That truly is something...

It's been a busy week - enjoyable, but busy week.

We were blessed with some visitors over the weekend.

James and John from PA stopped on their way to Florida and John showed them all of the high spots in the area. I'm telling you - those Northerners know hospitality, too. They brought us all kinds of goodies and treats so that we can enjoy some of the treasures from PA.


Then, Sunday, John's Dad and wife, Beulah, stopped on their way home from Florida for a visit. They also brought all kinds of goodies and treats, so we are stocked for a while :) The kids loved seeing Grandpa and Beulah (as we all did) and John got lots of pointers for the house.

And, contrary to my last post, I do LOVE visitors. You don't even have to bring us anything!!!


Just for fun - John snapped a picture of the kiddos from his tower spot.


Just for funny - Buddy sleeping. Doesn't he look relaxed?


Finally, here is a current picture of the house. However, the final pour is DONE!!!! Last Friday, the overnight temperatures were finally above freezing, so we felt it was safe to pour. Because we had to wait until the last minute to make a decision to pour (the weather forecast kept juggling around freezing), we had a difficult time finding helpers. We ended up managing the pour all by ourselves. The back wall required that we bucket the concrete into the forms from scaffolding. We used 5-gallon buckets, but they were only about 1/4 or 1/3 full. Let's just say that I was exhausted. That really good kind of tired.

We have also been scrambling to get our plans on paper. We have the general idea in our heads as to what we want to do and further defining the pieces that we need when we need them. That works fine if it is just the two of us working together. However, that is likely to change in March. Some friends (huge understatement) are putting a team together to come and frame up our house. Yes - you read that correctly ... frame.up.our.house!!! Well, obviously, if that is to happen, we need house plans written down. So we have been working to put it all together. It has been a fun exercise, somehow bittersweet in trying to imagine what it will be like and at the same time knowing how long it will be away (hmmm - probably the reason that it has been difficult to get it down on paper before now :).

Kind of funny set of emotions to deal with. John and I normally don't like to ask for anything - call it pride, call it whatever, but we don't want to be "needy". It was hard enough for us to do the whole faith-based fund raising thing (which the Lord made exceptionally easy by providing a tremendous amount of supporters - praise to Him and thanks to all who are a part of that).

Now this? A team of guys are going to come down and work on our house for us? Brings me to tears - truly. There's a huge part of me that screams "No - that's too much" and another part that says "THANKS a million (or two, or twenty :)"

Interesting enough, it seems that the Lord put it on the hearts of more than one of the men. So, somehow, saying "No - that's too much" is for us to deny them a blessing. Humbling. Truly. That God of ours is truly amazing, isn't he?

"We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.”- 2 Thessalonians 1:3