roll call

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I'm , in Tucson, Arizona. Wife to for almost 28 years. He works as a

support co ordinator for families with children with disabilities. I'm a stay

at home mom keeping busy with our kids and foster children. We have 8 children

that we adopted. , 30, Guthrie 24, Shalana, 21, Levi 18, Maverick 17

(ds), Mykel 11, Vivianna, 7 and Chip 4. The older 4 are out of the home. Also

living with us we have our friend , who just turned 46 and has down

syndrome.

Maverick is a fully included Junior in High school. He plays in the marching

band (drums). He participates in absolutely any and every sport that he can.

His physical abilities are his strength, speech is definitely his weakness. Now

that we are at a new school they are really pushing him academically and he is

getting a chance to LEARN and rising to the occasion. This past report card was

all A's!!

He got guitar hero for Christmas and he and his sibs are driving me nuts with

it. He is into Hannah Montana and Zach and Cody. He and his brother got

tickets to High School Musical 2 on Broadway for next week.

He has stubborn honed to a T! And then he turns around and says.. " Mom, you're

the best! " He is girl crazy, altho he pledges his loyalty to someone in

Tennessee.. and no.. I don't mean Mylee Cyrus!

We knew of Mav's down syndrome before he was born. At that time we felt our

family was complete with 4 kids. HA!! The DS didn't have us concerned.. but the

heart failure at 4 months and surgery with a 5% chance of survival was more than

I wanted to deal with. WHO knew that a mere 18 months later I would be asking

his Dr. if he couldn't reopen one of the holes in his heart to slow him down a

bit!

We constantly thank the Lord for this special blessing He sent into our

unsuspecting lives!