We're Moving!!!

I keep getting emails and questions from people as to what is going on with us. So here's the news:

Last time I wrote about our need to find a house - right away. God is so good. We went out with our agent the next day to see a list of houses. On the way we passed by a house not on our list, and added it to our schedule. Two days later, we made an offer on it, and now, Lord willing, we will close escrow on or before Jan. 23, 2007! I am so excited!

This wonderful property sits on 2.5 acres in the country, but is closer to Peter's office than we are here in the city. It has a large lovely split-level home, a barn, a gazebo, a chicken coop, an "outhouse" (really a disguised finished 1/2 bath in the backyard!), 3 ponds, and tons of space in the back for my parents to join us. I love the personality of the house, it's flow from room to room, and the SPACE!!! I love the grounds with its walking paths, the sounds of bubbling ponds, and the potential. We are both excited and grateful to God.

--------

Christmas. Wow. I can't believe it's already over. We never even got a tree up or decorated the house! We did have a wonderful Christmas with my parents at their decorated house, together with my brother, my Nana, and Grandpa B. Poor Mom is still recovering from all the activities! Here are a few photos...

Daddy and Caleb, just after the younger ate carrots :-)

Daniel in his new engineer gear. He is into anything trains!

Caleb liked the hat too...

Hannah and I made a birthday cake for Jesus.

Peter and I at the end of the day.

All 10 of us! Joseph, Nana, Dad with Caleb, Mom with Hannah, Grandpa B. with Daniel, and me with Peter

We wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

P.S. If you're wondering why you didn't get a Christmas card, it's because we haven't started them yet. At this point we're contemplating sending Valentines to 250 or so...

In Escrow

Yes, OUR home is in escrow. We accepted an offer today, contingent upon us opening another escrow within 5 business days.

The miracle is that we found a lovely home in just 2 days! (And it wasn't even on our schedule to see - we just passed by it!) If we get this house, I will give more details later.

The amazing thing is that Peter and I are so at peace about this. If we move to this place - great! If we stay here - great! It will be exciting to see God's hand work this week.

Finding Plan A - Housing Update #2

In 3 hours the listing agreement on our house expires. (But who is counting?) It has been a long 90 day process, but here is the update.

As soon as we arrived in Florida, we received an offer on our house. (Our wonderful agent laughed that this was par for the course - no offers until you're on the other side of the country! How ironic!) It was a decent offer - full price - but we would have to pay all of their closing costs, which totalled up to be rather substantial. So we countered back to raise the price $5,000, and we'd pay their costs. They called back and said no, that they couldn't afford the first price they offered anyway. I guess we could say 'easy come, easy go.' Hmmmmm.

While we were still gone, our agent showed our home to another family - for the second time. We came home, and they made an offer too - a very 'low ball' offer. So, despite the fact that I have been planning to get our Christmas tree tonight to celebrate the fact that no one else will be coming through at short notice, we're not putting up a tree until we get this sale settled one way or the other - in case we end up packing up and moving right way. We've been countering back and forth for about 10 days now, and as I've been saying all week about THIS weekend, I think we'll know what's happening by NEXT weekend.

This whole process has been quite an experience for Peter and I. It has really made personal for me the concept that God's word (or His will in this case) is a 'light unto my path.' He is illuminating the way! Imagine with me a flashlight strapped to your ankle, as you hike through the forest at night. You can't see very far ahead, but you can see just in front so you don't stumble along the way. Oh, how I would love to step back and see the big picture as Christ does (and thus know how to proceed), but He's giving us one step, then one day, at a time. Somehow, I've become content with that.

So what's next? I don't know. We have batted around every possible scenario, enough that I'm sure our agent thinks that we are totally out to lunch. But we're not, we're just trying to find God's Plan A. Stay tuned.

Florida!

Sad to leave, but happy to be home. That's how we felt after returning from a full and very exciting trip to Florida over Thanksgiving. Between seeing family, a trip to Sea World, tennis, airports, colds, Thanksgiving and friends, the days flew by and suddenly - we were home again!

Hannah's special request for our trip was to go to Sea World. I've been to Sea World in San Diego, but the Orlando Sea World tops it, hands down. It is huge! We all liked the sea lion show the best for its antics, but the Shamu (killer whale) show could only be described as "awesome." Here's my favorite picture of the day, Caleb waking up on Granny's lap from a nap despite the booming of the Shamu show. (Notice Daniel wiped out on Grandpa's lap in the background.)

Other highlights included tennis matches (Peter and I even WON against Andrew and Mary in mixed doubles!), volleyball, ping pong, watching Lini and Adam fall in love (Peter's sister is courting), date nights borrowing Mary's race car, sleeping in until 7:00a.m. while Granny fed Hannah and Daniel breakfast, the drama of receiving an offer on our house the day after we arrived (more on that later...), Mongolian BBQ, going to Covenant Bible Church, visiting and singing with the Lee family one night, painting the sidewalk with water (Hannah), wrestling with Uncle Andy (Daniel), arresting innocent people with a giant smile (Caleb), and just hanging out together as a family.

Thanksgiving. Ah, we have much to be thankful to our Lord for.