursue a romantic relationship with – and I approved of her choice! I was so looking forward to running someone off too!

There was time, a while back, when I would use this time to “take stock” of the past year, consider my conquests and victories, and begin determining the goals and developing the strategies that would see me succeed next year. Tallying up the goals accomplished, boxes to be ticked off, boiling it all down to the expect raise and bonus for the next year. It leaves a stale taste in my mouth to admit it – but I’ve never been one to hide from the truth.

I’ve read another of posts the past few days with regards to reviewing 2008. Not that I’ve ever been easily impressed, but I wasn’t. I thought to myself, “I can write a better review than that.” So I considered what to write, how to articulate it, and ultimately sum it up. Here’s what I came up with:

God blessed me with a wonderful wife and five fantastic kids that I can’t find reason to say I deserve – and they love me through 2008. Nothing else compares this and I can’t even claim to have caused it to happen; yet it did. Thank you Lord.

We are happy with the green look and feel, so we will be sticking with that for some time to come. Bear with us while we continue to get our act together!

We celebrated Beth’s 12^th Birthday last Saturday! I’ve uploaded the pictures from the party to the H57 Photo Album, and you can see them here: Beth’s 12^th Birthday Party.

	Samantha She’s 14, in the 8th grade, loves to sing (Honors Chorus at school, Adult Choir at church) makes good grades, and is an all around Good Kid ™!
	Bethany She’s 12, in the 6th grade, loves to play her Trombone (she’s first chair!), is perhaps more full of fun and joy than any two other people in the house, and is our resident Fashion Diva™.
	Collin He is 3, in daycare, loves to be either Spiderman or Batman, beats up more bad guy’s before breakfast than most people do all day long, and is our resident Monkey Get In Trouble Too™.
	Abby She is 2, in daycare, loves all manner of beauty products, brushes her hair and changes her outfit before breakfast more times than most people do all week, and is our resident Drama Queen™.
	Ethan He is 1 (the one holding the green sippy cup!), in daycare, eats almost as much as I do (I’m seriously considering starting a savings fund now just to feed this kid as he gets older) loves to hug and give slobbery kisses (teeth coming in) that make the dog cringe! He is our resident Monkey Boy™.
	Daniel He is 4, in pre-school, and loves Power Rangers, Super Hero’s, and Playstation 2! Seriously, this kid rocks on the PS2, I hope he goes Pro when he gets older. He is our resident Monkey Do™. NOTE: This is Scott & Mary Ann Hines’ oldest son. Mine and Tracey’s nephew.
	Luke He is 1, stay’s home with mom (and dad), loves …. Mom (and dad), and has one of the most beautiful smiles you will ever run across. He has recently started walking and is our resident Cuddle Monkey™. NOTE: This is Scott & Mary Ann Hines’ youngest son. Mine and Tracey’s nephew.

]]> http://blog.hines57.com/2008/01/08/whos-who/feed/ 0 http://blog.hines57.com/2007/07/03/foster-parenting-class-completed/ http://blog.hines57.com/2007/07/03/foster-parenting-class-completed/#comments Tue, 03 Jul 2007 14:34:37 +0000 Bubba http://blog.hines57.com/?p=56 Whoot! We did it – we completed the 30 hour training to become foster parents! Yeehaaaa!

You would think that after three hours a week for ten weeks they would give you a certificate of something – but no, they just gave us a list of paperwork that we will need to fill out now in order to get our license.

Seriously though, we can now start that application process and sometime in the next 90-days we should get our license and then some children to start living with us!

How cool is that? She is now the “Executive Administrative Assistent” to Chris Minnix and Paul Greinar (Owners) at Cedar Management Group – reportind directly to Chris Minnix.

She starts on Monday the 2nd of July! Whooot! Go Tracey!!!!

Her interview is for 11:30am today – about 15 minutes from the time of this writing. So hopefully we will know more this afternoon!