Family Effort

Macy and Ollie..enough said

Kristi and I taking the carpet off the staircase

Jared has been very helpful and encouraging through out this entire process.

Now the fun begins

We are doing some remodeling to our new house. We started with our bedroom. I just realized I don't have any pictures of it. I will post those later. The more settled we are getting the more I am realizing how big this house is. I find myself starting some thing in one room, walking to another room to get some thing, starting some thing in that room, and never returning to what I started in the first place. I love it! Here are a few pictures of what we started this week.

Josh and Jared taking out the ceiling. You will see why we did this later.

Chaia and I knocking out the wall between the living room and the dining room. We are getting rid of the dining room to make a bigger kitchen and living room. The wall is gone. The closet to the left has been removed too. The Kitchen was really small for a house this size and the living room was oddly shaped. Getting rid of that wall is going to make the space more usable.

Moving

We were supposed to close almost two weeks prior to when we closed. Our plans were to use those two weeks to do some remodeling to the house before we moved our stuff in. Things didn't go according to plan. We ended up closing at 4pm on the day we had to be out of our apartment. Thank God for great friends. When we got back from signing our wonderful friends had moved every thing out of our top floor apartment. Josh and I were both shocked and grateful! All we had to do was clean and move stuff into our house.

Tommy supervising

Chaia made sure every thing was going smoothly while we were gone. She is a God send!

We can't even begin to express our gratitude to every one who helped move. We know it was no fun, hot, and tiring.

Taking a break and enjoying some Buffalo Wild Wings.

FINALLY

We finally signed on the house last Thursday. We could write a book about our loan process. It was crazy. Things are definitely different than they were four and a half years ago when we bought our house in Wilson. It will be a very long time if then before we buy another house. Thank you God it is over with!

Our new house

Our new house! We came across this foreclosure just in time. It has been bank owned since January. We put in our offer Wednesday afternoon and had to participate in an online auction that evening. We won the highest bid! The bank approved our offer on Thursday and we are closing in less than three weeks! The MLS listing has been removed and the signs in the front yard (thanks to Josh). We are still taking it all in. Sorry, couldn't get all the house in the picture. To the right is a two car attached garage.

The house is in a great neighborhood! It has 6 bedrooms, 3 and half baths. HUGE!! It is almost 4,000 square feet. The MLS listing says 3,000 but apparently they finished in a few extra rooms with out a builiding permit. It needs a little tlc but nothing major. Just paint and carpet. The best part is we got this house for the price of a condo in Wilmington. It is 2 and a half times bigger than our house in Wilson and we are paying almost the say amount a month for this house. That's how we know it was completely God! Josh and I were shocked when they took our offer because it was so low for the size and location of the house. That's how God works!

We took pictures while we were having a builder give us price quotes on a few minor things that need to be fixed. This is the master bedroom. It has its own private sitting area down the stairs.

Sitting area in the master bedroom

The dining room

The living room

We are so excited! We have been praying and fasting for a while about buying a home in Wilmington. When God opened the door, He opened it wide! We have a few hurdles to jump in the next three weeks but we know God is more than able to handle them!

LIfe at the Beach

Kristi's Graduation

Kristi is the new addition to our family. She worked hard this last semester of school and graduated on June 12th. We are so proud of her and we know she has a huge future a head of her!

Mrs. Anne and Kristi

Kristi, Mrs. Anne, and Pastor Daniel

Kristi and Me

US

Saturday Sanctuary Kids had its annual Talent Show. We were raising money for new puppets. I was thrilled with the amount of support we had! We are going to be able to buy more puppets than I initially thought!

WOW..

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted! Here is a quick update.....on our life!

We started clearing land last week. So exciting!

Spring is finally here! The weather has been beautiful. We have been able to go to the beach several times. Traffic has increased and Walmart is to be avoided due to all the tourists.....which is the down side to living so close to the beach. I can live with that a few months out of the year!

In March my aunt Leta passed away. We traveled to High Point to attend the funeral. She was a mighty woman of God and will be greatly missed by all who knew her. Danny, Samuel, and Matthew are in our prayers daily!!

In February our church purchased 10 acres of land less than a mile from our current location. We are very excited about our new building. We are really growing in our current location and desperately need to move to a bigger facility. This phase will be a temporary sanctuary but the permanent children's facility. I am really excited about being a part of the design of the children's department.

We also got 4-5 inches of snow! It was beautiful coming down but it didn't stay around long. Life went on as usual!

Preview of the Christmas Production Josh and I wrote. It was a huge success! We had so much fun writing it, building the set, getting the dances together, etc..

Christmas Production

Josh and I wrote our Christmas Production this year. He rewrote all the songs and we did the script together. Its for the entire family. So if you are in the area you should check it out!!!

Our Thanksgiving was pretty quiet this year. We went to Dunn for a few hours on Thursday. It was great to see Josh's side of the family. We didn't make it to Rocky Mount this year. Every one was eating at the same time so we decided to go back to Wilmington. We had our first Thanksgiving meal with just us!! I fixed all the traditional food. We stayed in and watched movies and finished decorating the Christmas tree.

Happy Halloween

Last night we had our first annual Fall Festival. I had a great team of people that helped me put it together. We had a ton of games, candy, pony ride, inflatables. It was so much fun! We had a great turn out.

I was a tooth fairy and Piper was Minnie Mouse....Josh was.......

A tooth
Pony Ride

Hot Dog eating contest....Pastor Daniel was the winner. He ate 6 hot dogs in 1 minute.

Pastor Appreciation Video

This weekend we celebrated our Pastors! We made a few videos for the service. I thought I would share some with you!

Uneventful Weekend!

This weekend I was supposed to go home for Leah's First birthday and go to the State Fair.....that didn't happen!! I was too sick to do any thing! I had been battling a sinus infection that only got worse as the week went on. By Friday I was in the bed with a fever and lots of coughing. Josh took good care of me. He rented us movies and we hung out at the house. I am much better today! Next week we have lots going on so I will have a more interesting post!!

Trip Home

Mom fixed breakfast Saturday morning. Josh was able to join us. Leah and him had fun playing! After breakfast we had to photograph a wedding. The last one we will ever do! We just don't have time to do wedding any more!!

Mom fixed dinner Friday night. We ate and caught up on all the things I have missed since I was home last.

Leah......I believe she is going to be loads of fun, excitment, and is going to get herself in to some trouble.

Mom and Leah

We decorated pumpkins....Leah's is on top, Anna's is the one on the left, and Kara's is the one on the right.

The finished product

Decorating them wasn't as easy as you think!

Anna and I getting ready to decorate pumpkins. Friday, I picked them up after school. We went to Pizza Inn....one of my favorite places to eat. We don't have one in Wilmington. We met Dad for lunch.

Dad and Kara at Texas Steakhouse

Watch me cheer

When I came in town on Thursday I met Dad, Heath, Paige, and the girls at Texas Steakhouse. I wasn't feeling that great! I have been battling a sinus infection all weekend!

Lunch

Last Saturday I went to eat with my good friend Tina and her 4 month old Maddie. We ate at Pita Delight. One of my favorite spots in Wilmington. We had a great time catching up!

Ice Skating

Update

I am sure that every one can tell our life has been nothing but busy!! I haven't been home to visit since Father's Day! The beach life has attracted a lot of visitors this summer!!

This summer if I wasn't out at the church I could be found at the beach or the pool. Josh was rarely at the beach! I took advantage of the time he was at work and went to my special spot! I will miss that spot for the next six months! I am actually ready for fall!

We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary a few weeks ago! It is so hard to believe we have been married for 5 years! I love Josh more today than I did the day we said "I do!" He is my best friend. I am blessed and honored that God chose me to be his soulmate! We took a mini-vacation to Myrtle Beach to celebrate! It was so nice to get away and it be just us! We are planning a cruise soon!!

Church...is going great! Where we are on the building?? Well long story short....New Hanover County would not zone the building for a commercial business. Although, we were told in the beginning (before we decided to move)that it was already zoned for commercial businesses. God has HUGE plans for us!! That being said...we are having to go to two services due to our growth. We are going to have a Saturday night and Sunday morning service! We are really excited about adding the new service and the growth of our church. Sanctuary Kids is growing each week. I have a great group of kids!! Josh has written some new songs. Did I mention that someone gave the church a baby grand piano. They didn't use it and wanted to give it to a church. Josh is in heaven! They have remodeled the sanctuary and made a place for it on stage!

I am anxious to go home for a visit!! The girls started school and love it!! Kara called and told me she did not like me living at the beach anymore!! I miss them so much!! I am going to be going home a lot in October! Leah will be 1 next month! It is so hard to believe!

I have some pictures to post...I will have to do that tomorrow!

Update

In the past two weeks we have had 26 people give their life to Christ!! Last week we had 26 Baptized and 8 will be Baptized this week. We are so excited about what God has been doing in our church and in our lives! God is so good!!

Sunday we met the Clark's for Sunday lunch. Again, I didn't bring the camera because we left as soon as we finished church. We had a great lunch and time honoring Josh's dad for Father's Day. They spent the week at Topsoil beach. They picked a beautiful week to vacation!!

Birthday Party

I forgot to bring the camera to Anna and Kara's birthday party. I was so upset!! :( They had a great time. It was at the Mini-putt. We played games, ate, and opened presents! Josh and I got the girls matching scooters. They loved them. They rode them all around the foyer at the Mini-putt.