I saw him again and this time he's SMILING!

I check the Texas Cadet website every day (ok, five or six times a day!) for updates and today I saw another picture of Ryan on the ropes course...the boy is actually smiling! He's also apparently joking around with the kid next to him who is making the "bunny ears".
Ryan is the kid on the left holding the rope, click on the image for a larger view....and he really IS smiling!

You don't know how much good this picture does my heart! I look at it and I just smile too. We are going to go up on Saturday to surprise Ryan for his graduation. He doesn't know we are coming and I've been feeding him a load of hooey about us not being able to afford the gas and not being able to leave the other kids, yada, yada, yada...
I can not wait to see the look on his face when we get there! You can bet I'm going to be the loudest mama up there when he walks across that platform. We'll have six hours to catch up on the way home. I figure he'll either pass out and sleep from all the exhaustion, or talk our ear off the whole time! I don't care which! I'm just glad he finally came around and is having fun and that we are going to be able to go get him soon.
Thanks to everyone for the prayers! God is so good and merciful!