Happenings

Well, I didn't realize it had been a year since I last posted anything. A lot has gone on, mostly good! Trying to think back as to what we did that long ago. I think the kids and I went to Dothan in March.In April we went on "Spring Break" to St. Simon's Island and met up with Dana and her kids. We had a blast!! We had a sunrise service with baptism at the beach in April for Easter. The end of May we went to Dothan to pick up a friend to intern at our  church down here, and ended up swinging over to Pensacola to attend a funeral for a friends baby-very sad. Leigh was able to go with us on that trip because was over the weekend and combined with Memorial Day! June was a super busy month. The church had four interns that went out door to door almost every day, and the last week we had VBS. After July 4th, the kids and I took Norian back to Dothan and spent a week there. In August, we went to Sanibel Island to celebrate our 10 year anniversary (which was in June). We took the kids with us and were beach bums for a day and a half. It was sooo much fun and I am looking forward to going back sometime!
Luke started school the end of July. We started him in the A Beka video streaming, and I have absolutely loved it!! He does his school mostly independently, which gives me more time to school Emily and Josiah. I started Emily and Josiah the beginning of August. Josiah's in K-4, so his doesn't require too much work. He's been doing a really good job and seems to enjoy it! We had a little bit of a problem with Luke not thinking I was his teacher, too and not wanting to do the work I assigned him, but we dealt with that and this second semester, he has really jumped in and been  doing an excellent job participating and getting his work done quickly. A lot of days he starts earlier than the rest of us, so he can get done and play! He started going to the orthodontist over the summer and in the Fall, we started a treatment plan due to the way his teeth and jaw are aligned. This past week they put in an expander on the top and bottom of his mouth. The top one is one that we turn twice a week with a special tool. It's to help the top of his mouth expand out because his upper jaw causes his upper teeth to sit slightly inside the lower teeth and jaw. The lower expander is expand the lower part a little so that his permanent teeth will have more room. All of his teeth are crowded and when the permanent ones have been coming they are awfully crooked. There would definitely be a problem later on, so they say the earlier the better to start fixing some of it. He has really been a trooper through all of it! I thought sure his teeth would be more sore and he would be complaining about it while eating and such, but he's only mentioned it a time or two. He has eaten a little bit slower, but it doesn't seem to bother him much at all. He's had tylenol once since getting all this new hardware in his mouth. I've been very pleased with how he's done!!
We bought a house!! Signed contract in October and moved in December. We're still getting moved in and settled. I should say we're settled fine, but we still have a ton of boxes to unpack. They're mostly in the garage. We've had the normal homeowners issues of having to fix random things that break, etc. The roof is older, so we had to get some estimates on it and a licensed roof inspector out to inspect it per our insurance, but it passed, so we have a couple years before we HAVE to get it replace, but we're so thankful it's not this month/year. There's a leak in the floor/wall in a bedroom on an outside wall that Leigh's been working on trying to find the cause and fix. He's pretty sure it's related to how the sprinkler system hits it or something. Then he got new tires on the car and was informed his brakes were bad, so he replaced those, then he changed the oil on the car and van and realized two or the motor mounts on the van, that he just replaced had cracked  clean through, so now he has to replace those again. He feels like it's never ending. I've been trying not to ask him to help me move things in the house cause he's so busy already. But maybe I will ask him to hang my two big pictures! :)
In October we got to go to Orlando and meet Dana and her kids and go to Sea World. That was a super fun treat! We were offered a place to stay for free and Dana was offered free tickets from a friend!! That doesn't happen very often, and we had so much fun!!
We went to Dothan for the Peanut Festival Parade in November, and Mom and Dad and I actually took the kids to the fair! It was a lot of fun, and the kids seemed to really enjoy it! We don't usually go to the fair, just the parade, so it was a fun treat! In December we went to Pensacola for Christmas and had a nice time. We got to see some friends and Leigh's brother and family a couple times and hang out with my sisters and parents. It wasn't too cold, just a little chilly a couple days, so that was nice. Came back home and finished moving everything out of the rental and cleaned it and got settled in our new home.
I think that about brings us up to now. Very thankful for how God has blessed us and the fun things we got to do last year and family and friends we got to see! So very thankful for our new house, too! It's so nice to finally have a little more space!
If you're on Facebook, you can see all the pictures that should go with all our trips, etc. I tried to find them and add a few, but I couldn't get them to work!

Etcetera

The biggest thing on our mind lately has been Leigh finding a job. It feels like he has been searching nonstop since we moved.  At times it has been very frustrating trying to find a balance of when it is okay and not okay to interrupt his time on the computer and such while he was job hunting. I think we adjusted well to having Daddy home all day, although it did become easier for me once we started school and my mornings were taken up with stuff instead of in and out and doing things all over the house. I think he did better too, because he knew I wouldn't be interrupting him whether on purpose or on accident (not that I would EVER purposefully interrupt, but maybe accidentally on purpose???? :)  :)  )  Anyways, we had to lay some boundaries down for ourselves and make it work and it has gotten much easier since we've gotten into a routine. I really have enjoyed having him home the past couple months. I really think it has helped me feel a little more settled and safe having him here. So that's good. We are so thankful that he has a job. It sounds like it'll be a good job and he will enjoy learning new stuff.
I feel very undeserving and amazed at God's provision for us. Our whole moving expedition has been a fascinating learning experience for me. I grew up and lived in the same house my whole life, my family is very close, I did live far away from grandparents, but I always wanted my kids to know their grandparents well, so moving in and of itself was a interesting concept to accept. I wasn't sure how to help my kids with a transition like this, because I had never had the feelings that I'm sure they have, but they seem to have adjusted beautifully. Yes, they miss our family and friends, but I don't think we've scarred them for life. Leigh and I have both had absolute peace about the decision to move. We sought Godly counsel and advice to make sure we weren't "missing" anything, and had absolutely no red flags from anyone or anything. We wondered if it was "smart" to leave a good job in the economy we were in, but we knew that we wouldn't go without anything we needed. We met with a realtor I think the beginning of February. At that time the average for a house to be on the market was around four to six months (if I'm remembering correctly). Our realtors put our house on the market the end of March and there was a signed contract on it the end of May. Wahoo! The closing date wasn't until Aug, and we were hoping to be able to stay in it until Leigh's contract ended on July 31st. (A shout out to Skip and Kristy-Thank you! :) "Technically" in our "economy" it shouldn't have sold that fast. Leigh's job ended July 31st, so he's been out of a job since August 1. He starts his new job next week, which is only 2 1/2 months of not working. After hearing him inform me of the statistics of finding a job and such, especially in a specialized area, he "technically" shouldn't have gotten a job this fast. It's neat to look back and see how God has worked specifically and generally in so many different ways, but it has also been neat to look forward and know that God WILL sell our house and God WILL give Leigh a job, we just don't know when.
Another interesting tidbit about his job, is that a few weeks ago, he went around town to different companies dropping off his resume and asking if they had job openings. This company was one of the ones where he dropped off his resume. ( I think they actually accepted one, most of them wouldn't take one) They told him to look online at their website and see if there were any openings. So, when he got home he did that, but the website didn't have any openings. It was about a week later when a recruiter contacted him about this job - they never did have it listed online.
Anyways, I guess I'm done rambling. I hope it makes sense. I'm trying to make a little sense out of some of my feelings, but I don't think I've done very well explaining any of it. Oh well! Hope you weren't too bored.

New places, new faces, cont.

We moved to Fort Lauderdale, FL on August 1, 2011. This was a move that had been in the "works" for quite a while. Some friends of ours started a church in May of 2006 and had been "pestering" us to move down and help them. I, personally, was not inclined to move anywhere. I liked where we lived, my sisters lived in town, and my parents weren't far away either. Leigh's family was only a days drive away and one of his  brothers had just moved down.
Everything I had ever heard about Fort Lauderdale was bad. "It's a wicked city", "there's blatant "sin" ", "there's awful stores on every street corner", etc. I'm also not a big fan of large cities and interstate driving to get to where I want to go. Some other questions consisted of  How do I shelter and protect my children the way I think I should, when there's other kids in the church who aren't taught to not use certain words, hand gestures, etc., or Will there be any kids in the church so my kids will even Have friends?, etc. etc..I don't know Your friends very well, I don't know anybody, etc.. I also had other questions, concerns, complaints, mostly excuses, as to why we Should Not move.
Of course I didn't know I had all these excuses, until my dear Leigh tells me one day in September of 2006 on our way home after Sunday night church, that he thought God wanted us to move to Fort Lauderdale. So, out came my "reasons" about why it was not a good idea and why we shouldn't move. I wasn't totally against it, to the point of saying , "No, I'm not going" I just wanted him to be sure and to hear my reasons as to why I didn't want to. We decided to test the waters so to speak and go down and visit and show our support for our friends endeavor. So we went down in October of 2006, saw their house, saw the church, met the people-the few that were there, went to a youth activity at the beach, rode the church van, attended a service with the pastor, his wife, and I think 4 or 5 other people.
We came home and I said, "When do we pack??" and Leigh said, "No, we're not supposed to move down there now." (We also went down in December of 2009, just to visit) So after that, every December, I asked Leigh if he would be resigning his contract in January, or if this would be the year that we would move. Well, last year, in October 2010, Leigh told me that he felt this year was the year that God wanted us to come down to Fort Lauderdale and try to be a help to his friend. So we waited until after contract signing came and went, because we wanted to make sure there weren't any red flags, to say for sure that we were moving. Our house went on the market in March and had a signed contract in May, even with the allowance that we would like to stay in it until the end of July; came to Lauderdale the second week of July to find somewhere to rent, signed a rent contract the day we left Lauderdale to come back to Pensacola, and moved down a week later, and closed on our house on Aug 8. So that is the where, when, how, and why we ended up down here. We both have a complete peace that this is where we are supposed to be. We're excited about what God's doing in our lives and in the church. And it's been neat to see how God has worked everything out so far. Since this has been rather long, I'll wait to share some other things for another post. :)

New places, new faces

So, it's been over a year, since I put anything on here. I think it's called getting to busy with things.....
Anyways, a lot has happened since my last post and we have moved to Fort Lauderale, Florida. The name of my blog use to be Ponderings from Pensacola, but obviously I had to come up with a new name. There are not any synonyms for Ponderings that start with F, hence the new title. We'll see if I can keep up with better. :)