Elizabeth Playing With Chips

It's going on a whole month since I last wrote! Sometimes when I have a lot going on in my life I write less often. I'm not sure why things work out that way, but they do. We're nearly moved out of our house (finally), so hopefully I'll have more time to update everyone on things soon. Anyway, I'm actually here today to post a short video of Elizabeth from last month. :) Here it is:

Follow Up to My New Year Post

I've been meaning to say, that although at times I feel hesitant about going to a third world country where I don't know the language, I still have been excited about it. I like adventure! I've just been a lot more cautious since I had children. :)

On the subject of Nicaragua, I'm not sure if it's going to work out or not to go. Some things have come up that have brought the whole trip into question for me. I'm still hoping things work out, though! So, if you're someone who prays, please be sure to include my family in your prayers (I'm looking for prayers that we make all the right decisions concerning our next venture/s.) Thanks so much!

Rice is Life

I just wanted to share with all of you this neat video one of my California friends, Sean made. He now lives in Thailand where he is trying to raise the funds for a rice mill. This is both interesting as well as educational, so why not check it out?! :)

Happy New Year!

I must say, I'm so very glad 2009 is in the past. The best thing about 2009 was, of course, my baby girl, Elizabeth Rose. There were a lot of struggles that had to be gone through last year, a lot of painful changes that were made, and a lot of things I want to simply leave in 2009. I'm hopeful that 2010 will be a year of growth (hopefully not too painful), healing, and, well... change. That's one thing we can depend on - every year will be filled with change. In one form or another, change seems to enter every year. Sometimes with a bang. Like this year. I should be off to another country within the next couple of months. I'll be learning to live in a place where I'm not even close to fluent in the language spoken there. I will be leaving nearly everything and everyone I know behind. Yes, change is here and I welcome it. Okay, not really. I want to welcome it and to feel adventurous, excited, and trusting; but I don't. I'm working on it, but with change I tend to dig my heals in and fight it a bit. Most folks can't always see that with me, because I say the right things so as to help them (I want them to feel like I'm living my dream and not to worry about me), but inside... I'm a bit afraid. This is big and "secretly" I hope something comes up and it doesn't work out. I'll probably even be a bit disappointed if it doesn't work out (I've focused on it so long) and yet I could live without this big of a change... I think. I want to do what's right and maybe this move is right, but maybe it's not. And maybe it will just be another thing to live through. Another thing to praise God I make it past. None of us know what the future holds and that can be a bit daunting at times. I'm going to try and trust God to take care of directing our paths and taking care of us as we travel no matter where our travels take us.

Happy New Year!

The Funny Red Balloon

For some reason I have really bad luck uploading videos on YouTube, but today I finally got one I've been trying to upload for nearly a week. Here's Ethan sitting on the couch with Elizabeth while Madeleine makes her laugh with a big, red balloon. :) I totally hate hearing my own voice, but I had to keep the kids in line, LOL.

Ethan's House & Picture

This is one of the first pictures Ethan has taken. He wanted to show me the house he built, but I didn't feel like getting up at the time (I was in front of my computer either emailing or updating a blog), so I showed him how to use the camera and gave it to him to take a picture. This is what he came back with. I like his angle. :) In this picture you can see some of the boxes I was talking about in the last post.

Still Behind Schedule

Boxes, both full and empty, are everywhere. And yet, we don't feel anywhere near done! We have a lot more packing to do before we'll be able to move out of here. Brad thinks there is no way we can get move out of this house within two weeks, so we'll plan on getting out in January. That means, Brad probably won't be able to leave until February. That's right! I forgot to mention, we've gone back to plan A. We may end up going together still, but for now we're back to planning on Brad going ahead of us. Part of the reason we went back to this plan is, because Ethan's birth certificate and passport are behind schedule. I'm sure this process is going slower than expected partially due to the holiday season being upon us. I'm hoping to get a small, furnished place not far from my mom for a month or two before joining Brad. In that time, I'm hoping Brad finds a nice place for us to live in, gets internet service to that location, and is able to begin the process of decision (whether Nicaragua is the place for us, what area of Nicaragua is best for farming, etc.) So, that's where we're at with our move.

The kids and I have a cold right now, which is too bad. The sore throat I have is awful. I'm looking forward to us getting well again.