Quick Update

I knew it had been awhile since I posted, but I didn't realize that it had been almost 3 months! Well, in that time period, both Courtney and Christina have been placed into their long term homes. So it is now back down to 4 of us. It is a bit quieter now and I now don't have to be in town EVERY day! Praise the Lord! I'm reimbursed for mileage, but of course that money comes when it comes and as you know the prices of gas just keeps going up! So needless to say, I'm looking forward to being home a bit more. When we do get another placement, we are really hoping for 3 and under in age. It will defintely suit our family better at this point in our lives. My sweet husband took on a regular full time job. This has been a huge adjustment for us since he has been self employed for 10 years! The hours are good in the sense that they work 4-10 hour days and your one floating day can be when you want. He mainly uses Friday for that floating day. He is fabricating helicopter parts and really loves this side of aircraft mechanics since he really enjoys building and creating things. The down side is that it's just over an hour away from home, so he is gone about 13+ hours a day. Also gas is killing us--I'm considering a moped.....LOL!! :) We are very thankful that he is working though and was able to find a job without any hang ups. Construction here is at a stand still like it is in so many other areas. Though we do know several people who are quite busy in construction right now due to where they live. With all this now supposed 'free' time on my hands I've been trying to get the paper piles back under control and working on budgeting. Hmmm, maybe I'll get back to writing more often too. The snow is all melted now except for a few patches here and there. All four goats are expecting babies. Dora is due anytime now. I believe that she is having twins since she looks like she has a whole watermelon sideways inside of her! This will be quite an experience for me since I was raised in the city. I have several neighbors who are ready to help me if I need it. I've been reading a lot but as with everything, physical experience is going to be the learning key here. If anyone has been following this for a bit, then they have read about Camp Omak. Well, I have 8 amazing women willing to come here to my house for Mother's Day weekend! We are all looking forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for us and what can be learned from where we all are in life right now. All my boys are going somewhere....camping, hotel.....who knows. They are excited to be having 'man time'. Though Jack has made it clear that he wants to have a donut at some point during the weekend! That's it for now! More soon......

I'm Here!

Hello there blogging community. Yes, I am alive. The past few weeks have been exciting, stressful, tiring and rewarding. The week before Christmas we got our first foster placement. We received two sisters; 14 year old Courtney and 12 year old Christina. Yes, much older than we were anticipating. Its been an adjustment having teens in the house again! The girls are settling in well and the boys are enjoying having them around. So within that week before Christmas, I took the girls shopping for necessary items (boots; coats; underwear, etc); took the girls to the other side of the mountains to pick up Trevor (they had never been to the Seattle area before) and get shopping and wrapping done. Christmas morning was really nice. LOTS of activity. We received a Wii for one of our gifts and that has been great fun for all. My favorite at this point is bowling--which maybe because I hold the high score for the house....... :)
School is back in full swing. Courtney is in 9th grade and in the alternative home school program within the school district, so she only needs to check in with her teacher once a week. Christina is in 6th grade and takes the bus each day down to the middle school. We had the flu really bad this last week, so not much school has occurred this last week for Jack. Him and I were the worse off; Jeremy and Trevor only lasted for about a day and the girls pulled through with no real symptoms except some tiredness. The girls have a fair amount of things they need to be at within a given week, mainly counseling sessions. We have had one court date so far with more to follow. Given that, I'm out in town much more often than I was before--it is forcing me to be better about my meal planning! :)
My biggest struggle right now is fitting in my time with the Lord. It has changed a bit with simply keeping a bible open and try and read when I'm standing in the kitchen (if no one else is in there talking to me! LOL ) Its been a long time since I've had this much constant activity around the house, but it is getting better--just need to keep my perspective.
Work is coming along for Jeremy. He is working part time at an aircraft shop and is still doing construction as it comes up. We are in the process of taking over our friend's remodeling company since he is going into another line of work. Taking over this business, which has been in the area for awhile, should help with keeping busy. Hopefully I can keep up on all the office stuff!
Better go for now and continue with the day!

Christmas!!

Christmas is upon us again!! Such a wonderful time of year. Even with all the craziness of picking out presents, I just love seeing them under the tree Christmas morning. I don't put ANYTHING under the tree prior to bedtime on Christmas eve. Even if it is a package that comes in the mail, it simply goes in the closet and waits for the appointed time. There have been many years where Christmas was "small" due to financial circumstances, but due to the generousity of relatives and friends the morning of Christmas always has had LOTS of gifts under the tree. ~~ well, at least it has seemed to the kids since there was NOTHING under the tree when they went to bed! One year, my brother came and stayed the night with us so that we can have all the kids be together on Christmas morning. There were so many gifts!! At midnight we were bringing present after present out. WOW--what a feast for the eyes come morning!
Have a blessed season this year! Relax, love and enjoy your family!!!
Praise the Lord for the blessed life that you have been given!

Snow

Snow!! This storm that passed through Monday and Tuesday, brought us about 7" of new snow on top of the 3" that we already had. It is beautiful out. We have been blessed with no wind so the pine trees are heavy with snow. The other blessing of no wind is that the house stays warm!! We have so many windows in our home, that it cools down quickly if given proper conditions. The bummer part of the whole snow thing is that during our gale force wind storm we lost our sled!! We have hunted for it, but to no avail. So we are in the market for one, so to speak! :)

Thanksgiving was spent here at home with just the 4 of us. Our friends were unable to join us. We did knock off one of our turkeys for dinner. Good thing it did end up being just us because it was the SMALLEST turkey on record! A whopping 9 lbs! It was quite yummy though and we did get a bit of leftover sandwiches made and I made a turkey soup too.

The day after was spent putting up our Christmas tree (yes, it's a fake....) and getting everything decorated. Trevor is spending most of this next month with Bill and Leanne while he has audio therapy. I will go over next week and help out a bit with driving. Well, with him being gone, we wanted to make sure that he was apart of getting that tree up! Trevor LOVES Christmas!! Well, so does Jack, so needless to say there was a lot of crazy energy about!

We are still traveling to Twisp for church. We are looking forward to see what God has in store for us regarding a 'home' church. In the meantime we continue to pray for direction. We have not received a phone call as of yet for a foster child placement, but know that it will come probably sooner than later! We are attending a foster Christmas party on December 7. Gifts are provided for all foster kids and parents bring gifts for your biological kids. There will be a santa to pass out presents; food; games. We are all excited (especially Jack!) about meeting other foster families. (well, I think Jack is actually more excited about attending a party!)

That is it for now--

Have a blessed day!!

Thanksgiving

Well, I'm back--at least for a time. Dealing with internet servers is really not my idea of a good time. We are looking into getting faster internet, but cost is its own subject!
We are well here. The end of October we became offically licensed to be foster parents!! We have not had a call for a placement yet, but are looking forward to the opportunity!
Currently we are getting ready for Thanksgiving. We really were not paying a whole lot of attention to the prep for the meal since Clay, Veronica and Tristan were unable to join us this year. But we are (weather permitting) getting together with our dear friends Ken and Sabrina and their clan!! Sabrina has a couple of Pioneer Woman recipes that are going to be on the table for sampling this year!
Trevor starts audio therapy this coming Monday. It will be in Bellevue, so he will be staying the majority of the next month with Bill and Leanne. I'm going over at some point the second week of December to help with driving Trevor.
Have you started Christmas shopping yet?? I have got a few things and am hoping to actually start wrapping BEFORE Christmas eve! I just read a short article in Guideposts magazine about a family that decided to buy all presents for their family from second hand stores. She says that everyone really enjoyed the thrill of the hunt and things were actually affordable and kept everyone out of the busy stores. Fun idea......
The artic blast that was predictied for around here has begun to strike. Since Saturday, we have had 30-50 mph winds along with single digit temps. With wind chill we should have negative double digits tonight and tomorrow night. THEN it should warm up to almost 32. Ah, and its only November! We are looking forward for the wind to stop so that we can work on getting the ouse warmed up. It's craziness trying to keep it warm with all this wind. The animals are cold, but so far seem to be doing ok. We just have to bring water out to them a couple times a day since it freezes so fast. Life on the prarie! It's an adventure! I'm so thankful that we do have a beautiful house, a wood stove and LOTS of wood. How did people survive these winters back in the 1800's and early 1900's???? It's truely remarkable what a human can with stand!
Give thanks for the beauty and warmth around you. Give thanks for the beautiful family of yours and let all know how much they touch your life.
Have a blessed Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday

Our home visit went awesome! We are so excited! We just need to get the banister and hand rail up in the stairway; baby gates; one more fire escape ladder; move Trevor and Jack to the downstairs bedroom and set up the crib (we are on the list with a preference for babies). Such minor stuff! Oh, and Jeremy needs to get his first aid/cpr class done. We could be licensed as early as sometime in November. Could be some extra fun around here for the holidays! Now if the tiredness I'm feeling from fighting this cold would go away, I'd be set!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Monday

We had a wonderful surprise Saturday night! We got a surprise visit from our dear friends Adrian and Rebecca! It was so wonderful to see them, though our visit was VERY short! Now we need to get over to Bellevue to see their new house!
Tomorrow morning we have our first home visit. So today I'm working on making sure we have most everything done that needs to be done and cleaning house. Please pray that all goes well and we can finish the last of our licensing process quickly.
Calvary Chapel Okanogan Valley is starting back up again as a bible study! We will be meeting on Sunday evenings at 7pm starting on Oct. 17! We are all excited to get going again. Had a wonderful prayer meeting last night with Ken and Sabrina. Would you be willing to pray for us and our bible study? We have a blog set up that will be updated hopefully once a month or so--
the address is: kinzle.blogspot.com
Back to cleaning......... :)