Shower Time

My beautiful sis is getting married in Tahoe in August. We had her wedding shower at our house on Saturday. It was the first time I have ever hosted an event like this, and it was so much fun! I feel so grateful to have a house where we can invite people over and host events. It was a nice day!

Then There Was Today

Have you ever felt defeated, de-valued or discouraged at work? I'm sure you have. We all have. It just so happens that the past few weeks I have felt more defeated, de-valued and discouraged than ever before.

Then There Was Today

Tonight was Open House. 7 out of 12 kids and their parents showed up. This is the best turnout I have ever had! I loved watching the kids show their parents their projects and things they have worked so hard on all year. Things were going well, just like any other Open House might go, until something happened that I will remember for a long time.

I have taught this certain group of 5 kids for 3 years now, and as we approach summer, I am thinking more and more of having to send these children on to their next teacher. I am realizing how difficult this will be for me.

Tonight at Open House, a Mom of one of my students I have had for 3 years approached me with a book in her hands. She said, " I bought you a book at the book fair tonight." "Oh, how sweet! Thank you!" I said. She continued, "I wanted to get you this book because it reminds me so much of A. (Her son) I wanted you to have it so you can always remember him because I know he will always remember you. You have been such a wonderful teacher this past three years and we will miss you so much. Thank you for all you for all you have done for A."

I was incredibly touched by this gesture and by her kind and thoughtful words.

There are days when I feel like I am getting nowhere or accomplishing nothing.

Then There Was Today

And tomorrow is looking pretty good too!

Last week was teacher appreciation week. My students got me a variety of gift cards. Do you see the one for Home Depot? Randy was pretty excited about that! :)

Home Sweet Home

We have now been staying in our home for 2 weeks. We have had so much great help from Randy's parents and are pretty settled in for the most part!

Good news... the plumbing turned out to be more minor than we thought (for the time being.) There were some tree roots in the pipes but we just had it cleared and we are flowing again! We will need to replace the orange berg pipes in the future, but for now we walked away spending in the few hundreds rather than the few thousands! :)

We have some awesome friends and family! We have already had about a bunch of friends/family members come out to see our place. You are invited at any time to come on out, especially now since there is somewhere to sit and food in the fridge!

Have a happy Monday!

Plumbing Problems and More

Oh, the joys of home ownership!

The plumbing is a mess. The toilets were leaking, the showers won't drain and the water is puddling in the front yard. It looks like some tree roots are obstructing the sewer line. We will probably have to take out 3 awesome trees which is a bummer. We are having a guy come out tomorrow to pinpoint exactly where the problem is so we know how far to dig. Looks like we will be having a digging party this weekend! :)

On a happier note, I spent an awesome day with friends from work and their adorable babies. It was so fun!

On another wonderfully happy note, our good friends Jaimie and Bruce are in Ethiopia with their newly adopted son, Teg. They are coming home this Saturday!! :) We are going to meet them at the airport and are so excited to see their new son!

The painting in the house is done. THANK YOU to my awesome father-in-law who graciously sacrificed his spring break to help with the house. He has painted the inside of the house from top to bottom and worked so hard all week. THANKS CARPENTER!!

10,000 Years

Happy Easter!

Randy has this t-shirt that asks the question, "Where will you be in 10,000 years?"

Today's Easter service was not a warm, fuzzy look at Jesus. It was a look at the reality of His power. He alone is in charge of the Heavens and the earth. He alone decides if I take another breath. He alone decides if I live another day. He alone decides the same for you. So I found myself thinking of that t-shirt. Where will I be in 10,000 years? Where will you be? This life is not all there is. We have big, important, ETERNAL decisions to make while we are here. Will we believe? Will we ask for forgiveness? Will we follow Him, the only one who gives eternal life? I am and my hope and prayer is that you would too. I would love to see the faces of those I love in 10,000 years, wouldn't you? This is an awesome quote I found on another blog...

"There is no tragedy in being ushered from this life to the next when that next life is spent in the presence of God. The only real tragedy is a life that ends without that hope. When a person rejects the free gift of eternal life God has offered through a relationship with his Son, that is a tragedy."

Much love to you this Easter, as we celebrate the life we have in Him and Him alone!

We Moved In!

Instead of moving in slowly as we originally thought we would do, we woke up Sunday morning and decided to go for it! So we did! In one day we moved most of our stuff over to our new home. We also cleaned, set up our bed and bought a washer/dryer off of Craigslist! Thanks to the help of Randy's dad (thanks Carpenter!) and our good friends (thanks Curits and Katina!) we were able to do all this and sleep in our house for the first time last night. We are very happy to be in our new home. It's so big we don't know what to do with ourselves! After all this we were even able to make it to the 5pm service at church! What a day... Oh, and the whole 2nd dog thing didn't quite work out. He and Marley fought so bad I thought for sure one of them would be going to the vet for emergency surgery. So we brought him back to the lady we got him from and she will be finding him a new home. It is sad but it's what's best for both dogs, and us!

I am so excited to start painting on Friday! :)

I'm off to help Randy pull up the baseboards...

The One Where We Became Home Owners

It's official! The house is ours! We closed escrow today. We officially owe the bank A LOT of money!! It feels great to be done with the whole home-buying process and to be moving on to the home sprucing-up process. We feel so blessed and thankful for the opportunity to live in this great home. Our hope is to use this home for God's glory.

The paint saga continues... So I went to Restoration Hardware to buy some sample cans of paint. I actually got the images below from the Restoration Hardware website and I really liked the colors. Pictures online can be so deceiving. When we went over to the house tonight, we put those colors up on the wall, and WOW, they are so different! One is too light (almost white), one is way too dark, one is too blue and another is too green. I actually mixed the green and blue ones together and liked it a lot. When we go to the store this weekend for paint we will experiment and see what we come up with. Thank you for those of you who told me your opinions. #4 won!

If you need a good realtor, let me know. Ours was awesome! She even went to the house today to leave us our keys and left us a beautiful plant and a very generous Home Depot gift card. She was so fun to work with!

Feel like painting with us? You are invited! Food and drink will be provided!! :)

Please Sign Here

Wow! My hand hurts! We just signed all of our loan documents. Since we read what we signed, it took over two hours. We are so glad to be done with all that signing! All we have left to do is wait for our loan to be funded (with no glitches hopefully) and then get the keys on Friday. Then it is on to the fun stuff... cleaning, painting, ripping out carpet, putting down floors, ripping out lots of overgrown landscaping, putting in RV access, moving our stuff out of our old place in to the new place, cleaning the old place, etc. etc. etc. This is all very exciting! :) Take a look at the paint colors I am choosing from... Cast your vote!

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

The differences are subtle, but the colors are different. Ok, so it's so subtle it's ridiculous, but that is why I am having such a hard time. Seriously, tell me the color you like best. I need help!!! :)

House Updates

Things are moving along well with the house. We are set to close on April. 3rd! We just found out that before we close we have to fix some termite damage in the garage. Our funding is contingent on making the necessary repairs. So this Sat. Randy will be hard at work, replacing what is damaged. In the meantime, I have been sorting through several paint samples, trying to figure out what paint colors to choose! I know paint is easily changed but this still feels like quite a permanent decision. Anyone want to go to Home Depot and mull over paint decisions for countless hours?

Please click on the pray for Stellan button to learn about his story. He is still in a very serious state. Thanks.

Baby Stellan

I have been following this awesome blog for months now. Baby Stellan's parents were told he would die in the womb or at birth and by the grace and mercy of God, he was born perfectly healthy four months ago. Stellan became sick with what his parents thought was a cold a few days ago. He is now in the hospital, fighting for his life with the very heart condition he was suffering from in the womb-SVT. His heart rate has been consistently at 250-300. Please join me in praying for this little one and his family and visit their blog link on the right. Click on the praying for Stellan button.