Valpraiso, Indiana, July 2011~
Hard to believe that just one year ago, we were waiting for our newest child-to-be, a little girl from Rwanda, in the country of Africa. Well, little Zion Michaela is here, and we couldn't be happier!
Zion is now six years old. She will be starting the first grade in the fall. She is a very intelligent and resourceful little girl, full of joy and spunk! She learned English fairly quickly and has never ceased to delight us or her sisters and brothers!
We've discovered that Zion is going to be tall for her age. She is six, but she already comes up to my shoulders. She is absolutely beautiful!
In addition to Zion, we have adopted two other children previously: our daughter, Elysia Natalia (7) from Russia, and our son, Tanner Michael (8) from Korea. We have gotten used to this Adoption Game, but it just takes so darned long!! We won't be adopting any more children for a while, unless God sees to it: after all, it was GOD who brought us Zion, Elysia, and Tanner in the first place! :)
That is NOT counting our OWN three children: Judson Daniel, our 10-year-old son, Kendall Madison, our 12-year-old daughter, and Seth Christopher, our five-year-old son! So we now have six children in our household!
We really never planned to have a big family, but God saw differently. He saw how well we took care of our two oldest children, so He decided to reward us by giving us Zion, Tanner, and Elysia. Then little Seth joined the Ridenauer family ranks and he's grown into a capable, extremely active little boy!
Life continues to be good. My husband Darrell works as an electrician while I am still doing real estate. We aren't hard up for money, but our wallets have done an awful lot of whimpering, thanks in light to the ever rising cost of fuel, which, in turn, drives up the cost of everything else! If it (the price of gas gets any highter), we just might have to look into car pooling or taking public transportation to our jobs and use our van as little as possible (if that is even feasible)!
The weather has been bad this spring and summer here in the Midwest. Round after round of storms, a good many of them severe; in fact, the last round of weather we had, we lost part of our roof, and so now we're looking at even more expense. Then Tanner fell and broke his arm; he will have the cast on his arm for a good six to eight weeks. He jumped off the roof; he was trying to be Superman. Well, Tanner soon discovered that little boys cannot fly! LOL
Lesson learned. A painful one, but now he knows not to do that any longer. LOL
I'll tell you this much: Tanner about gave both Darrell and I a heart attack!!
Even with all of this good news that's gone on in our lives (excepting for the part where Tanner busted his arm or the prices of everything, that is!), we do have some sad news as well to report. Darrell lost his mother, Pat, to scleroderma (she'd been sick for years with the disorder; she was only 56), and my sister, Thea, had her baby, only to discover that her child was born with severe brain damage and may be blind and deaf. She had a little boy; his name is Jaxon Maximus. He's the cutest little thing, but it breaks our hearts that he will be disabled for the rest of his life.
Such a waste! Little kids like Jax shouldn't suffer, especially if they've only been around for a little while!
Doctors have no clue what may have caused the baby's problems. They may find out one day, but then again, they may never do find the cause. All I know is this: Thea and her husband, Thorn, are devastated beyond belief and so are we. This is my nephew we are talking about.
Well, it's early, so I'd best get back to bed. I was up because the neighbors across the street were fighting; you could hear them screaming and cursing all over the neighborhood, and now there's police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances in the street, parked near where they live. I hope and pray that nobody is hurt ... I will write in here again fairly soon with another update on our family; until then, this is Jayne Ridenauer saying so long; may God bless you always!
~Jane. :)
~To be continued.~
