Surprises!

We moved into our new home on father's day.  We absolutely LOVE the location.. but, The move has been much more difficult than we had expected.

I realized this if the first home (of 4 homes) since I was married that hasn't been brand new or completely remodeled and updated.  I realized how spoiled I had been to have all the windows and appliances working.  Andy and I realized that our quote "we like this house because there is work we could do, but don't need to; we can move into it just how it is" was not quite accurate.

The previous owners must have had more candles burning than I had realized the two times we walked through it, because when we got here with the moving van, the house smelled like one thing- animals.  Since I am allergic to animals, that is not my favorite smell.  We camped out with Andy's parents (3 doors down!) and waited two days to set up our furniture so the carpet cleaners could come. When the carpet cleaner came, he said... um, there is animal pee on the carpet, the steamer will just make the smell worse until it dries.  Well, we gave it a try, then dried the carpets and set up our bed.  That night the smell was so strong, we could taste it.  Not quite what a woman in her first trimester of pregnancy with an overactive sense of smell wants.

sorting cherries with mommy

The next two days I deodorized, vacuumed, cleaned, sanitized, deodorized, vacuumed, febreezed, etc, the house still smelled like dog.  So we went to cherry harvest in eastern WA for the weekend.

at the loading dock in the cherry orchard

 When we got back, the house stunk.  It did smell much better when I had candles lit!   Wednesday I gave in and surrendered the battle of the carpets and had Andy rip it out, I didn't care that we have nothing to put down in its place, get the carpet out! And he did in about 15 minutes! He is so amazing.

ahhh, no more carpet!

master bedroom

We took the carpet out of our bedroom too and are camped out in the nursery. Elias loves his new room, but has a hard time staying in his new bunk bed and still prefers to sleep in his stroller.

tree in our front yard with a bouncy hammock in it

The other night Andy went downstairs to discover that the toilet was leaking and the walls of the stairs were being damaged...
it looks like this didn't start till we moved in though.

bunk beds...  before we took off the steps to
get on the top bunk

The yard of the house is still amazing as ever.  We have two kiwi vines, a male and female... hopefully they will produce many baby kiwis this year!  We have 7 blueberry bushes and 2 big red currant bushes (if anyone wants currants, now is the time to let me know!) 

kiwi vines on the garden shed

One last surprise is in our bedroom (the nursery) Andy and I get to stargaze as we go to sleep because there are plastic glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling.  Its pretty fun, maybe I'll get them for our room when we finish the master!

Vancouver or Bust!

We bought a house in Vancouver, WA!  It really officially closed today, after a long tiring search and loan process.  This is Elias in the front yard of the new house (the front yard is much bigger than the back yard, but the backyard is a nice size too).  We plan to move in in about 2 weeks, but this rain and cold weather could make things with cherry harvest delay enough that we may have to adjust that...

My birthday boy!

We didn't do a big party this year... pretty much just family.  Here are Eli and his cousins celebrating his birthday

Auntie Dayna made him a tractor cake... look who's driving the tractor -Elias!

a sand box, his birthday present from mom and dad

Fresa "Fruta" birthday cake while visiting Eastern WA

TRACTORS!

I suppose you could say Elias is a little bit obsessed with tractors! Who knew it was so much fun to look at tractors, play with tractors, and talk about tractors.

Home Ec

For the past year and a half, I have been teaching home ec to my sister's children for their home school. I teach a few Spanish words that are connected to a cooking class. Right now we are on a unit of sourdough. Its also fun to spend this structured fun time with my 3 nephews and 1 niece. They are some pretty fun and smart sobrinos. For their birthdays they get to choose what we make: Raleigh chose "pulled candy" a molasses candy that is like taffy.

In school they read a book about Japan so we made a Comida japonesa "Japanese meal"
Noelle chose to make meringues, (but we might do that for her 6th birthday) this time we made rice crispy cake!

Easter Sunday!

Easter- day of the resurrection!
“Don’t be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.” He isn’t here, because he’s been raised from the dead, just as he said.
 Matthew 28

Dad, Bro and G-pa

Big Kid Easter Egg hunt....

Here are clips from the Easter Party directed by my brother:

Good Friday

 

I have a little brother, he was born when I was five years old.  I’m not sure if it’s true, but I once heard someone say that the elderly often forget they are old and think of themselves as if they were between 18 and 22, a time when your body is in pretty good health.  So now that I am in my 30’s and have a kid, I often feel old, my arms hurt, by back hurts….. despite these pains,  I generally picture myself as about 20 years old… With my brother being 5 years younger than me, that would make him 15 in my mind.  (This is a permanent 15 years old just like I will always be about 20).

So yes, I am TOTALLY AMAZED at my little brother now as he is a music pastor at a large church.  I cant believe how grown up he looks and acts on that big stage.  He plays the piano and sings beautifully.

Last night he was instrumental in putting together an amazing Good Friday service at his church. 

He made it an “interactive” service, where people rotate between different contemplative booths which encourage us to reflect on our part of WHY Jesus came with the mission of taking the punishment we deserve for our pride, and selfishness…  We were encouraged to give up a sin …blowing it away with a little desktop fan, nail our sin written on a piece of paper to a cross like the one Jesus was nailed to,  take communion, remember to walk humbly with God by making a burlap bookmark with that verse on it, forgive someone, writing their initials on a balloon and then letting that balloon raise to the ceiling, etc…

Good Friday is only “good” if you know that death is not really how it ends, its all about what is coming on Sunday!!! 

Good Friday is the day we pause to remember Jesus being murdered, beaten, abused and nailed some large pieces of wood to die.  Even though Jesus was not guilty of ANYTHING, he was arrested, tried and killed with two other prisoners.  This death had been foretold of many times in the religious texts of that time.. what we now know of as the Old Testament.  Now it came true.  When Jesus died, it was not just an ordinary passing like the two other people he was executed with.  According to Matthew Ch. 27, at the exact time he died stuff happened:

 ⁵⁰ And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

 ⁵¹ At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split ⁵² and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. ⁵³ They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and^[e] went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

 ⁵⁴ When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”

I am not a writer, but Andy's friend Ryan is... he has a few reflections on Good Friday here http://secondsonsoup.com/?p=203