I'm back

You know you are a nerd when you sit down at your computer and tell it how much you missed it. LOL  It works again! Yay!

 One of our dear friends popped over today and fixed it! And let me know that in exchange they expect some blogging to take place! LOL So, here I am!

This will be summer that we remember that our whole family experienced what it is like to grab all our belongings and evacuate. We did it here in FL due to Hurricane Irma. And recently in California, Nathan had to, due to Canyon Fire 2 in Anaheim. He actually had to leave his school and his condo. Bless his heart! How scary were those brush fires!? Just tragic! And since someone I know had her daughter die in one of the fires, I may have texted him way too many times to make sure he was OK. 

I went to the movies for the first time by myself last weekend and it wasn't bad. I may do that more often! 

I fixed my weed-eater and found the part I needed in one of the aisles of Home Depot all by myself! Major win! 

The wedding we were planning to go to in December in CA has been postponed. -What a wise and brave thing for a couple to do in today's society. May God bless them as they pray their way through to find His will.

 

So, our family isn't going on vacation at Christmastime, but we already have the week off of all of our jobs, so I'm trying to talk the kids into helping me paint the exterior of our house that week! Because that totally sounds like just as much fun as being with your best friends in California, right? LOL -Ummm, no! But here's hoping they go for it. : )

Our women's small group is studying Battlefield of the Mind and I'm helping to teach it. (I still am trying to figure out how that happened since I'm shy! LOL) 

But what a great book! A must read for all believers! 

And speaking of books, there isn't one that helped me more through the grieving process than Levi Lusko's Through the Eyes of a Lion. If you've experienced any kind of loss in your life, please read this book! And if you have struggled with the question of why some people receive healing and others don't, then Read this beautiful article by Ann Voskamp.

That's all for now! 

~Becky

The week everything broke

So, the A/C in my car died, and it didn't take long before I was melting. The next day, every Prius owner's nightmare happened! -My battery died. And they aren't your normal battery! They cost almost $2000!!! And four days after that the washing machine stopped working.
It was quite a week.

Then God's abundant grace came our way, otherwise known as my hubby's best friend.
In 15 minutes the A/C was blowing cold again, the next day, my car had a newer battery and a few days later, a new washer and dryer were snuck into our laundry room when we weren't home.

Thankful our dear life-long friend, who often comes the rescue and keeps are world spinning!

~Becky

Switching it up

I recently went to a furniture store's outlet store, which was having what I call a 'scratch and dent sale.' I picked out a sofa that looked flawless and a matching love seat that only had small tear on the back. I was pretty excited about my great deal. Then I found out that I could "make an offer" lower than the sale price! Yahoo! They took my offer and I felt like quite the wheeler and dealer.  (which I'm totally not) Then, in my excitment I took photos with my phone to send to my kids.

The last time we got a sofa and loveseat was twelve years ago! And believe me, they had been well lived on by the 6 of us and two dogs.
That furniture was special to us because it was a surprise from our dear friend, Carlos. He had just finished an addition on our house and then he had a brand new leather sofa and loveseat delievered!!! It was an amazing surprise!

Back to my furniture adventure..
The big day for delivery came and I was at work but the kids were there to receive the furniture and when I got home, I found out that the company had switched the loveseat with one that had a really worn out spot ON THE FRONT of it.
HOLY COW and OH MY STARS, I was so mad.

I just can't even, with the thought of being cheated!!!

And then, praise the Lord, I remembered the photos!
So, I called the store and told them that my pictures proved that this wasn't the loveseat I bought. Then I added  "Add I'm pretty sure it is illegal to bait and switch furniture!!!."
-Except Andrew swears that I told them it was illegal to "switch and bait furniture!" LOL
-Yeah, well, whatever! I was really mad. ; )

It was an "all sales are final" kind of a sale, so without the photos, I'd have been out of luck.
But, guess who is getting a brand new one that isn't from the scratch and dent section?
Yay, God!

Here's hoping I will not have to think about furniture shopping again for twelve more years!
~Becky

Celebrating 10 years of thankfulness

Every February, we have a 'Thank You Party' to thank our dear friend, Carlos, for the addition and the remodeling job that he did on our house in 2005. Actually, he did SOOO much more than that... And gave up so much of his life to do it! We will be forever humbled by his love, generousity and servant's heart!

Here is the story

We had to postpone the party for awhile due to Hubby's cancer trial, and we finally had it last Friday night!

We looked at photos and videos of all the construction which Andrew set to the Switchfoot album we played during that whole year. And we were amazed again at how little our kids were back then! 

This year for the decorations, I attached a picture of the phases of construction to each helium balloon. I had each picture backed with some cute glittery paper UNTIL I found out that the paper was so heavy the balloons wouldn't float because of it. Who knew that card stock paper was that heavy? So, then I had to rip off that paper and just glue on white copy paper to all 16 of them. 

It looked SO cute, I thought I would do this again for Zac and Tiffany's rehearsal dinner using pictures of them over the last 6 years.

BUT the balloons that were suppose to float from 6-8 hours started dropping at hour #4 and the party hadn't started yet. (boo-hoo) Clever, Joy, gave me the idea to put a piece of tape on our ceiling for each balloon and it worked! 

For dinner, I made the Pioneer Woman's Big Steak Salad which was a big hit! Zac grilled the rib eyes for me and they were fabulous! (I cheated with store bought candied pecans and store bought onion rings to save time!) : )

Then Joy made a gorgeous peach and strawberry tart for dessert. It was amazing!

We gave Nathan a call in CA during the evening and caught him hiking up a mountain. He knew we were having the party that night and said he'd been thinking about it. We put him on speaker and while hiking, no less, he very eloquently put into words his thanks and what all that Carlos did meant to him personally. He really put into words what all of us were thinking, and it blew us away. Love that guy! (I couldn't have given a beautiful speech off the top of my head while hiking up a mountain to save my life) ; )

It was a very special evening! (even if the balloons didn't float) ; )

~Becky

Needing new wheels

Our mini van, affectionately named The Gunship, has driven its last mile.
It has been dying a slow death for awhile now. Driving it in all its quirkiness was like a science so we had to put off Joy's driving lessons. But after 239,000 miles you can't be too picky, right? Our sweet friend, who is a mechanic, certainly kept it going for us for as long as possible and we are so thankful.

I have lots of sweet memories of the six of us riding around in that van!
Memories of teaching 2 and half teenagers to drive in it. : )
Lots of out of state visits from my best friend in which we packed her 2 and our 4 in the back of it because they were small enough back then, until one summer they were all too big and she had to start renting cars. ; )
 Memories of so many beach trips that we kept swim noodles and beach chairs in the trunk year round!
But most of all and maybe best of all, were the gazillion trips to church! Three or four or more times a week, (44 miles round trip) that I wouldn't trade for anything. Those trips were for not only worship services, but youth group band practices, fine arts practices, choir practices, Junior Bible Quiz matches and Teen Bible Quiz matches and all kinds of fun things that helped us raise our kiddos! Well worth every trip! : )

Zac is loaning me his car tonight so that I can go and teach my last small group Bible class for the high school girls, since the program is ending. -We aren't really studying tonight since I found out that they have never seen Frozen!!! (how can that be?!!?)  ; )

Friday morning Zac graduates and several of us will have to ride with him, so that we can even get to the ceremony. LOL But, after all the fun festivities surrounding that, we'll be used car shopping!!! (Hubby's been searching Craig's List for weeks)

Our mini van days are over and we can now get something more fuel efficient for those 44 miles we love soooo much!!! After all, this is the home stretch of raising kids for us!

Prayers that we choose a good one, much appreciated!

~Becky

The funky flu and then the fun

First of all, can I just say how glad I am that no one tragically died on the season finale of this show last night! ; )

On Wednesday we got hit with this weird flu bug. The kind that gives you this splitting headache that never goes away, dizziness whenever you stand up and a total lack of energy. BLAH!
But, I read this book while I was down and it was awesome! -Great faith builder in God's power to heal and redeem lives. Love, love, loved it!

On Friday, it was hubby's turn to join in with the 'fluishness.' So, he took the day off and we had a relaxing fun time together and made it a half day of school for the healthy feeling kiddos.

Saturday, we were better and off and running to pull off our annual 'Thank You' party for the addition that our dear friend put on our house 9 years ago. While I cleaned and cooked, Hubby repainted our front door and the shutters on our house, which really brightened things up.  Andrew made us place cards.

Joy set the table with the china and the silver 

and then we felt the need to play the theme song from this show. LOL 

Joy made us these for dessert: 

During dinner, Joy and Andrew were 'the Help. ' : ) Zac grilled steaks for us. We hoped to Skype with Nate during the party so that he could say his 'thank you' to Carlos too, but there was some time zone related confusion, so that didn't work out. 

All in all it was a special evening and though we try every year, we can never really express our thanks to the Lord and Carlos for all that was done to add on to our home! : ) 

Then about 14 hours later, we gave another party! 

-A breakfast social for the sweet people in our Sunday School class. I made biscuits and sausage gravy. (thank you Pioneer Woman! So yummy!) Oh, let's clarify, I made the gravy and I heated up FROZEN biscuits. ; ) 

Anyway, it was one fun weekend! 

~Becky 

The wedding!

I'm just too happy about this day to even try to find the words to describe it! 

~Becky

A bachelor party in the works

My hubby is going to be the best man in his best friend's wedding in a couple weeks,
which means that he is giving a bachelor party!
And since he asked for my help, I've been googling various things like 'how to throw a christian bachelor party' because I'm rather clueless about how to do one.

My hubby's bachelor party was simple. It was a surprise party at a pizza place.
 All the guys from church were there and they ate pizza and made him wear one of these:

And by the looks of the pictures,
either Hawaiian shirts were totally the in thing to wear in 1991 or the guys were all told to dress in something Hawaiian. Your guess is a good as mine! : )

Here were some of the suggestions I found:

The most popular idea is to take the groom golfing
Second most popular idea is to have a bowling party

And then there are these ideas:

Paintball
Mini-golf and then eat at TGIF
Laser tag
Food and football
Play Wii games and then watch 'guy' movies
Go to an arcade
Pigeon shooting (I'm guessing those must be the clay circles and not annoying birds) ; )

These can also include a time to swap stories about the groom and a time for the married men to give the groom some advice on the most important thing they've learned as a husband. These can be written down on 3x5 cards and placed in a book for him to keep. You can also have a time to pray and bless the groom, which I thought was a sweet idea.

Be sure to ask your groom what he would enjoy the most, unless of course, it is a surprise party
and then I guess you just need a Groucho Marx mask and some tacky Hawaiian shirts. ; )

~Becky

Events and yumminess of the weekend

Usually we have a date night on Friday nights, but since Hubby's back is still re-cooperating from going out during the spring break, we stayed in and it turned into a cozy, quiet night for us all with a thunderstorm going on outside. We recently got hooked on the TV show Blue Bloods and bought the first two seasons, (because so far, it is clean and we sure can't say that  about most shows these days, which we always seem to have to turn off)
Saturday, Zac spent 8 hours caffeinating the greater Tampa Bay area ; )
 and Nathan went to his internship at the audio/video electronic repair store. Good news, there! -He's going to start getting paid for everything he fixes. Hooray!
Hubby had a job to do and he hired Andrew to help him out. They had a great time together.
Joy and I were up early for her first softball game but then found out that it was cancelled due to all the rain the night before and we were thrilled and headed back to our beds. : ) (she's been fighting a cold and didn't feel up to playing anyway)
 We had our annual 'House Party' celebration that night, to thank our dear friend Carlos, for all the work he did adding-on to our house in 2005. Joy and I spent the day cooking for the party and I did some decorating using a 'building/construction' theme.
She's been practicing for her internship, this summer at the bakery, and she made these cupcakes for the newly engaged couple:

 Soooo beautiful! We had so much fun that we were hoping someone else we know would get engaged so she could make them again!

Then our "mini Martha" (Stewart) made some eggs that looked like these:

and they were almost too cute to eat! We put them on a bed of alfalfa sprouts for grass and they were just adorable.
It was a fun night of celebrating and giving thanks and of course, lots of eating! We are always amazed when we watch the slide show of the building pictures and see how much work it was. May the Lord, forever bless Carlos!

Sunday we woke up to a plumbing emergency. The wind knocked down a palm branch which hit an exposed PVC pipe in our yard and broke it and water was going everywhere. Bless my dear Hubby's heart, that was not fun to wake up to. He stayed home from church and worked on it and the rest of us left.
Then we spent the rest of the day relaxing and the guys of the family all got together and made a great dinner and did all the cleaning up to thank Joy and I for all the things we did for the party (which of course was all instigated by the best Hubby) : ) So sweet!
~Becky

An ENORMOUS gift

My hubby's best friend stopped by over the weekend with a birthday gift for him and an early Christmas for all of us which
BLEW our minds!
It is as wide as I am tall (60 inches) ; )
and it gives you a close up view of the pores on football players skin! LOL
I'm sure you can guess what it is.
We are in shock and speechless.

When I look around our house though, there are evidences of our friend's LOVE, construction skills and generosity in every single room! -This gift is definitely going to be a BIG eye catcher for years to come ( LOL) and will have us hosting lots of football parties.

Praying that the Lord would find some OUTRAGEOUS and abundantly ENORMOUS way to bless our dear friend. I'm glad you can't out give God.

~Becky

Spring break fun

We started our break at the park one evening and  had a BBQ next to this guy:

Unfortunately, a mom and her kids were feeding him sour cream and onion potato chips!!! -They must not have been Floridians because we all know that you don't feed alligators. We played some frisbee, sat by the river and had a relaxing evening.

Monday we went to see this movie:

And I've never seen such fabulous animation. I so much wanted to reach out and touch a Truffula tree! Loved it!

It turned into a really laid back week. We planned to go here:

but it never worked out. : (  I got some kind of 'bug' which made me dizzy and nauseous and interrupted the fun.

We went out Friday for pizza with my BFF and her family then headed to the movies to drop off all of our various Hunger Games fans. The ones who read the book were planning to dress up as different characters, and told the ones who hadn't read the book, that they couldn't come. LOL! Time got away from us at the restaurant and some of the showings were sold out already so, in the end, they made the 9:00 PM show, didn't get to dress up and 'let' the non-book-readers come. (I've been told several times by Andrew that I don't need to read the book though because he says I wouldn't like it. Hmmm, it seems to be all the rage though, so maybe I should)

Saturday we had a great time watching Joy in her first softball game of the season. Her favorite position is
catcher. -And can that girl whip off her mask in a hurry! She did a great job in left field too. ~It will be THE only time that Daddy cheers for the Red Sox, that is for sure. -Lady Red Sox, that is! : )

We also had our annual "House Party" which is a time to celebrate, remember and thank God for the addition that our dear friend, Carlos, put on our house in 2005. It is always a special time when we remember how an amazing God provided more space for our family and how an amazing friend 

gave so many months (that turned into years) of his life to pull it off. What an indescribable blessing.

And now, thanks to one of the rooms he built, we not only have more room for our gang, but we are housing my hubby's brother, who is a stroke patient.

Who would've thought of that, back when it was only a 800 sq. ft. 2 bed and 1 bath. God obviously had a plan!

All in all, it was a fun and laid back spring vacay
and I'm so glad that summer is just around the corner. Hooray!


~Becky

Last weekends fun!

I made a blackberry cheesecake

did some decorating

and we gave our very special friend

a birthday party!

Joy and Andrew made this cute balloon chandelier:

It is birthday season at our house and I realized that I can decorate now and just about keep them up until January. lol

~Becky

The reverse robbery

Ever since Honey passed away we have been wondering if we should get another dog. But since our Honey was 'practically perfect in every way' we don't really want another one. (but I guess that depends on which family member you ask though)

Living in our neighborhood makes you think you do NEED a dog for security reasons. My new thought is that a security system wouldn't SHED or leave the house smelling like dog, so it has my vote at the moment. All of these things have really been on my mind a lot lately and then over the weekend, my next door neighbor's house was broken into. Very sad. (the ones I mentioned in the last post who are moving)

So, on Sunday after church, when I was the last one in the door and I heard everyone else exclaiming and standing around the kitchen in shocked surprise, I said "What??? Did we get robbed?"

And the kids said "No!!! It was the opposite."

-What fun surprise to find that our dear friend Carlos had come inside (he has a key) and dropped off all kinds of fun drinks, munchies for the kids. On closer inspection, we found more food items in the fridge and freezer. And then I was really floored because I discovered I'd been visited by the home repair fairy. Don't you wish you had one of those?

He might not like that title ; )

but what else do you call someone who comes in while you are gone and surprises you by doing all the home repairs on our to-do-list that you haven't had time to do! (new faucet, leak under the sink, bathroom drain etc...)

It was pretty amazing to come in and think we got robbed only to find out we got BLESSED!

It was a really sweet blessing that reminded me that God is in control of what happens around here.

~Becky

Our Annual House Celebration!

Every February, we celebrate THIS!
Hard to believe it all started FIVE years ago!
We are still in awe!
Thank you Lord, for one amazing friend! : )

~Becky

All things crafty

Who knew that you could make something so cute out of cut up sweaters?! Aren't those the cutest pincushions you've ever seen? Joy says they really beat that "old tomato we have." LOL

I found Betz White's book at Michael's the other day and thought everything was so adorable. I thought she made these things out of felt but after checking it out at our library I found out that she uses 'felted wool.' There's a process you do to wool sweaters in your washer and when you are done, they are 'felted' and will not unravel when you cut them up. Pretty neat!

Her book is full of cute ideas! She suggests finding wool sweaters at thrift stores, which is what I will have to do if I make one since I only found one wool sweater in my closet. (maybe because we live in Florida!)

So, if you have some old wool sweaters you may want to give this a try!

Her website is http://www.betzwhite.com/ and her etsy site, if you'd just like to buy one of those cute cupcakes is http://www.betzwhite.etsy.com/.

My sweet knitting buddy and I have been having fun chatting and knitting together. But I think two boys I know just might 'die' if they have to spend anymore time in the yarn aisle at Michael's. ; )

It's scarf-mania here since that's all we know how to make.

Now don't look too close....or you'll see all kinds of mistakes.

I did this one with the really big needles. (size 17) It was fun.

I made this fuzzy, soft one for Joy. Fuzzy yarn is my friend!!! -It hides all those mistakes. Love it!

I'm doing one now with a cute yarn that reminds me of my sister...so even though it isn't cold where she lives, ; )

this is for her.

I haven't finished the quilt for my little namesake, but here is what I have done so far:

My hubby says it reminds him of Bask*n Robbins. Is that good or bad? ; )

~Becky

The Christmas gift of 2006....

is finally finished!!!



~And it will be really useful in July in Florida, don't ya think?! ; )





It's far from perfect.
Here's hoping that our dear friend Carlos just sees lots of stitches made with love!

~Becky

I'm so thankful...

for A/C !!!!

And not just because it is blazing hot right now either! : )

I actually have a brand new A/C unit to be thankful for today because of our dear friend Carlos. He didn't like the fact that the unit we had wasn't big enough for our square footage since we added on to our house. We however, were happy to use an inefficient system and have a family room that was as hot as an oven. Our plan was to just keep using it until it gave up the ghost....
But, he wouldn't have it...
And there is absolutely no talking him out of something once he decides to do it either. : )

He bought a big one and determined that he and my hubby and boys would install it themselves!!!
It didn't matter one bit to him that he and my hubby have no A/C experience.
We haven't come across anything that Carlos can't fix or build eventually.
We joke that our appliances tremble in fear of him and don't dare not work when he is around. LOL

As we have seen him do on many occasions when adding on to our house or remodeling a bathroom or a kitchen, he prayed for divine wisdom on HOW to do it.
And the Lord blessed it! ~At 11:00 pm Saturday night we had cool air blowing out of that unit!

He and my guys were up til 1:00 am every night this weekend doing duct work which meant spending HOT hours in our attic and getting full of fiberglass! Bless their hearts. I called it a night and went to bed when I saw water pouring out of the attic on the wood floor. ~About the only thing I did to help was not complain about the heat. (not sure I even pulled that off, actually) I did resist the temptation to go and spend the night at a hotel. ; )
Our house has totally looked like a bomb hit it for the past 3 or 4 days! Now, I have plenty to do. The kids and I have been working for hours today to get it back to normal and we are almost there. Yay!

Now this was grueling and most of these projects they've done, have been! But the male bonding that occurs is just another added blessing because they all truly have a BLAST together. It's a lot of fun to watch. They joke the whole time.

My hubby was raised in a 'call the repairman' type of family. He has become quite the handy guy over the years with Carlos as his best friend. Our boys have learned some priceless skills from him too. More than I could ever list. It's really pretty amazing to me how confident and handy they are with tools of all kinds. I highly doubt our boys will ever call a repairman when they have their own homes someday. Carlos' example has made a big impact on us. He reminds us that just because you don't know how to do something doesn't mean the Lord can't show you how!

Thank you for EVERYTHING, Carlos!
~Becky

A quilt fight

It's pretty embarrassing how long it is taking me to make this quilt.



The two of us had a falling out a couple months ago and we haven't been on sewing terms ever since. : )

But, I'm happy to say that I have forgiven it for making me rip out a gazillion stitches and we are best buddies once again.
We even watched Idol together the other night.

So, at this rate, I might actually finish it one of these days.

And when I do, I think my family and our favorite bachelor will be in shock.
Because this is the same one that I was talking about last summer. That I was suppose to have done by the New Year's um, before, actually.

Yes, I'm one speedy quilter! ; )
~Becky

Celebrating

We are having a thanksgiving celebration tomorrow!
We decided to take a day each year to celebrate the amazing things that the Lord did to our house these last three years!

The way He did it, still boggles our minds. "God has done great things for us and we are glad!!!" Really glad!


This is what happened:
In 2004, we refinanced our house so that we could put an addition on to our little 800+ sq. foot, fifty year old house, which had only one bathroom and two bedrooms. We really couldn't afford to move and we loved our little house, our yard, and our neighbors. ~We REALLY loved our tiny mortgage payment. We planned to add on a large bedroom and a bathroom for our three boys (that would give our daughter her own room, finally) and to close in our carport for a family room.

Since we didn't want to go into any debt to do this major project, we used the refinancing money for all the building supplies


and decided to do the work ourselves. It was by faith, that a painter, without any construction skills, determined to take on this project. : )
We knew it would be slow going since he could only work on it on the weekends.
~We figured it would only take my hubby every weekend until Jesus comes!


But then God more than met us and had miracles in mind!!!


By the time we had the permit, it was 2005.
Then on the second of February, my hubby's best friend Carlos, said that he was between jobs and would work on our addition for us during the week. Without pay!!! (the only thing he would accept were home cooked meals!!!!) : )

Carlos gave up 10 months of his life to work on our house that year! He was here 6 days a week and sometimes 7. That verse that says "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friend" will forever remind me of what he did for us.


I love this picture. He was totally afraid of heights. So, when he worked on the roof, we knew that it was because "perfect love casts out fear." : )

Did I mention that he's a mechanic by trade and didn't know a whole lot more than my painter? : ) He did have a little bathroom remodeling and tile laying experience but that was about it. He told us later that he just acted confident so that we would feel better. (what a friend!)

He read books and prayed when he didn't know how to go about the next phase. There were several tricky things that he had no clue about how to do and God showed him how in dreams! Seriously! It was amazing!

He did everything to perfection!!! He was meticulous about details. What a blessing. Everything he works on always turns out beautifully. We would've been happy with so much less, but he always gave us perfection. It was very humbling.

It was an awesome learning experience for our oldest son who was his right hand man. He learned so much that year! It was one big family project since the other three kiddos and I helped by being the clean up crew.

The addition was finished just before my father-in-law came to visit from CO for Thanksgiving that year!!! It was incredible and so much sooner than we ever dared to hope for.

Then the 'fun' continued in 2006 when Carlos helped us remodel the other two bedrooms. Then he decided that it wasn't 'right' that the boys had a nicer bathroom than we did and he GAVE our bathroom an extreme makeover! It is gorgeous! I love it so much! I was always saying that I didn't know why I was getting a little piece of heaven, early. But, that's what it felt and still does, feel like.

We thought we were all done with construction after the bathroom and boy, was I ever glad. It isn't easy to home school with a nail gone banging in the next room or a compressor going that is so loud you feel like you have to yell to be heard.

But in the summer of 2007 Carlos wanted us 'to let him' remodel our kitchen. (Is he one amazing friend or what?!) He didn't like the fact that the rest of the house was perfect and that the tile WE really did lay ourselves 6 yrs. before, was... um, crooked! We don't possess tiling skills!
And then he and my hubby got to thinking and wondering ..... Before I knew it, it wasn't just a new floor they were talking about. It was knocking down a wall here and a wall there! (and I actually shed some tears over the thought of more demo and construction)

My sweet hubby talked me into it. They said it would only take a month and that didn't sound so bad. But it actually took three (all summer) and it was harder on me than the other projects put together. : )

But IT WAS SO TOTALLY WORTH IT!

It was an interesting time:

~Having it look like a bomb hit our house

~Having a toaster in the laundry room which got crumbs in the clean laundry.

~Having to boil water to do the dishes several times a day.

~ And many other things that sound really whiny now that its all over. ; )

Thankfully, all my appliances were in the new family room which was a blessing because we couldn't have eaten out for 3 months!!! Although, I don't think I would've minded that a bit. ha ha

Here a before picture:

And these are during:

And these are after:

It was one amazing gift!!!!!

That sums up that last 3 years of our lives!!! And it doesn't sum up all that Carlos did during that time or all that he means to our lives!

So, tomorrow is our big celebration and we are going to give 'honor where honor is due' and bless and thank our dear friend. Although, I don't think we can ever thank him enough.

May God richly bless him!!!!!!!

~Becky