I DID IT AGAIN!!!

Posted by cokelady

I just lost a whole post! Aaaaauuuuurrrrggggghhhhh!!! Spent 30 minutes or more working on it and LOST it. The most frustrating part?! It's my fault this time! I was posting straight from Picasa (haven't done it that way in months and months) and accidentally closed down the program before it had a chance to publish. ~SIGH~ So frustrating! It had great pictures! And even the commentary was more colorful than it's been in a while! (I know I've really been dropping the ball in that departement--I was trying to get back into the groove!) But alas, it's nearly midnight now and I'm just not up to trying to write the whole thing up again. And I'm certainly not up to trying to say anything witty. Maybe tomorrow. Ggrrr.

~A Very Mad Me~

8 comments

At Long Last!!!

Posted by cokelady

I wouldn't want anyone to to damage their fists (or any tables), so I thought I'd take the time to post some pictures of our new house. ;-) Of course, it's not truly OURS yet--as is evidenced by some of the things that will be changed in short order once it truly becomes ours. You'll see what I mean. ;-) These aren't an any particular order, as you'll see, mostly because I really don't have the time to THINK about putting them in order. So I'll just explain as we go.

This is a strange picture to start with, but it just sort of ended up at the top! This, obviously, is the kitchen and beyond that is the laundry room and the door leading to the garage. The brick linoleum is torn up from the BIG dogs the guy has, and we're hoping to replace it with wood floors at some point.

This was taken from the front door. As you can see, we have a living room/dining room/kitchen combo thing going on--one of those "great rooms."
This is that crazy master bathroom I told you about--great big open floor space, and a little, itty-bitty sink over in the corner! Ha! The tile is actually green. The beige tiles have a leaf design on them. It's not what I would have chosen, but it'll work great with our "woodsy" decor. Besides, the guy just laid it about 2 weeks ago! (The owner is a floor and tile man.)
And here's the mondo tub in there. Crazy, hu?! At least we can give the kids swimming lessons. Ha!
This is something a little different, too. There is a wood stove in the master bedroom!
HA! And check out THIS room! This is going to be the kids' room. Once we get the garage finished out into more living space, this will be just Katie's room. I'm sure you've guessed that this room will probably be our very FIRST project once we move into the house! Ha! Can you believe that paint job?! I don't think so!!!
This is the wood stove in the living room...
This is the owner showing the kids his collections of arrow heads and such things that he has found there on the property. Like I said, he's a very colorful character! But such a nice guy...
James wanted to be sure that I posted the view from the front porch, so here are two...

This is the cute little shed that will eventually be James' office. The covered porch area will be converted into additional space and I think it'll be close to the same size office he had in Andrews. I think we're going to take that great door (it's actually one of those doors that opens on the top AND the bottom) and use it as the door to the boys' bedroom. Won't that be a cool entrance into the cowboy room?! Makes me smile just thinking about it. :-)
There's no such thing as a GOOD picture of the front of the house. That's because the land goes downhill in front and there's not enough flat space to stand and take a picture of the whole thing at once! But here are a few... The sun face on the side of the house is the first thing to go (I hate those things!)--along with that wire fencing stuff. The guy just had it there to discourage his monster dogs from tromping around where he was going to grow some grass. I don't think Hershey will do much damage to the grass. ;-)

And that's about it! For now, of course. I'll be sure to take before and after pictures of each room as we make it our own. I do this primarily for the sake of Jason Mullins, who seems to enjoy the HGTV type posts. ;-)

Well, I think that's all for now. Keep praying for the church here. (Thank you soooooo much, Sister Angie! What a blessing!) It's been a crazy day today, but we're feeling very encouraged and we know that God is working. How wonderful! Have a great night!!!

~Becki~

7 comments

Terminal Blogger

Posted by cokelady

That's me. Not so much in the sense that my blogging days are coming to an end (as far as I know!), but in the sense that I seem to have developed a severe case of BBD (Bad Blogger Disease) with absolutely no hope of recovery. You'd think that living in a motel room with absolutely nothing to do would ensure my success as a blogger. Nope. Even here I can't seem to be as faithful as I used to be. Weird. The worst part of it all is...

I'm bored out of my gourd!!! And I still can't seem to make myself sit down and blog. It just feels like one more thing to sit down and do. I'm so tired of sitting down I could scream! Even when we try to get out on the town and stay busy, we're still not really "living," you know?! Not normal life, as we know it. It's crazy, I know, but I can't wait to have a kitchen floor to scrub again. Real dinners to cook for my family. Even a house to remodel! ~sigh~ I read one novel while I was bored in Pennsylvania. I read another one on the drive from Tennessee back to Texas and then on to New Mexico. I read a third one the first week we were here. I started a cross-stitch a few days ago. But I'm tired of all of it! Usually I would be SO EXCITED to have time to read and stitch. At this point, I'm just SICK of it all! I am all vacationed out. I want to have some WORK to do! Something truly productive instead of just "fun" stuff to pass the time. It ain't so fun anymore!

That's my complaining spree for the day. It's probably not over yet, so don't get your hopes up. Ha!

Let's see if I can remember what we've done this week... On Wednesday we loaded everybody up and drove down to Old Town. Did you know that Albuquerque was founded (or established or whatever they call it!) over 300 years ago?! Wild, hu?! Sometime we'll go and take the tours in Old Town and learn all about it, but it was WAY too cold to do it on Wednesday! We did look for a restaurant that Brother VanDeventer said he used to go to when he came to Albuquerque on business years ago. We found La Hacienda and walked up to the door, only to find a sign saying that they were closed for renovations. It did, however, say that they had another location on the south plaza, so we wandered over there and found Casa De Fiesta. WOWZERS. It was fantastic! I got a chimichanga and James ordered some mexican steak thing. The kids split the tostada plate. Everything--including the salsa--was soooooo good. But it was a bit beyond my limits in the spice department. Still, it was too good to not eat, so I just suffered through it. James's must have been pretty spicy, too, because his nose was almost as drippy as mine! My Dad would have LOVED the food, but his head would have been all red with little beads of sweat dripping down his cheeks. Ha! I love it when he eats Mexican food! Anyway, it was delicioso! ;-)

Just north of Old Town is where the Albuquerque Musuem, the Musuem of Natural History and Science, and !explora!--their Children's Museum. We decided to go check out the !explora! and it was a great decision! WOW! We've been to several Children's Musuems across the country and enjoyed them all, but this one was just sooooo cool. Most of them are more like giant playgrounds, but this one is full of tiny little work stations (TONS of them) where they can do all sorts of experiements. It just seemed a lot more hands-on and educational. James and I had at least as much fun as the kids, if not more! We were there for about 3 hours, I think. I didn't get very many good pictures--none of them really capture how great it was--but here are a few...

This was really cool. The kids could move the little "plates" to direct the waterflow in different directions and create little streams, then float their balls down them.

The kids loved the "walking sticks." Neat-o, hu?! Of all things, SAM wouldn't hold it!

There was a large fan in front of the airplane and you could control the amount of air, simulating your speed in a real airplane. Once you had that part figured out you could lift off and try to fly the thing. James enjoyed it. :-)

Joe did, too, but he took it quite seriously!

Ha! This was great! You were supposed to try to put all of the nails into the holes, but air was blowing up through the holes and the more of them you filled the harder the air would push until it would send several nails would go flying out. Ha! Joe didn't get the concept very well and I just kept pushing him. "Come on, Joe--get 'em all in! You can do it!!!" The harder he tried, the more nails he lost. Ha! Ha! It was great. :-)

This was hilarious, too. I don't think it would actually classify as a "hall of mirrors" in the sense I've always thought of it. (I've always wanted to go through a mirror maze--that would be so cool!) This was just a small square room with mirrored walls. No matter--Katie and Sam BOTH walked right into a wall before they made it back out! Ha!

The bubble pond!

One of the many music rooms. There were sooooo many cool things in this area, but most of them would have been boring pictures.

Out on the deck they had these great slats that the kids could build with. I'd love to have some of our own so they could construct their own forts in the back yard. :-)

See James standing over there in front of that giant orange thing? That is called a Whisper Disc. There was another one right behind where I was standing when I took the picture. He could whisper into his disc and I could here him wa-a-a-a-a-ay over where I was! Wow! How cool is that?!

We didn't get a chance to try this and I'm not sure anybody would have had the guts to do it anyway. This bike was up on the 2nd floor. You got strapped into it, then peddled out on a wire across the big open spaces underneath you, then back again. Ha! I DON'T THINK SO!

By the time we were done at the musuem I was sooooo tired! We went back to the motel and the kids and I all crashed. I think I slept for almost 2 hours!!! Joe was very feverish the other night and did a whole lot of extra sleeping and Katie has been a little raspy and had a cough for the past few days. I wondered if my extreme need for sleep was my body fighting off any of the same stuff. ??? Anyway, it helped and I felt great afterwards.

That night we had a Pizza Party, complete with Totino's (they actually fit in our new toaster oven--without having to cut or break them!), Coke, popcorn, and Lucy. That's right, we bought our own collections of I Love Lucy and Wanted: Dead or Alive. We never have cable, so when we travel we enjoy watching HGTV and Animal Planet. This motel has neither. We have found a few things on the Discovery Channel but for the most part it's just the usual cable trash, so we thought it worthwhile to invest in a few oldies but goodies. It gives us something else to do while we're sitting around, wondering what to do with ourselves! Anyway, it was great to have a Pizza Party again. :-)

Thursday. Hhmmm. Maybe that WAS Thursday! I don't know anymore! Maybe it's Wednesday that I can't remember. I know that yesterday James did some running around town, looking for a Christian book store. (Can you believe there is no Mardel OR Family Christian Store in a city this size?! CRAZY!!!) The kids and I stayed "home" and had devotions, then a real, full session of school. ~sigh~ That was great! We had sandwhiches for lunch, just like the good old days. :-)

In the afternoon James came home and we all loaded up and went to visit Sister Grimes. We had a nice time with her and her daughter, Pat. Afterwards we went to Hobby Lobby, then headed up to the east mountains again, our new home. We didn't drive up to the house to pester the poor man who still calls it home, we just drove around to check out some more things in the area. Went to the bank and had me added to the account (we couldn't to it the first time because I have this little problem remembering the last four digits of my social security number), then went into the cute little grocery stores up there, just to see what they offer and how bad the prices are. They actually have lots to offer and most of the prices were pretty good, too. And the stores were cute! Almost as cute as the 84 year old owner, "Charlie," as he introduced himself. :-)

Today has been another "regular" day. Devotions and school. :-) Feels good! Now the kids are watching Lucy while James is out doing some more running around. Nap time is coming, then we'll have to get out of the room for a while later this afternoon. I got so sick of going a week or two ago that I told James I wanted to spend a whole day at "home." A whole day at home just isn't the same when you're living in a motel. By 4:00 we were all about ready to scream! We loaded up and went somewhere after all.

It does get old living in a motel. The kids get antsy, but the dog is about to drive us nuts! I get up with him early in the morning and run him around the motel. I do it again a few times throughout the day, the last time being just before dark. But it's just not enough for that energetic dog of mine! He could run around the building 6 times in a row and still be going strong, but I'm huffing and puffing and wheezing and stumbling after just one lap. We go back inside and he'll spend the next 20 minutes ricochetting from the door to the bed and back. For real--he'll run toward the door, jump and slam himself up against it, then bounce onto the edge of the bed, which he bounces off of and rams the door again. ~sigh~ Just 19 more days until we close on our house. Just 19 MORE DAYS. We can make it! Right?!?!? Ha! I'm sure we can. I think. Maybe.

Okay, I'm outta here. Have a great weekend! And please say a prayer for the church here in Albuquerque. There are some interesting things going on and some difficult decisions for the people here to make concerning their building and such. Pray for God to give them wisdom, as well and James and me as we try to help them sort through it all.

Later!

~Bec~

8 comments

Laundry Night

Posted by cokelady

Yes, once again I'm sitting in the motel's laundry room. I actually kind of like doing this once a week. I'm a definite people person and I need to have fun and fellowship... But I'm also a definite "I need to be alone for a little while!" person--and it's hard to pull that off when you're living with a husband, three kids and a dog in a 12'x16' room! You can't go into "the other room" for a break unless it's the bathroom. With no tub in which to soak and relax. So laundry night is my once a week all alone time. It's great! Until some burly guy with hair in places that I'd really rather not be seeing anyway comes to wash some clothes that he's obviously never cared about washing before... No, really--it's nice here. And so far tonight, it looks like ours is the only family in the motel that has run out of clean socks and ghandi's. ~aaaahhhhh~ Alone for a little while. :-)

Well, we had a truly great weekend. We got up on Friday and threw our things into a suitcase or two (in my case, I threw everything the kids and I would need into a giant bin) and headed to Colorado. The drive was beautiful, especially from Walsenburg up to the campground in Hillside. WOW. Everything was snowy and sparkly white and loooked fresh and clean and all of the branches to the pine trees were drooping low from the weight of the snow. The sky was bright blue and there were little puffs of clouds sitting on top of the crisp white mountaintops... Surely there will be mountains and snow in heaven. I can't imagine anything more magnificent!

Anyway, we got James up to the campground at about 4:30, but our dumb van couldn't make it up the snowy hill again this year. The groundskeeper came and helped us avoid certain death, so that was nice. Actually, he just came and redirected the van for us so we wouldn't get stuck in a snowbank. The kids and I headed for Denver at about 5:00. About 10 miles from the campground is where it started. Snow and ice and more snow. Nothing was too awful bad until we got just north of Colorado Springs. The roads were really bad by then and I passed 3 or 4 accidents, at least. We sort of slipped and slid our way up to Aurora and right into Emilee's driveway--which she was outside shoveling for us as we arrived. (What service!) We averaged about 35 mph for the last 75 miles or so and it took forever!!! But we finally arrived safe and sound sometime after 9:00, I think.

We let the kids stay up and act like animals for another hour or two, just because they don't have much opportunity to be together. Once we put them down, Haley and Emilee and I played games, but don't ask what. We played a whole slew of games over the weekend, but I don't know what we played when! Clue (several times), I Buy, Scattergories, Life, Memory Madness (kind of), Blink, and something else I can't think of right now. It was great. No wait. I'm not sure we played any games that first night. Hhmmm. Seems like I remember sitting around in the basement talking--and experiencing several "30 second silences"! Ha! It was fun anyway.

Saturday morning the good Mom's (everyone but me) fried and baked some bacon to go with the strangely beautiful cinnamon rolls (!) they had made the day before. The kids played outside in the snow a little bit that day, but mostly just hung out in the basement. We cooked up 10 packages of Ramen for lunch (can you imagine?!), which was a huge hit. Just think--it cost somebody (Haley?) all of $1! That's the way to go! We had planned to watch a girl movie during "quiet time" that afternoon, but when the time came we girls were just too worn out! So we napped. Can you believe that?! During our girl weekend! That's just wrong. We must be getting old!!!

For dinner that night the good Moms (again, everybody but me) whipped out their Papa Murphy's coupons and ordered a truckload of pizza (3 BIG ones, one cheese bread ring thingie, and some fantastic cinnamon desert thingie) and it only cost each of us just under $10. Wa-Hoo! Gotta love those thrifty Moms! ;-) It was great.

After the kids went to bed that night, we moms (good and bad--ha!) headed down to the basement for our big girl night, the highlight of the weekend. Haley had gotten a recommendation from Mandie "Used-To-Be-Our-Friend" Alexander about a movie entitled Nicholas Nickleby. The plot took place in the same era as Emma and Sense & Sensibility, some of our favorite movies, so coupled with the fact that Mandie said it was good we had high hopes. The costumes were right, the music was right... The movie was terrible! It is by far the absolute worst movie I have ever seen in my whole entire life. I usually just sit back and enjoy a movie and go on with my life. But I experienced such frustration during this movie that I was actually moved to violent thoughts by the end. I just couldn't wait for the mean old geezer to die and I almost celebrated when the creep finally hung himself. Isn't that terrible?! A Christian girl shouldn't feel that way!!! I must admit though... we laughed ourselves to tears several times throughout the movie. Not because of it. In spite of it. I remember something about a lost duck and us screaming through our teary laughter, "Lock the doors! We've lost our ducks!!!" (That can't possibly make sense to anybody else, but it was a highlight of the weekend for me! Ha!) I'm sad to say that I have fallen out of contact with Mandie for the most part and although I still love and miss her terribly, I only actually take the initiative to call her once a year or so (I'm such a bad phone friend!!!)... But this warrents a phone call! That girl is going to be hearing from me about this Nickleby movie, I assure you! Ha!

We were so disgusted with the movie (although there was one 30 second highlight at the end when Mr. Elton from Emma performed the Highland Fling! Ha!) that we had to fix our ruined night. I can't remember who's idea it was, but somebody grabbed Darby O'Gill and the Little People and shoved it into the DVD player in an attempt to right the terrible mistake we'd made with the first movie. Needless to say, the attemp failed miserably! Ha! Emilee had never seen it before and Haley and I hadn't seen it since we were about 10 years old, so how were we to know?! It had a struggling plot, at best, with a creepy, conniving little leprechaun who was no more trustworthy than the drunken Irishman who captured him and a doofy redheaded girl who stuck her lips out an inch in front of her face every time she tried to speak. The one thing that could have saved the movie is that it had a very young Sean Connery in it. (Probably a movie he never mentioned on his resumes...) But alas, since the plot took place in Ireland, he was constrained to cover up his naturally terrific accent with a dopey half-Irish sounding one. And he sang. ~sigh~ I'm all for musicals, but Sean Connery?! Come on! Anyway, we played I Buy throughout that movie because we knew early on that the plot just wasn't going to be enough for us. We tried Memory Madness, but after about three cards of that we realized we simply weren't up to it!

We were still desperately frustrated at the end of the Little People movie, so Haley grabbed an Anne Hathaway movie that she and Emilee love and I had never seen before. We were feeling the need to purge our systems of the two loser movies with a good one before our girl party came to a close! Unfortunately, it was far too late by that time to be able to really enjoy any movie, so I'm not sure if I loved it or hated it! Ha! Probably somewhere in between. Emilee didn't last through it--she was the smart one and called it a night halfway through. Haley and I made it to the very end, then I looked at the clock and saw that it was 3:30!!! In the morning!!! I said, "What are we doing?!" I mean, for goodness' sake--I'm 30 years old! I've got three kids upstairs fast asleep (although that took some doing at the beginning of the evening--Joe and his fears again!) and I'm staying up until 3:30 in the morning?! How dumb is that?! Besides the time, I felt like scum having taken in three movies--what is that?!--5 hours of TV?! Good grief!!! Last time I did that I was about 13 years old!!! ~sigh~ I told Haley that I'm making the schedule next year (ha! Like I can do any better!) and that Mandie will be hearing from me. :-)

In spite of the terrible movie selections, we had a whole lot of fun and I'm sooooo glad it worked out for us to do the annual girl party! I'm already looking forward to next year. :-)

Oh, I almost forgot. I was so tired after the movies that I knew I'd never be able to get up early enough in the morning to get a shower, so I took one right then. Dropped onto the couch in the basement at 3:45. Wide awake. I actually laid there and laughed out loud as I thought about the stupid movies and wasted time and teary laughter and all of the fun. I was just about to drop off to sleep at about 4:00 when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Joe. I had been to take care of him several times before he finally fell asleep and the only way I was able to convice him to lay in the boys' room was to promise him that I would come check on him. That was at about 10:00. This was 4:00 in the morning. He came over to the couch and said in his typical Joe voice, "Mom? Hey, Mom? You didn't come check on me." "Yes, I did, Joe." "No, you didn't." "Yes, I did. I came and checked on you and you were fast asleep, so I came back downstairs." "You did?" "YES." "Oh. Okay, Mom." I sent him back to bed, but in about two minutes he was back by my side again. "Um, Mom? I think Luke's feet are on my pillow." !!! So move your pillow or Luke's feet, you goon! I said it a little nicer than that, though. After another five minutes or so I heard footsteps upstairs again, then saw that a light had been turned on up there. I went to investigate and sure enough it was Joe again. "Mom, somebody turned the light off on the bathroom, so I just turned it on again." ~sigh~ I turned the light off, told the kid to grab his pillow and blanket and hauled him downstairs with me. He was thrilled to be able to sleep on the other couch down there and I was thrilled to finally be able to get some sleep!

We got up sometime before 8:00, fed the kids cereal, and I loaded up our bin and threw it into the back of the van. We said our goodbyes and left at about 9:00. We arrived at the campground at about noon, I think, then waited for the service to get over and all of the men to get done gabbing (and they say women are bad!) before finally hittin' the road around 2:00. I then found out that James, too, had been up until 4:30 in the morning! Ha! So who's gonna drive?! I drove for a little while, then him, then me again. We made it "home" just fine at about 8:00 Sunday night.

Yesterday we did some running around town, looking at antique and junk stores just for fun, and I don't remember what else. A little grocery shopping. Then we went to our soon-to-be house and met up with Jason, the owner, and the inspector who was there to check everything out. We were there for about an hour and a half, I think, and the inspector seemed thoroughly impressed with the condition of the home. Just a few minor little things in need of attention and the owner will gladly take care of them. The owner. Ha! That guy is a riot! He is a very, very interesting character (the kind that makes you scoop your children up and look for a hiding place if you were to walk past him on the road! Ha!), but he is sooooo nice. And funny! He is a very self-sufficient, live-off-the-land kind of guy and he was showing the kids all of the arrowheads he's found there on the property and little rocks of some sort that the indians in the area used to use for war paint (Katie and Joe looked ready to attack by the end of the evening!) and who knows what all. The kids just fell in love with him.

I learned a little more about the house and got a few more ideas for what we'll probably do with it, but it's going to take some definite time and thought before we get too deep into projects there! I want to make sure we KNOW what we want to do before we just get in a hurry and start doing, you know?! It's going to be fun though, I know that much. :-) I took a whole bunch of pictures, but don't have time to post them tonight. James actually thinks I'm working on the regional paper. Ha! Won't he be surprised! Ha! Ha! I worked on it for quite a while last night (it's tough because I don't have my computer and my usual programs--and we don't have our printing equipment, so we'll be printing on regular 8x11 paper this time, just black and white, with one staple in the corner, leaflet style) and it won't take me too much longer to finish up. I'm waiting on one last boost before wrapping it up. No biggie. I can get it all done tonight easily enough.

ANYWAY, today we drove back up to the mountains to check things out a little bit and see what kind of things we'll have access to up there. Went into a thrift store and found a terrific denim skirt (just can't have too many!) and a pair of hiking boots for Joe, and went into a country store there that has some really terrific rustic furniture at very reasonable prices--we'll be keeping it in mind, for sure! We drove on out to Moriarty and found two really, really great antique stores with some furniture that we really like--and it was so cheap! I would so much rather pay a lot less money for something old and one-of-a-kind-ish than to pay a whole lot more money for some factory made something from Ashley Furniture or something! We found several pieces that I'm sure we'll go back and check on once we actually have the house! It felt like a really productive day, learning what we can find where when we need it. :-)

Well, the laundry is almost done and it will be time to go back to the room and get working on the paper again. I'll try to post some pictures of the house sometime soon. That's all the latest from here. And now it's time to say goodbye... to all our family... M-I-C... see you real soon! K-E-Y... Why?! Because we like you! M-O-U-S-E!!! ;-)

~Bec~

Ha! I've been caught. James just showed up to say that he put the kids to bed (our room is only two doors down from the laundry room--very convenient!) and to check on me. "How's it going?" he says. Translation: "Are you done with the paper yet?" HA! I confessed my blogging and told him I'd do the paper next. "Next?" he said as he cocked an eyebrow. Yeppers. First things first, I always say! ;-)

6 comments

Making Up for Lost... PICTURES!

Posted by cokelady

I just realized that you can scroll all the way down to the very bottom of this page... and not see a single picture!!! That's terrible! I haven't posted a picture since we moved out of our Andrews house. I think that was December 19th. That's way, way too long to go with no pictures on a blog! So I sorted through and picked out some pictures (starting at early December) and threw 'em on here. Ready?! Here we go!

This is the Mad Packer, Tammy, helping working her magic. For real, the girl should have a black belt in packing--she is amazing. I told her I was going to post a picture of the one woobered box she did and then everybody would think I'm nuts and she's a lousy packer! Ha! We were running low on boxes at the time and my Grandmother's mantle clock (one of the three material possessions I would be really sad to have damaged) was in that particular box, padded with who knows what all!

The kids really got the short end of the stick while we were packing up the house. If not for Aunt Sue and Tammy taking them and giving them a little attention they would have gone totally neglected those 9 days we were packing and cleaning! But there was a little fun for them even in the midst of the chaos. They had a blast with the packing paper!

It was a long, long drive to Pennsylvania once we finally got moved out. Hershey took it rough. I only wish I could relax like he always seems to be able to do!

This was the only really good picture we got from Christmas morning. I love it! Ha! It's just... so SAM!

Here are the kids, getting ready for their very first boating trip (ha!) with Granddaddy!

Neat-o, hu?! I was hoping for a cool picture with the sun and the reflection on the water.

Joe and Sam spent quite a bit of time playing "Alamo" at Mom & Dad's house.

Katie got a weaving loom for Christmas and she LOVES it. I can't tell you how many pot holders she has whipped out since then! We've bought packs of extra loops so far, I know that much! I'm just glad that the Hobby Lobby here in Albuquerque carries the great big bags of loops--for only $2.50 or something. That should keep her busy for a little while. (I hope!)
The kids with Granddaddy. It's when they're ALL happiest--including him!
Driving west after our family visits we stumbled across this "Santa Land" place, somewhere east of Dallas, I think. It was the last day they were open before shutting down for the season and they boasted having over 2 million lights, so we thought we'd give it a try. It was pretty neat! I took TONS of pictures (there was soooooooooo much neat stuff!), but most of them didn't turn out very well. Anyway, here's the entrance...
Just past the entrance you drive through this grove...
This picture didn't turn out at all, but it was soooooo cool! It was a tunnel (pretty long, too, I thought!) made entirely of Christmas lights.
They had lots of "animated" displays, where things would light up in sections to make something happen--like a lion jumping through a flaming hoop.
And this guy swinging from a rope and meeting an unfortunate end.
These were all sooooo pretty! I'm usually not into the girly stuff, butI just loved the flowers and butterflies!
This was a tornado--that had captured a cow. When I took the picture the cow was upside down over on the left side. It's kind of hard to tell because of the stage coach behind him!
This was taken at Aunt Sue's house one night. I went to check on the boys and this is how I found them. Sleeping like a litter of puppies. Weird-o's.
Okay! And here we are! Home, Sweet Home! This is our motel room here in Albuquerque, our home until we get to actually MOVE IN to a "real" home. This, of course, was taken just after we had unloaded the van. Pretty ugly!
Amazingly enough, all of our things found a place to "belong" here and this room has been working quite well for us--in spite of it's size (12'x16'--for real, I measured it! With a 3'x5' kitchen, and a bathroom about that same size) and lack of storage space.

Here is my kitchen for the past week and the next month! Definitely a one person kitchen! Ha! It's been so nice to have even just this, though. And check out our new fancy-schmancy toaster oven! I've never had anything but the $12 Sunbeam brand ones that burn half of your toast to a crisp while the other half is still squishy. This one is fantastic--and we paid just more than the usual $12 for it, so that makes me very happy. Of coure, all we've used it for so far is Pop Tarts, but no matter! :-)
Our bathroom! Our counterless, tubless bathroom! This was what I was most worried about, but it's been no biggie. Everything is working out just fine!
And here is our living room/dining room leading into the kitchen. Hey, isn't that what they call a great room?! I have a great room, right now! Ha! How cool is that?! If you're wondering about the two chairs at the table, we eat in shifts. ;-) And that dresser there is for the men. James, Joe and Sam each have a drawer.
And this is Katie's drawer and my "hole" for storage. See?! Plenty of room! :-)
Here's James, at the Regional Office... Tee! Hee!
And happy kids, loving the motel life. For now!

~sigh~ It's been a good month.

Let's see... what's been going on the past few days??? On Tuesday we got our counter offer from the guy with the two bedroom house with the great view. We had offered him $10,000 less than his asking price and he came down $7,000 and agreed to pay all of the closing costs and inspections and all that junk. And take the speakers out of the ceiling and patch it up. Ha! I didn't mention that last time! This house has four speakers in the living room ceiling. I don't mean nice little speakers that are intended to be in the ceiling and unnoticed. I mean SPEAKERS! Four great big honkin' speakers (3' long?) sunk into the sheetrock up above you. Ha! Anyway, we went and signed the counter offer, so now it should be a done deal! Jason, who is the eighth wonder of the world in my opinion, tells us that he's got everything covered and not to worry about a thing. He has renewed my faith that there is at least ONE really terrific realtor in the world. They're not all slimeballs! Wow!!! Who would've known?! :-) He's been truly amazing and I just can't get over what a blessing it has been that God led us to him.

The owner of this house has no idea where he's moving to, so he needed at least 30 days to figure it out. That means our closing date on this house is supposed to be February 14th. We'll see! We are booked at this motel for 30 days, ending on February 8th. We'll either pay for another week here, or we'll go bum off of friends somewhere for a little while. ;-) Anyway, we've got a few more weeks in a motel. So far it's been going good, but I am going to be soooooo ready to actually be in a real house, with my stuff again. There's only so much you can do in a motel room, you know?! I read a book while I was in Pennsylvania, another one on our drive from Tennessee back to Texas, and another one over the past day or two. I bought a cross-stitch kit a few days ago (had to go with a kit because all of my floss and equipment is packed away!), so I'll have that to do. It's wonderful to actually have time to do these kinds of things... but it's already getting old! There's only so much vacation a person can take before they go batty and I'm already headed that direction! Ha! We're just shy of one month being homeless.

In reality, it hasn't been bad at all. The worst part about motel living is that we've got three kids and a dog who get stir crazy pretty quick. I take Hershey outside and RUN him around the motel 2 or 3 times a day, just to get him out and give him a little exercise. I may give myself a heart attack in the process (I am sooooo out of shape!), but he needs it. Yesterday I took the dog AND the kids for a run around the motel! We get out most days and take them to a park or something, but it's been pretty cold and hard to do that. Today we took them to the Hot Air Balloon Museum. That was nice. It's something they would enjoy a lot more in a few years, but there was still lots of cool stuff that they enjoyed. James bought me a pair of hot air balloon socks (gotta love that!), so Katie thought she needed a pair, too. We told her that we weren't going to buy them for her today, but if she wanted to use some of her own money she could. They were going to cost her $4 and she said she had $14 and she wanted to do it. Her money was in the van, so I bought them for her and told her she could pay me back. We weren't even out of the gift shop yet when she started struggling with the idea of parting with $4. But it was too late--the socks had been purchased and she needed to pay up. When we got to the van she counted her money and realized she only had $10, not $14. That's when the world really fell apart. She paid her $4, but the tears were just streaming down her face as she rued over the fact that she now only has $6. "How am I ever going to earn more money, Mom???" That kid. I don't remember caring anything about money at that age! I do remember the agony of SPENDING money (I still feel it on occasion!), but she seems way too young to be so disturbed by such things. Anyway, I told her that she's got $6--which is more than any 6 year old needs, she's got a great pair of balloon socks, and a birthday coming soon to replenish her stash with--she ought to be HAPPY. It did help when she remember her upcoming birthday. I can't believe it slipped her mind at all--she and Joe have been planning it non-stop for the past week, making lists of everything they want to to and what kind of cake they want and who knows what all. Goofy kids.

Well, I guess that's about it. Pray for the Church here in Albuquerque. Some things have come up and the members here are facing some difficult things concerning the church building and the CoGoP coming after it and whatnot. They need wisdom and they need peace. And we need the will of God to be done, whatever that is. In connection with that situation, plans have changed and we will now be able to go to Colorado this weekend so James can attend Men's Retreat after all! Wa-Hoo! The kids and I will be staying with Emilee and Haley and their little ones. 10 kids and a dog again this year. Fun, fun, fun! :-) We'll leave in the morning and be back Sunday night. I probably won't be posting again before then, so I hope the plethora of pictures will tide you over for a little while. ;-)

G'night!

~Becki~

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