New home pics - BEFORE! :)

Hi all! I've had several requests for pics so here you go! These are the move in pics...so, these will be the before pics. I obviously have LOTS planned for this wonderful little home, but it will be an over time/gradual change. The only thing we're doing now is painting all the trim white and all the walls some "designer" colors. You can use your imagination until you can stop by yourselves!! :)

Pretty much original 80s! :) But we love it because it's got all the room we need and is so clean!

This sunroom is the kid's play room! It's perfect because it's really in the middle of all the living areas, so no matter where we are, they feel really close by! It'll be great for game nights and for parties because the kids have a central area to play and us adults can hang out without having them at our feet! :) :)

The back yard isn't huge, but perfect for us. There are lots of schools/parks near by, so there will be plenty of places to go when the weather is nice!

And there you have it!

We're home!

Praise the Lord for all the answered prayers! Thanks to our prayer warriors out there for keeping us in your prayers all summer! - we've arrived...we're home! This home has exceeded our expectations in every way! Everything we had on our "list" the Lord has blessed us with! The neighborhood is amazing!!! All the families we've met have been here for over 20 years! Tonight, a sweet family from up the street stopped by with a gift basket, some brownies, sparkling cider and some chocolates! - a little b-day present for me because I've eaten quite a bit of it already! :) YUM! They are Christians and their daughter was very close to the woman we bought this home from!!

We also met the daughter of the lady we bought this home from! Her family is also Christian and they go to the Beaverton Four Square Church. She was so excited we were Christians and so trilled about the home. All in all, we feel so full and so blessed! We have a long ways to go with painting and unpacking, but the house is perfect right now and will only get better in time. We see ourselves being here indefinitely, so we're going to take our time when making "cosmetic" changes because we want to LOVE it and not just do things quickly. So, it's going to be a fun work in progress!!

Again, thanks to all those who've been praying! We're home now, and absolutely loving every minute of it!! Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow!

Even more than we could have asked for or imagined!

We have amazing news...a testimony to the Lord's AMAZING graciousness and faithfulness!! He has given us a wonderful home...a better home than we could have asked for or imagined! We are sooo excited! Let me explain His work in all this...

We thought we were going to buy another house a couple weeks ago...but after the inspection revealed there was a lot more repairs needed than we thought, we walked away from that home...a little disappointed and only 30 days from when Ben was supposed to start school, we felt we were back to square one again...with nothing on the horizon. So, we went back to looking for homes and a home I had seen online a month ago (that I had liked) had JUST come down $10k (God-o-ince #1). Even at this point it was still a little over where we had set our cap, but we figured, let's go look at it and if we love it, we could just put an offer in and test the waters. Afterall, we have had lots of practise putting offers in on homes...this was the fourth! - Praise the Lord for closing doors...In fact, every time He closed the door on the others I was like "Thank you Jesus for protecting us from making a mistake!!" We knew He was into all the little details and had a perfect home for us...it just took us a while to find it! :)

Well, all that to say, we loved it! It has a living room, a dining room, a large kitchen, a family room and a great sunroom which we will make the kid's playroom. So, we put an offer on it and the seller countered, again a higher number than we wanted. So, we countered back at our cap and just told her this was all we could afford, and after finding out Ben was a school teacher and I was a stay-at-home mommy, she accepted our offer because she is a retired school teacher (God-o-ince #2). We were SO excited because the home is move-in-ready. They just re-carpeted, repainted inside and out, and put down new vinyl everywhere. Yes, the finishes are not my "ideal", but hey, it's totally clean and livable till we can save up to do some special stuff down the road! It is in one of THE best school districts (Hiteon, Conestoga, Southridge) in Beaverton, and we're walking distance from the elementary school and a short bike ride to the Conestoga Rec Center and Southridge High School.

After a few days we had the home inspected. There were several major-minor things that came up that we really didn't have the cash for, but these were repairs that needed to be done. We had several contractors come out and give us bids for some drainage repairs, roof repairs, deck repairs and mold removal...it topped $9000!! So, we sent the seller a repair request for the entire amount hoping she would help with a couple thousand or at least half. We got word a few days later that she wanted to cover ALL of it!!!!! - All $9,000!!! (God-o-ince/blessing #3)!! I was screaming with excitement because it was WAY more than I could have asked for or imagined!! Then our mortgage guy did some amazing "tricks" and was able to use some of that money to buy our rate down, thereby reducing our monthly payment by over $35/month and still giving us some cash to buy a few pieces of furniture or appliances AND take care of all the repairs!! (God-o-ince #4) So, as of today, we will be signing papers next Monday or Tuesday, closing on Wednesday the 13th and moving in on Saturday the 16th!!! This home is a little less than 1800 square feet (our last home was 975 square feet) it was built in 1983 (20 years newer than our last home), is in Washington county, in a better school district and we are paying $35,000 less for it than what we sold our Multomah Village home for!!!!!!! It is like a dream!!! - again, better than we could have asked for or imagined!! I guess it was worth being homeless for 3 months!! :) haha!

We feel SO full and sooo blessed that the Lord has been soooo gracious to us! Praise Him sooo much!! And yes, we'll probably have an open house once we get a little settled in...I'm so excited we'll actually be able to have over more than 2 couples at a time!! Thank you everyone for your prayers!! We'll be home in less than 2 weeks!!

Here's a virtual tour

The Halo...of static!!!

Yes friends, we have a holy child on our hands!! HAHA! Totally kidding of course! We were outside playing and Easton LOVES this little car so I was pushing him around in it and all of a sudden I looked down and he had this halo around his head!! I was laughing and screaming for the camera!!! It was so funny!! Thought you'd enjoy the new look!!

HE WALKS!!!

Finally our little man has decided he CAN walk! He's been cruising furniture for the past couple months and just holding onto one hand for the past several weeks, but just hasn't let go! - until today!!! He just decided he could do it and literally, I set him down and he took off walking all by himself! It was crazy! As soon as he did that, I grabbed the camera and this video of him walking is just a few minutes after his first walk! Look'n good for being brand new!!! This is what he did when I first set him down...just took off towards daddy! :) :)
Raquelle took a little step here and there and finally started walking, but he just boom, walked! It's SO cool...I can't wait for him to be chas'n her around the house!! Ahhhh, the giggles and laughter to come!

And yes...we're still house shopping!

Despite all the fun we've been having this summer we have been house shopping like crazy! We actually had an offer accepted on one we thought "was it" and had it inspected this past Friday. There were numerous internal issues with the house that we just really didn't want to mess with and so after thinking we were done and closing on Aug. 13th, we past it up and decided to keep looking!! :( We're sad, but thankful because that house is obviously not the one and we know the Lord has a great place for us!! So, the search continues! We'll be back up in Portland on Tuesday shopping again. We have a lead on a house we've actually been waiting for since April - it's gone through foreclosure and was auctioned and is now bank owned. It just came on the market the day before we had this other house inspected (a strange coincidence yes)...and it's in the same neighborhood as Ben's brother's family...which would be sweet! But, again, we're not getting our hopes up because we're looking at a few on Tuesday. We just pray one of these will be "it" and we can be closing and moving within 30 days. We appreciate your prayers as we all are ready to be "home" and settled before daddy starts back to school the end of August. We miss you all and look forward to being back in P-town again soon!! :)

Back from Kay's Camp

...and recovering! :)

Another fun weekend in Florence/Reedsport! Thanks Aunt Kay for a wonderful kids camp!! She thought of everything! The food, the games, the treats, the treasure hunts, the box of oats - it was such a fun experience for the kids!!! Here's a few pics from the last weekend. The recovering part is that the day after we got home, I got really sick, went to the doctor and found out I have strep throat! - from where I picked that up, I have NO idea, but so far it's just me and the kids and Ben are doing fine!! Today was my third day on anti-biotics, so hopefully we'll all skate through this one without any other issues!! CRAZY!

Kay had this great little treasure hunt all set up with clues and fun treats along the way. It was out in their back yard and orchard area! What a great idea!!

One of the treats along the way!

Easton was loving the bin full of oats! Had to watch him like a hawk or they were in his mouth by the hand full!! :)

The drive home...passing time being silly! - fortunately we got to stop in Corvallis for a little Woodstocks pizza pick-up on the way home! YUUUUUMMY! :)