I'm Going to Regret This...

Posted by cokelady

But I'm going to take the time to blog anyway! What about that?! :-)

I thought I'd stop by to give you a little update and hopefully post some pictures of our Albuquerque trip. Actually, I was packing away when I suddenly ran out of boxes and I didn't want to go out to the shed in the cold and dark of the night to get more, so I figured it was a good time to stop. I'm sure I'll have some late packing nights in the next week, but this ain't one of them. :-)

Yesterday the plan was to get up bright and early, unload the van from the trip and get everything put away, then start packing like a mad woman. Nope. We all slept in until 9:00, for starters! By the time I got everybody fed and dressed and had done devotions with them, there was a knock at the door. The inspector. (Insert "doom" sound effects there.) This is the guy who looks at every tiny little thing in and out of our house and decides what all we need to fix before selling. He actually turned out to be a very, very nice guy--with a terrific Texas accent, so I kept him talking all I could. :-) The kids have a hard time staying out of folks' way, so we thought it best to load up and go get lunch so the inspector could finish his job without so much distraction. We were gone for 30 or 40 minutes and the guy was still here when we got back! He was VERY, VERY thorough. Made me VERY, VERY nervous! Ha! He told us that there weren't any major problems, just a few little "easy" things here and there. We'll find out what that means later, I guess!

By the time he finally left it was after 1:00 and I had accomplished NOTHING. So I went to the toy room and dove in. Game closet first. I got it all sorted out and boxed up, then all the boxes stuffed back into the closet. Except three. I kept out I Buy, Catch Phrase and Balderdash. Just in case we have nothing to do this next week and decide to sit and play a game. HA! Things were going much, much slower than I had anticipated, but that's probably because the toy room is the one and only room of the house that I intend to "sort through" and GET RID OF stuff from. We have way, way, way too many toys and right now is a really great time to donate them, with Christmas coming up. Tammy came over and helped me for a couple of hours. WOW. That girl is a packing machine!!! She accomplished more in the two hours she worked than I had done all day! Ha! I finished up in the toy room while she started in my office. She got most everything packed out of my closet (you can't possibly know what a feat that was) and everything out of that huge desk of mine, too. WOW.

At about 10:00 I decided that I was totally burned out and was DONE working for the night. James ran to Sonic for dinner (I had fed the kids sandwhiches earlier, but didn't want to stop to eat) and Tammy called Sam and asked him to come over and play games for an hour. Can you believe that?! Ha! I'm SOOOOO glad I took the time for that, though. I needed the break (already--that can't be a good sign! Ha!) and the fellowship with Sam & Tammy. I am going to miss them soooooo much. I've tried not to think about it too much, but when they left Sam came back to the door and told me that they're really going to miss me. Oooooh. That did me in. I closed the door and just cried and cried. ~sigh~ I HATE this part of moving. But I have no right to complain. God has blessed me sooooo much by allowing me to live near my very dear friend and her great husband (who has become a very dear friend, too) for TWO WHOLE YEARS! We never expected that and it's been sooooo great. But now we've gotten spoiled on it and it's so hard to think of not being with them! But God knows. He'll help us all, I'm sure.

I got to bed at about midnight last night, then we all slept until 9:00 again! WHOA! That week in Albuquerque really did us in, I guess! We had devotions right away, then I got to work out in the office. And that's where I remained throughout the rest of the day! James took Joe to Odessa to do some running around (he got me a HUGE end roll of blank newsprint from the newspaper down there for only $5--I don't know how anybody moves without it!), so that left Katie and Sam here. They watched some Christmas shows and played some video games since they were going to receive no attention from their mother whatsoever. They seemed okay with that. ;-) I was able to get the office TOTALLY finished, packed, emptied, and cleaned from the ceiling fan down to the baseboards. :-) That feels sooooo good! The only things still in the room are my computer and stereo (on the floor now, but staying until the very end, I assure you!), the desk James is making me sell (I know it's huge and clunky, but I love it!) and the hide-away sofa that we can't decide if we're going to sell or not. Oh, and the changing table/dresser that we're going to sell, too. So here are a couple of pictures of The Move: Part One... :-)

This is the toy-room-turned-storage-room..

Our goal is to be done packing and have the house emptied (we rented a couple of storage units today) and shining by the 20th. If we can do that, then on the 21st we'll load up and head back east for Christmas. It's really our only chance of HAVING anything that feels like "Christmas" this year! I don't know how likely it is that we'll accomplish this goal, but we've got to try. :-) My current speed seems to be one room a day. I still have the kitchen/dining room, the den, the living room, the bathroom, Katie's room, the boys' room, our room, and the other bathroom. I'm scared to add 'em up--I don't think it would add up too well for our "leaving on the 21st goal." Actually, I have NO IDEA what the date is today. That's probably a good thing. I'm not going to look either. At least for a few more days. JERK! That creep was reading over my shoulder and just blurted out, "It's the 12th." Ggrrrr. I SOOOOO did not want to know that!!! I'm still not going to add up the rooms, though. :-)

Tomorrow morning after devotions I'm going to start packing up our bedroom, then the boys', then Katie's. I really have no idea what to anticipate. I'm hoping (or maybe it's just positive thinking?!) that the office is going to end up being one of the harder rooms to pack. Surely bedrooms can't be that bad. Right?! I guess I'll find out tomorrow!

Then tomorrow night we're going to be having the Christmas ABM Service/Party here. Yes, you heard right--I said HERE. I had forfeited that idea until James mentioned it today and indicated that he thought we could go ahead and do it. Wow! I'm soooo excited! I love having things at my house and this will give me one last chance to "host" before we leave. :-) That makes me sooooo happy! The living room, den, kitchen and bathroom are still intact (and decorated for Christmas, of course!), so it should be PERFECT since those are the only rooms we'll need for a "party." Wa-Hoo! ~sigh~ Life is grand. Makes me a very happy girl. :-)

Well, I told myself I wouldn't stay up too late (especially since I'm only blogging instead of working!), so I should probably post my pictures and call it a night. So here we go...

Brother Dustin preaching

Some of the Hatch folks who came and were SUCH a blessing to us!

When we got to the zoo, this was the first thing inside the gate. It's a, um..., a..., I think's it's an... Hhmmm. I don't have any idea what to call it. It's the most souped up nickelodian I've ever seen! Ha! It had a TON of instruments and James was in heaven. He LOVES stuff like that. We had to listen to three or four songs before we could even start looking for animals! Ha! It was pretty cool. We listened to a couple more songs before we left that day, too.

This is the other part of it--I've never seen one that would play a guitar and banjo! James had it play the Beverly Hillbillies theme and it was great!

Okay! Looking at some animals!!! Aleah was SO excited when she saw the orangutans (James spelled that, if it's wrong! Ha!), but by the time I got the camera ready it was just everybody else who was enjoying the moment!

Koalas! Very cool.

This is amazing--ALL of the kids are actually looking at the same time! And smiling!!!

Sam making faces at a monkey. Oh wait--or is it a monkey making faces at Sam?! So hard to tell! :-)

I never could get a good picture of this baby zebra, but he was awfully cute. ;-)

Ha! This ended up being the best part of the whole zoo--the playground! We had the place all to ourselves for 20 or 30 minutes and we made the best of it, even the big people. :-)

There was a terrific slide--a FAST one--but Joe was too gutless to go face first like all the other kids, so this was his alternative approach...

I missed the actual SLIDING, but from the looks of it I think it must've been fun!

Aleah enjoyed it as much as all the other kids!

Joe finally got it figured out!

I didn't get a picture of James coming down, but I think Jamey did. I guess we'll have to wait for her to post some pictures on her blog. HINT, HINT, HINT. ;-) I did get this one of Dustin though...

Halfway through the zoo we got on the train and rode over to the aquarium. Checking out the stingrays...

Neat tank, hu?!

Jellyfish...

This shark had the gnarliest teeth I've ever seen in my life!!!

Outside the aquarium there is a terrific botanical garden area. We didn't have time to go through all of it, but we did take the kids to the Fantasy something-or-another. Everything is HUGE. The kids love it. So do the adults. :-)

Here's Sam measuring himself...

Jamey checking out the giant bee hovering over her. It makes a buzzing sound when you walk under it. Creepy!

Inside the giant pumpkin. Gross, hu?!

In the giant vegetable garden...

Gingerbread kids...

Gingerbread... (ahem)... men???

James taking a nap on the train ride back to the zoo.

I LOVE the baby giraffes. So cute!

And this was one of the very, very cool parts of the zoo. This lion was roaring, ever so "softly." It wasn't exactly soft, but you could tell it was just a little roar compared to what he was capable of! I kept wishing he would just let a great big, mighty roar rip through the zoo, but he never did. No matter--it was still very cool!

Back to church--had to take a picture of Brother Dustin and Joe in their... stripes. I have a particular name for this type of suit, known to a select few people who will see this blog, so they'll enjoy it extra. :-)

Ah yes--this is a page in a notebook that I found a week or two ago. I thought you might enjoy it. I know Mom and Dad will! Ha!

Ha! What a rotten kid!

Well, now it's very late. But I got the pictures posted!!! If I didn't do it tonight they never would have made it to the blog.

Keep praying for us! The guy rejected the offer we made on house #1 and we don't feel like we can go much higher on it, so we're praying about Plan B. We're just wanting to be patient and take this one step at a time and make sure we're following God and using wisdom, not just rushing into a huge decision because we feel pressure, you know? I still feel totally at peace, although we have no idea where we're going to end up. God already knows and if He's got it covered then there's really nothing to fret over, right?! Besides, who has time to fret?! We're MOVING!!! :-)

I'll try to post again before 2008. :-)

~Rebekah~

5 comments

A Whirlwind of a Week!

Posted by cokelady

~whew~ I’ll try to remember all I can about our time in Albuquerque, but right now it’s all just a great big blur. A good, happy, blessed, fun, busy blur. :-)

We got up early last Wednesday morning and headed down to the realtor’s office to sign the papers to sell our house. Got all of that taken care of. Learned that the closing date is supposed to be December 27th. HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HO! HO! HEE! HEE! HEE! HA! HA! HA! (Are you sensing the maniacal tone there?) Is that nuts, or what?! So that means we may be having Christmas Joe’s way this year. He told me about a week ago that he wanted to have Christmas in a motel this year. Well… ! Ha!

We finished up at the realtor’s office and headed to Albuquerque. Got there in time to meet up with Dustin & Jamey and get settled in at the Days Inn before Revival that night. We had a very, very good Revival and Brother Dustin did a fabulous job. (You don’t know how it pains me to say that, but…!) Really, he is my kind of preacher. By that I mean that he preaches good, practical things that you can take home and apply to your life, not just a bunch of hoopla and churchy sounding clichés. There are always good, meaty things that make you consider your life and how it may need to change. Good stuff. He preached about being ready for what God wants to do in your life (like the man at the pool of Bethesda) and about being hungry for the Lord and about the verse that says to add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge, etc. He preached about all eight qualities in that verse and how they connect to each other and come in proper order—a progression, I suppose—for a reason. The one that spoke to me most was temperance—self-control—in every area of life. Ooooh. Lots to pray about! Brother Dustin didn’t preach all of the above on the first night, by the way, I just got ahead of myself. He is a bit of a long-winded preacher (his wife was about to give him the finger-across-the-throat signal that last night, but he cut it off just in time! Ha!), but even he wouldn’t attempt to preach all of that in one night. :-) Anyway, we had a very, very good Revival with good preaching, good worship, and good prayer all week long, and several visitors to boot.

On Saturday night we were soooooo blessed to have Brother Banuelos, Hector & Erika, Tayde, Luis & Keila and kids all drive up from Hatch to be with us. It was wonderful!!! They ministered to us in song and testimony and interpreting. They will never know how much they are loved and appreciated. I have never, ever been in service with them that I haven’t been deeply blessed by them. We’re so glad they came! We all went out to eat after service and had a great time of fellowship with them, too. Fun, fun, fun. I just love those people!

Okay, I am sooooo jumbled up and all out of order! I guess I just told you all about the week of Revival, so now I’ll go back and fill in the blanks in between!

On Thursday we spent 4 or 5 hours running all over Albuquerque with the realtor, looking at lots and lots of houses. It’s so fun to look at houses (I’ve always enjoyed doing that), but it does get old after a while! And they all start to run together. If not for the wonder of digital cameras I’d never have a chance of remembering which house is which!

On Friday we took the day off from the house hunt to spend some time with Dustin & Jamey and the kids. I’m so glad we did! It helps to take a break and get your mind clear from the houses for a bit—and we have sooooo much fun with the Hays! We went to the zoo and then rode the train that takes you over to the aquarium. It was very, very cool and cloudy, but never actually rained. It made for the perfect day at the zoo because we practically owned the place—there was hardly anybody there! And it’s a terrific zoo. They’ve got animals that I haven’t seen at very many other zoos—koalas and kangaroos (even a joey with it’s hind legs poking up out of it’s mama’s pouch) and HUGE double humped camels (are they dromedaries?) and a black panther (eerie—he almost looks evil!) and all manner of other cool animals. It was great.

The aquarium is small, but neat, and they have a really fun GIANT playland for the kids where everything is HUGE, making the kids seem bug-sized.

It was about 3:00 by the time we were done with our outing and we were starved, so we went to Golden Corral for lunch, then back to our motel rooms for a little nap before church time. What a great day!

Most nights after service the Hays would come over to our room and we’d make sandwiches or something and play games. The kids would play until they got too wild, then we’d bed them all down all over the place so we big people could keep playing. :-) I had brought three games, but the only one we ever played was Balderdash. Ha! Sooooo fun! We laughed so hard at some of the stupid stuff that Dustin and James came up with! I even kept some of the cards so I could blog them, but they’re not easily assessable right now so it’ll have to wait until another time. It was so great!!! We’ve never really had a chance to spend any time with Dustin & Jamey (without a crowd of other church folks, that is) and we so thoroughly enjoyed it. Fun, fun, fun.

Let’s see, where was I? Ah yes, Friday night. After the Hays left (midnight-ish, I think) I got down and prayed and begged and pleaded with God for a little while about our house situation. We’ve been praying and praying, but I was starting to feel a little desperate at that point. There were houses available that would work for us, but nothing that seemed like “it,” you know? And maybe one of them was “it,” but we needed to know which one! I then got online and started checking the online listings. Again. We’ve been doing that for months now, but I just wanted to make sure there’s nothing that we might have missed or nothing new that we didn’t know about yet. So I prayed and clicked and prayed and clicked and prayed and clicked… until 3:00am when I finally made myself go to bed.

On Saturday we met with Jason (our realtor) again to look at some more houses. Everything is such a blur and I can’t remember what houses we saw when, or even how many houses we went in (even Jason can’t remember—but we all agree it was a LOT!), but we ended up narrowing the field down to two houses that are possible contenders. The first house has all of the space that we would need and could be a very nice house, but it would need lots of remodeling—the same kind of work and $$$ we’ve put into the house in Andrews. Actually, it would be MORE work and $$$, but the same KIND of jobs. Just more of them. :-) In the end, it would be a really nice house. One of the bittersweet things about it is that there is a swimming pool in the back yard. I mean a really nice in-ground one. It’s beautiful… but it takes up most of the back yard! I love the idea of my kids having a chance to learn to be really good swimmers and I know they’d have a lot of fun with it. But I’d hate that they wouldn’t have much of a yard to play in—and that they wouldn’t be allowed out the back door unless they have life-jackets strapped on, even if they weren’t planning on swimming!

The second house is more $$$, but it needs no work whatsoever. Except maybe a little paint outside and some shutters to purty it up a bit. :-) It’s really not very attractive from the outside, but it is beautiful on the inside. Hardwood floors and new carpet and a nice kitchen and recently remodeled bathrooms—all of the work that we did ourselves on our Andrews house has already been done at this place. It has all the space we would need, plus some. In fact, the square footage on the paperwork says it’s close to our current house in size… but it feels HUGE. The papers have got to be wrong! Anyway, it is just beautiful and would be soooo perfect for entertaining. Bunches of people at once. That would make me very happy. :-)

So we had a decision to make and it’s a tough one. Part of me is drawn to the fixer-upper house simply because I like the idea of doing the work ourselves. There’s something that just feels sort of wholesome or something about taking a house that needs work and putting in the time and effort to make it into something nice. It’s rewarding—and turned out to be a very good investment for us in Andrews. On the other hand, it would be grand and glorious to be able to move into a house that’s already fixed up and not have to worry about disrupting our lives any more (for a while, at least!) with a bunch more big projects! It would be sooooo nice to be able to just get into some sort of “normal” life, whatever that is. So do we pay more $$$ for the really nice house, or less $$$ for the one that needs work, then put more $$$ into it and end up having close to the same amount in it in the end??? I’ll tell you in a few minutes. ;-)

We had a good service on Sunday morning. I was asked to teach the little kids’ Sunday School class, so we went to the classroom and I started digging around in the closet trying to find some construction paper or crayons or SOMETHING to use for class. There wasn’t anything like that at all, but there were costumes! Ha! Fun! So I dressed everybody up (Katie, Joe, Sam & Isaac) and read through the Christmas story a few times while they acted it out. When Sunday School was over we went to the sanctuary and did it for everybody else. I think it went pretty well, all things considered! It was probably the fastest, most thrown together and least rehearsed Christmas pageant of all time, but they did good! The best part was when Joe whipped out the roll of masking tape and set it on his head as a halo. (He had dual duty as Joseph and the angel.) It was great.

Had a nice lunch at Cracker Barrel with the Hays and then had some time to rest for a few minutes, then start cleaning up the room and get some packing done before service that night. Another good one. Afterwards the Hays crowd came to our room for another round of Balderdash. We’re going to have lots of great memories of that game, I tell you! In fact, we just bought that game a few weeks ago, but we ran out of the little sheets of paper that came with it! We thought to save one clean sheet of it and Dustin used his copier (the man travels with a copy machine!) and made us about 90 more slips. We used all of them, too, then used almost all of the BACKS of them by the end of the week! Ha! Great fun. :-)

This morning we had a hurried breakfast, bid the Hays adieu, threw our belongings in the van, and rushed off to meet Jason and take a look at the “Top Three” houses on our list again, plus one new one. We did some more praying, had lunch, then went to Jason’s office and put an offer in on the NICE house—the one that doesn’t need anything but a country touch. ;-) We offered quite a bit less than the asking price and we can come up just a bit if necessary, but not a whole lot. So now we pray. Some more, that is! If it is God’s will for us to have this house, I would be soooooo thrilled. It’s sooooo nice!!! But if it’s not God’s will, we’ll probably make an offer (a much lower offer) on the fixer-upper house with the pool. That would be great, too, just a lot more work! Whatever God wants is fine with me and I finally feel surrendered in the situation and I think I’ll be happy with whatever happens. I know I’ve done a lot of praying through all of this, so it’s been really good for me.

I do have one confession to make though. When we first began looking for houses in the Albuquerque area we were hoping to land up in the east mountains—it’s very Colorado-ish up there and I would LOVE to live there. We had one particular house that we really, really liked, but we weren’t in a position to make an offer since our Texas house wasn’t under contract. It has since sold, and I was fine with that—took it to mean that it wasn’t God’s will for us. Obviously! But on our way out of town we drove up into the mountains and James drove me past that house again. It was snowing really pretty at the time and we were listening to Christmas music and there was “my house” up there in the mountains… ~sigh~ I fought hard to choke back the tears for a few minutes, I have to admit. Oh, how I love the mountains!!! I asked James if he was just testing me—or teasing me—or tormenting me! Ha! I’m much better now, though. There are pros and cons to just about everything. As much as I love the mountains and that particular house, it is out of town about 10 or 15 miles and would take a lot longer to get to the church. The house we put an offer in on is in nicer condition and is only 11.5 miles from the church. So I’ll look at it that way. I’m so glad that I have God to pour my heart out to and that He cares about my feelings and can help me sort through them and be really and truly happy with whatever. And that’s what I want—whatever He has for us. Mountains or no mountains, I know I’ll be really and truly happy if I am where God wants us to be. And I could really, really love this house in town, too. I’m trying not to get too attached to it just yet, in case it doesn’t work out. But I do really, really, really like it! :-)

Okay, that’s about it. Actually, I’m sure there’s much more to tell, but this is quite long enough, don’t you think? Actually, we’re in the van right now, driving back to Texas. I figured this would be my best (and only!!!) chance to write since I’ve got to dive head first into moving once we get home. So if it’s not too late when we get home (it’ll be at least 10 or 11 o’clock, it looks like) I’ll try to add some pictures and post this sometime tonight. Please keep us in your prayers and pray for our house situation, that God will work it all out according to His will and give us the house of His choosing!

Talk to you later!!!

~Rebekah~

--Okay, so it didn't work out the way I was hoping! We didn't get home until nearly midnight last night and we were wiped out. Did a few necessary things, then hit the hay. I was hoping to add some pictures of our trip, but that will have to wait until another time. It's nearly noon now and I still don't even have the van unloaded yet! The man is here doing the inspections on the house right now, so I don't really want to start tearing stuff up while he's here--don't want to be in his way, you know! Still no word on the house we made an offer on in Albuquerque. We should hear something by 6:00 tonight. Pray!!! God knows best and I trust Him. I'll try to get some pictures up sometime. But don't bank on anything--who knows how life is going to be around here for the next couple of weeks! Ha! Keep us in your prayers, please!!!

6 comments

~Aaaaaauuuuuuggggghhhh!!!~

Posted by cokelady

But more on that later. ;-)

We've had a very FULL couple of days since I last blogged. They've been great! Saturday is lost forever. I can't remember a single thing. But yesterday was great! Oh wait--the ironing. I did all of the ironing on Saturday. :-) Yesterday I got up and got all of the clothes put away and the house all cleaned up, then we were off to church. Good service again. God gives us lots of those here. :-)

Afterwards we loaded up and drove to Odessa and met Sam & Tammy and Sara and our new faithful "visitor" to church, Steven, for lunch at Chili's. Baby Back Bonus, you know. James loves it.

After lunch we all drove over to the hospital to see one of our old faithful "visitors" (meaning not a Church member... yet!), Sister Patsy, who just had hip surgery a few days ago. She had several family members there, but it was a pretty big hospital room so we all just went ahead and piled in! We stayed and talked and laughed and had a wonderful time. She is SUCH a neat lady, and her family seems to really enjoy the fellowship, too--they've got a good relationship with Sam & Tammy, naturally, so it's great! We had a lot of fun there and a good prayer before we left.

By the time we got out of the hospital it was starting to get dark, so we all drove over to Holiday Park. It's just a pathway that you walk and look and big lighted displays. It's pretty cool--and a lot of fun if you have the right crowd with you, as we discovered! The weather was perfect. Strange as it may sound (for west Texas!), it's usually SOOOOOOOO COLD that you practically RUN down the path and back so you can get back to your heater! This year was much more Texas-ish and the weather was great--nice and cool, but comfortable. We walked down the path on one side, then back on the other so we could take lots of pictures of everything on both sides. Not everything turned out good, but I was pleased for the most part. If you don't use the flash, the Christmas lights look great but you can't see the people. If you use the flash it helps you see the people, but destroys the affect of the lights. Oh well, here are some good/bad pictures of our night...

This is my favorite part of the whole park--the train! I just think it's really cool. That's why I took so many pictures of it. :-)

And here is the crowd WITH the train. Take special note of Sam and his bottle of water or soda or whatever it was. I don't know what was up with him, but he was sure to display it proudly in every picture taken throughout the evening! Ha!

Some giant poinsettias...

The Nativity... and just about the only display our party didn't invade!

The gingerbread house...

Sam & Tammy breaking into (or out of?) the gingerbread house...

Joe and a gingerbread boy...

Katie and a gingerbread girl...

After we had walked through the whole park--and listened to Sara complain about having to walk it instead of sitting in a nice, cushy seat in a heated automoble and driving through it (can you imagine?! What a notion!!!)--we decided to hoof it across the park to where they had this GIANT Christmas tree. Actually, it's not a tree, but it looks like one from a distance! Tammy and I decided Sara NEEDED to go the extra miile and perhaps the Christmas cheer of it all would seep through and she'd start to be a little more festive. Didn't work, but we had a great time anyway! :-)

Here's the crowd (see all those little shadows?!) in front of it...

And here they are again...

An interesting view of the Grinchly one--you can see all the way to the star at the top of the tree! Cool, hu?!

The first picture taken of James and me together since our wedding. (Ha! Not quite, but probably not too far off!)

And, of course, a picture of me with the dear friend that God has blessed me to be able to live near for two whole years once again (we never would have expected that!) and who I'm going to miss sooooooooo desperately when we move to New Mexico... :-(

We left the park and headed back to Andrews. Got the kids down at regular bedtime, which was great! James and I were sooooo tired, but we had invited the crowd over to play games. I almost called to cancel, but I'm so glad I didn't! It was so much fun!!! We played two games of Balderdash and we just laughed and laughed--what a fantastic game! I stink at it, but you don't have to be good to enjoy it. :-) And--GET THIS--I actually WON the first game! And TAMMY won the second one! Whoa!!! It was great fun. In fact, Tammy told me to post one of the cards we played...

Movie Title: Adventures of El Frenetico & Go Girl

For those not familiar with the game, everybody has to write their own definition for the word (or in this case, their own plot for this movie--it's a real movie), then you read through all of the selections and everybody tries to pick which is the REAL definition, or right answer. Tammy said to just post the title and let everybody leave a comment and try to come up with a good plot. We'll see if we get any response. I'll post the real plot next time. :-)

Anyway, it was a truly great day. Great church, great fun, great fellowship. What could be better?!

We finally got to bed at about midnight. At about 3:30am our bedroom door came FLYING open simultaneously with the most bloodcurdling scream I'd ever heard in my life, and a small child landing on top of me. It was Joe and he was in absolute hysterics. He's been scared before (he's the most skiddish of our three), but NEVER like this. The commotion, of course, woke up Sam and he appeared in our doorway seconds later, wrapped in his blanket, great big eyes staring into the darkness trying to figure out what was going on.

Before I continue, let me explain that we had let the kids watch Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol a couple of days ago. I was on the phone at the time and unable to really "monitor" the show like I otherwise would have. We're pretty particular about what the kids watch and have a rule of never letting them watch anything that we haven't previewed and approved ahead of time. Somehow we broke our rule this time--and we are now very sorry that we did! Ha! The cartoon "ghost" of Jacob Marley didn't seem too scary...to an adult. But apparently it was a little more than Joe could handle. When I finally got him calmed down enough to speak (which took some doing, believe me!) he explained that he had been lying in bed thinking of "that blue ghost" and he was getting more and more scared. So he decided to come to our room and tell us he was scared. But when he touched the doorknob, "it sounded like the ghost's chains!!!" That's when he lost it. He was already scared of the "ghost with chains" and was headed for Mom & Dad, but when he heard the chains he simply lost all control and slung the door open, screaming bloody murder and was on top of me in no time flat. Oh yeah--Hershey had heard Joe get up and just as Joe was reaching for the doorknob Hersh was coming down the hallway to investigate. So not only did Joe hear the doorknob, but he heard the "chain" on Hershey's collar which was coming down the hallway straight for him! Ha! Ha! Ha! Too much!!! I laughed, but only a little. It was truly funny (even at 3:30 in the morning!), but I recall all too well what it's like to be a kid in the dark with an over-active imagination. It is very, very real to a kid and it is very, very scary!

So I took Joe back to his room and talked with him and prayed with him for 10 or 15 minutes. I shared some Bible verses with him about fear and how it's not of God and how God doesn't want us to be afraid--and that we don't need to be afraid. When I made the statement that "there's nothing to be afraid of," Joe cut in and very adamantly voiced his opinion to the contrary. "You're wrong, Mom--there are a lot of things to be afraid of!!!" Then he started listing them off one by one! HA! They were all crazy things, of course, such as the afore mentioned "ghost." In fact, nothing he listed was even REAL. But to a five year old... !!! ~sigh~ I knew I was in for a long night. I try to be real careful to not baby the kids (the last thing I want are a bunch of sissies!), but sometimes it's just so hard to know what to do! Joe was genuinely scared out of his senses and I knew if I just put him back in bed and left that that imagination of his was going to be cranking out all sorts of "scary" things. So I got my pillow and laid down on the floor in the boys' room for a little while. I was thinking that I'd lay there a few minutes so he wouldn't be scared, he'd drop off to sleep, and then I could go back to my own bed. HA. I wish!!! About 40 minutes later I sat up to look at him and he was STILL wide awake! But he was nice and calm and rational, at last, and was fine with me going back to bed. ~whew~ I was sooooooo tired!

The only trouble now was that SAM was still wide awake, too! So for the next hour or so he had issues of his own. He was had to go to the bathroom ("then GO, for goodness' sake!"), he was thirsty ("Too bad--you can wait 'til morning!"), and so on. The last time was at about 5:45, I think. He appeared by my bed, wrapped in his blanket, grinning and saying, "Mom, I scared." I took one sleepy-eyed look at him and said, "YOU ARE NOT." "Yes, I am!" I gave him the look of death and told him to get back to his bed this instant, or else. ~sigh~ FINALLY got back to sleep at about 6:00. What a night!!! I think I stayed in bed until a little after 9:00 to try to make up for it. It didn't, but I had to try!

Just after I got up we got a phone call from the realtor. House showing at 10:30. ~SIGH~ I am soooooooo tired of this! When is my house going to be just MINE and I can stop having to get it all cleaned up for strangers that I never see and load my familiy up and GET OUT?! We got everything all straightened up again, beds made and whatnot, and headed out for brunch, of necessity.

Came home and spent all afternoon on the phone with the realtors. I will spare you the long, drawn-out story simply because I'm sick of telling it! Ha! It's been CRAZY and I'll never understand why all the jokes are about lawyers--realtors are AT LEAST as bad, if not worse. GOOD GRIEF. But in spite of their "failures," shall we say, I have news!!! This is where that ~Aaaaaaauuuugggghhhh!~ title comes in...

I said that we got an offer on the house on Friday. It was quite a bit lower than what we were asking. We prayed and felt like we needed to come down just a bit from our asking price ($4,900 less, rather than the $14,900 less the people had offered us.) They heard our offer and counter offered again. We prayed and just felt like we needed to stay right where we were. We got the call this evening that they are going to TAKE the price we gave them! So, in a very unofficial way, it looks like...

Our House is SOLD!!!

Whoa!!! Praise the Lord!!! And, of course, ~Aaaaaauuuuuggggghhhhh!!!~ NOW what do I do?! Ha! In all honesty, I have felt perfectly calm through this entire process (except for some definite frustation with dopey realtors) and have been pretty numb to any emotions in any of it. But I know that I SHOULD be feeling ~Aaaaaaauuuuuggggghhhh!~ Right?! I mean, this is CRAZY. I leave day after tomorrow for Albuquerque (we'll be gone for 6 full days), then I'll come home and try to get this house packed up and cleaned up and moved out of before January 1st, when these folks want to close on this house. No biggie, really, if there was no such thing as CHRISTMAS! I really think we're going to have to abondon the whole holiday this year. We know the TRUE meaning of Christmas and naturally that's the most important thing. But I think we're going to end up cutting out a lot of the extra "frills" of it this year! We're just not going to have TIME to do much celebrating, you know?! So much for the Christmas bake sale and the Christmas ABM party that was supposed to be here and the fun game nights with Sam & Tammy with Christmas music and punch and cookies and gingerbread... It's just such a terrible time to think of moving, you know?! But I have to believe that God has His reasons for working all of this out at this particular time, so I have to believe that it's all going to work out okay. We had hopes of going back east for Christmas to spend some time with James folks and mine, but that's looking very unlikely. Unless, of course, God perfoms some mighty big miracles and let's the packing of this house take place in record time! Ha! I guess we'll see. I'm really not worried about any of it right now. All we can do is take it a day at a time and do our very best. And for now, there's nothing I can do but pray because we're leaving for Albuquerque Wednesday morning! So I'm going to concentrate on having a really great Revival there this week, and THEN I'll start trying to figure the rest out when we get back home!

So there you have it. A great big, juicy post with lots of great pictures and Christmas lights, a terrific story about my scaredy-cat son AND great news about the (impending) sale of our house and the chaos that will now ensue. :-) We'll be signing the papers in the morning, then there will be 10 days for inspections and such (during which the potential buyers have the option to back out), then we're supposed to close sometime before the end of the month. CRAZY. Keep us in your prayers! Pray that God will work it all out smoothly and according to His will, and pray (most of all!) that He will keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus--that we'll be able to work through all of this with peace and joy in our hearts and our home instead of stress and anxiety. So far, so good! Ha! And pray for God to lead us to the right house in Albuquerque. We'll be looking for it while we're there this week, so pray that God will open the doors for us and help us to find what He wants. Ah yes, Albuquerque...!

We'll be in Revival there beginning on Wednesday night and continuing through Sunday night. Brother Dustin Hays will be our evangelist and we are sooooo excited! James talked to one of the guys from the Albuquerque church tonight and he said he's been inviting everybody he knows to the Revival. :-) We are trusting God to do great things this week and beyond and we'd really appreciate your prayers. I'm sure Brother Dustin would, too. :-) The only BAD thing about this is that we won't be able to keep the Hays in our home since we don't have one there yet! We're shooting for adjoining motel rooms, but it's just not the same thing, you know?! So I'm feeling a little cheated that I can't truly "have company" during this Revival, but I guess I'll settle for "next door neighbors" since that's as close as I can get! ANYWAY...

This is wa-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ay too long and I really need to get some sleep. We had a good prayer with Joe before bedtime (and I heard him praying very hard!) and he went down with no problem. I'm trusting that he'll sleep straight throught the night with no problems. I need the sleep, even if he doesn't! Ha! Anyway, I wanted to be sure to blog all the latest since I'm not sure when I'll get a chance again. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not. I'm sure I'll blog sometime during the Revival--you just never know 'til you get there! Anyway, now you're all up to date on the latest from around here. It'll last a little while, I hope. :-)

G'night!!!

~Bec~

Ah yes, a couple of pictures from last week...

Here is Pastor Sam on the day before his big 4-1 day!

And acting as every 41 year old should...

And the Christmas stuff on the top of my piano--don'tcha' love the train?! :-)

And forget it--after this ridiculously long post nobody is going to remember to submit their answers for our online Balderdash (!), so I'll just give you the real answer now!

Movie Title: Adventures of El Frenetico & Go Girl

Plot: A Zorro-type guy and his karate-kicking girlfriend fight a junk food mogul whose snacks turn people into zombies.

HA! HA! HA! Is that great, or what?! Who comes up with this stuff?! One thing is for sure--JOE sure won't be watching it if it has zombies!!! Ha! Later, y'all!

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