The Morning Show with Mike & Susan

IT’S A BOY!  WE’RE SO EXCITED A LITTLE BABY BOY IS COMING TO THE KANKELFRITZ FAMILY IN JUNE

Mike’s dad, Gordon Kankelfritz is in grave condition at a Seattle hospital.  Mike and his family really could use our prayers.  Mike may have to fly there to be with his family.  Please pray for his father’s health, for the decisions Mike and Becky need to make about the trip and for Becky and Abby Grace as they stay back here in Houston.  Mike’s mom, Shirley and his sister, Andrea need your prayers as well.

Click on the Becky Blog and you can vote - is the new Kankelfritz a boy or a girl? we’ll tell you later this morning…but vote now and often!!

There was an earthquake last night…and it was in —- Oklahoma! It was a 3 point 3 on the scale and it came from near Savanna, Oklahoma a town that sits on the edge of a massive ammunition storage depot.

Getting a cash handout was fairly easy yesterday at Union Station in Washington, DC.  A man calling himself “Bailout Bill” sat in a booth much of the day handing out 50 to 100-dollars to people who told him of their financial and personal troubles.  The “Washington Post” reports it was all a stunt to gain publicity for an Internet business which does online classified advertising.

What a cool story! A group of people who have overcome their drug addictions will be graduating from the Harris County STAr program…it’s Success through Addiction Recovery. Keep them in your prayers, it’s still a day to day walk through recovery.

If you thought your parents had a twisted sense of humor in naming you, consider yourself lucky your name isn’t Terry Bull, Paige Turner or Anna Sasin.  TheBabyWebsite.com released a list of the most bizarre and humorous names in Britain and America.  The incredibly unfortunate list of names include Stan Still, Mary Christmas, Chris Cross, Barry Cade, and Hazel Nutt.  These are real names of real people living in the UK. 

America isn’t without its own gems either,  just ask Carrie Oakey or Bill Board.  Some people may have been born into their professions like Dr. Payne, a plastic surgeon in Sandusky, Ohio, and Les Plack, a dentist in San Francisco, and Dr. Sumey [[ SOO-mee ]] is likely to invite his fair share of lawsuits from disgruntled patients. Then take this seriously,  Jo King, Tim Burr, Max Power, and  Ray Gun

NASA has decided March 12th looks like a reasonable date to get Space Shuttle Discovery off the ground.  NASA says if the March 12th launch date holds there won’t be any impact on the next two planned shuttle flights, one to repair the Hubble Space Telescope and another to the International Space Station. 

Want to own a post office?  Houston’s downtown post office was put up for sale yesterday by the U.S. Postal Service.  The building, on Franklin Street, has long been a place where people line-up to mail their holiday packages, or drop off their taxes on April 15th.  And in earlier times, the building housed the Southern Pacific rail station. 

The Jonas Brothers movie is out this weekend….you can check what life is like on the stage and on the road for them.  The brothers’ first full-length concert movie “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience” opens in theaters this Friday.  Nick Jonas says the film shows what the guys are like with each other. The film also includes the never-before-heard Jonas Brother song “Love Is On Its Way,” plus guest performances from Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato.  “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience” is rated G.

Wake up to the smell of bacon first thing in the morning! If you wanna see this alarm clock shaped like the pig that it is, here’s the linkhttp://dvice.com/archives/2008/07/wake_n_bacon_is.php

There is an Amber Alert this morning it’s for a 14 year old girl missing from Rosenberg.  Patricia Acevedo was last seen wearing a white sweather, yellow shirt, blue pants and yellow shoes.  Police are concerned that she’s in danger, she is traveling with a 25 year old man named Angel Garcia in a Chevrolet extended cab pick up truck..it’s blue with tx plates 76D-VZ7.  Please be praying for Patricia.

Today is Ash Wednesday and at school, work or on the street today you may see people with a dark smudge on their forehead – it is the sign of the cross in ashes on their forehead and it’s part of their observance of Ash Wednesday.  It’s the first day of lent … ashes are gathered after the Palm crosses from last year’s Palm Sunday – burned and the ashes are imposed to signify that from dust we come, to dust we return .Ash Wednesday is also a day of fasting and repentance.

Not everyone likes it!  A plan that would have used taxpayer dollars to provide incentive for first-time homebuyer’s has been scrapped.  Houston Mayor Bill White pulled the controversial Credit Score Enhancement Program Tuesday after receiving numerous complaints.  The program would have given people up to three-thousand-dollars in grants to pay off debt so they could buy a house. 

The President had another first last night – his first address to a joint congress.  He told the crowd he believes the country will weather the economic storm.

That is something that the Republicans also agreed with – Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal responded to the speech by saying “don’t let anyone tell you that we cannot recover – or that America’s best days are behind her. 

Several hundred Reagan High School students and staff members must undergo tuberculosis testing after a fellow student tested positive for the disease.  School officials say the student is no longer at the school and is being treated.  Officials say the testing on 300 students and teachers will take place next month following the TAKS test.  City health officials say tuberculosis takes about six weeks to show up on a test. 

He’s back! Golf’s golden goose is back..Tiger woods swings back into action today in his first championship since reconstructive surgery to repair an injured knee.  When Tiger is on top – golf and all of the sponsors are on top too.

From the Thuds to the Diamonds - God’s work was timed perfectly!

This weekend I was leading a retreat for the women of Chapelwood Methodist Church at a retreat center near Navasota.  It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon and we had free time to do a number of activities.  So, about ten of the women and my daughter and I decided to ride horses through the woods and around the camp.  It was a gorgeous day and the sun was shining, but the wind was blowing and in the trees it sounded like the ocean.  Well, we had been riding along this trail beside some thick bushes for about 20 minutes when I heard it.  There was a rustling in the thicket nearby…having been in situations like this before I immediately grabbed the horn of the saddle and prepared for a possible problem.  Sure enough!  A squirrel barrelled out of the thicket and right smack dab into the middle of all of those horses and women.  I heard the rustling, I heard the horses jump, the women scream and then…..I  heard a thud, and this time it wasn’t me!  I’ve been thrown before and the sound was unmistakable…thud….thud……….thud.  Three of the women hit the ground.  Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt, although one of the women was unable to get back up on her horse.  It took us a while to get her picked up and transported back to the retreat center - and then we all mounted up and continued the ride.

So, as we waited, my horse (named Cadbury - yes like the eggs) was not happy.  Cadbury was so used to this ride going a certain way that he was not happy that we were stopping in the middle.  He wanted to keep going at the same speed, the same pace, the same trail as he always had, even though it was obvious that some of the others weren’t with us any more.  I thought …’you stubborn head!  If you’ll just wait til we’re able to get this straightened out - we’ll be able to go right back to our plan. ’ How many times do you think God is able to say the same thing to me…I get impatient when the plan I had gets sidetracked because of some problem or another.  I just want to keep to my plan.  I want to keep to the trail I was following - even though things have changed!   I’m alot like Cadbury.  I want things to stay the same - the trail to be familiar and the pace to be steady and when it’s not..I’m impatient and hard to handle.

But, when we got back on the trail…about thirty minutes of riding later we broke through the woods and out into the open overlooking a big lake…the sun was shining on it perfectly and it looked like the entire lake was made of diamonds.  Earlier in the day the clouds and rain would have obscured the sparkling light.  But as we arrived just in time to see the diamonds dancing on the water’s surface, I thought “God did it again, His timing is perfect…even with our being delayed by the trouble along the way - God had it all worked out for us to get here right on time to see His beautiful creation.

I don’t know what anyone else learned on that trail ride.  But I learned to stop being Cadbury - and be patient. I learned to trust God even when things seem off the plan - He’s working it out and His plan is better than mine.  So, relax in the saddle…enjoy the ride and don’t forget to pay attention to beauty around you!

We talked with Marshall Cohen about the Rodeo Run this weekend - you can hear the interview on our media gallery and you can register for the run by going to www.conocophillipsrodeorun.com