Some pictures of the season!

Last Saturday we hosted Andrew's company Christmas party (20 people) at our home. We had to move our sectional out of the living room and into the bedroom to make room for the tables, but it all turned out beautifully, thanks to Andrew's sisters helping with the decorating and set-up! Here are a few pictures, from different sides of the room:

The table in the entryway:

Here's a photo of Andrew and me at the party (he hadn't gotten his food yet...he's not on a diet or anything)!

Our sister-in-law's father set up a little photo studio in our guest bedroom and took pictures of all the couples at the party. Here's one he took of us!

We have had a 6-foot artificial Christmas tree for the last few years, but since our ceiling is taller in the living room now, we got a 9-foot pre-lit tree this year, and put the shorter tree in the back TV room. So we have our pretty, elegant tree with white lights and blue, silver, and white ornaments in the front room and our cute, cozy tree with colored lights and red, gold, and bronze ornaments in the back!

Praying your Christmas season is joy-filled and blessed!

Long time, no blog!

Whew...we have finally moved into our new house -- the big move day was June 19 (Andrew remembered as we were in the middle of moving that the day we moved to Sacramento from Vancouver was June 19, 1999, so I guess June 19 is just our day for moving)! Two days after we moved, some of our closest friends (we all met at Bible college) came to stay with us for a week, and the day they left my sister Anna and two little nephews, Ben and Aaron, came to stay for 10 days! They left last Sunday, and on Tuesday my parents arrived for a visit! They will fly home this Sunday evening. We have really enjoyed sharing our new home with everyone, even though it's been a whirlwind few weeks!

I plan to share some before and after pics of our new home soon...I just want to get a few more things done (like curtains and artwork put up) before I take the "after" shots! Thanks for your patience! :-)

In the meantime, here are a few pictures from the last few weeks...enjoy!

Becky and LaSarah, my two best friends from college, at the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield, CA, where we took a tour to see how the famous candies are made!

LaSarah with her husband Nate and their kiddos, Josh and AnnaLuisa, posing on some "toadstools" at FairyTale Town in Sacramento.

My brother Nate with our nephews Ben and Aaron at a little community parade we went to see.

My sister Anna and me; pardon my squinting -- it was bright!

And just a little something to tide you over until I can get more before and after pics ready, here's the circular fireplace in our living room as it was when we purchased the house:

And here's what it looks like now, after we commissioned a local artist to paint it (the scenes are from the Northwest, where I'm from -- Multnomah Falls and a scene from the Columbia River Gorge). We're quite pleased with the end result!

Sorry for the long absence!

Life has been busy lately! We are finally going to be moving to the new house, hopefully starting at the beginning of this next week -- we'll probably move a little bit each day (the boxes, that is) and then choose one day to move all the big furniture and stuff. We have friends from out of town coming on June 21 to spend a week with us, so I need to have everything set up and the house decorated and all that by then!

I have to say that I'm very thankful for a friend of ours from Vancouver, WA, Michael Makarenko, who drove down with a friend of his on May 20 to help things at the house get done faster...we appointed him as "supervisor" over all the other workers, and it's thanks to his hard work that we will be able to move in this week...so, THANK YOU, MICHAEL!!! He and his friend are driving back to Vancouver this Sunday.

Hard to believe we signed papers for the house on December 26 and we're finally going to be living there! It's seemed like a dream for so long, and now it will finally be reality -- thank You, Lord!

Splash!

Today we drove over to the new house to check on progress (it's coming along slowly but surely - we're hoping to move in the first week of May; even though the whole house won't be done yet, the side with the most important rooms, like the kitchen and our bedroom and bathroom, will be). While we were there, we decided to clean the pool (turning on the filters and vacuum for a while, and skimming off all the leaves and bugs floating on top). Once the pool was clean, Andrew and I decided to dip our feet in the water for a bit -- it was in the mid-80s here today, so quite warm! The water in the pool is still pretty chilly, but after a few minutes our feet got used to it and it felt quite refreshing!

A little later, I was trying to convince Nate that he should dip his feet in the pool too, since it felt so nice. But he didn't seem interested. We were sitting at a table on the patio, and I had my back to him, watching Andrew skim the pool. Next thing I know, Nate comes running past me and jumps into the pool, shorts and t-shirt and all (for a second I thought he was going to push Andrew in)!

So Nate was the first one of us to officially swim in the new pool...he looked like he was having such a fun time going off the diving board, and it looked so refreshing... Andrew was sweaty from being in the sun cleaning the pool, so we convinced him that he should go for a little swim, too. (I was not dressed appropriately, and we were planning to go shopping afterwards, so I didn't join in the fun!)

Here's Nate explaining how it all went down and doing a re-enactment, then a video of Andrew jumping in the first time (pardon my little shriek when the water almost hit the camera), and a few pictures! (If you're reading this post via e-mail and can't view the videos, you'll need to go to the blog itself to see them!)

Thanking the Lord today for beautiful, sunny weather, a refreshing pool, and a relaxing afternoon!

Demolition....

Our new kitchen is in a current state of destruction...we are having new cabinets installed in a few weeks, so they've torn out all the old ones (it actually looks even worse than this now, as all the bottom cabinets are gone, too).



All I can say is, I'm so glad we're not living there right now... We lived through the remodeling of our current house and it was no fun!

And, I can't wait until I can post the "after" pics! :-)

It's looking like we'll probably be moving in sometime after the 1st of March...I haven't even started packing yet!

Happy New Year!

As 2008 begins, I'm thankful for all God's blessings in 2007, and looking forward to what He has in store for us this year.

One of the biggest things coming up for us is our move! On December 26th we signed papers on a new house, located just a few blocks from our church. This house will be great for hospitality, as it's bigger than our current house, and will be perfect for raising any future children the Lord might choose to send us. We are very thankful for this gift from Him; the way it all worked out makes it clear to us that it's His will for us to move. After we have a few renovations done we hope to move in at the beginning of February! We'll be renting out our current house to one of Andrew's sisters (so we'll still get to enjoy pomegranates from the tree in the backyard when they're in season)!

Praying that 2008 will be a year of great joy and peace for you!