and now The Great SUBURBAN Adventure starts!
Oh ya'll... my dogs are barkin' and my heart is full! Today was FILLED to the brim with fellowship, friends, fun, and WORK!
We moved in to our new house, sort of...
When you're doing something with the Audirsches you KNOW it's going to be an adventure. Well, due to unforeseen circumstances, we ended up without power in our new house until Monday. So although the house was air-conditioned in the morning, the power was turned off about 10am. We worked for the remainder of the hot, humid, Houston day without A/C or fans.
I have the most amazing friends in the world... seriously. First off, none of them left when they found out there was no A/C!
Secondly, My kitchen is UNPACKED and ready to be used. Amazingly, my friend Jen Johnson and her daughter Joy washed every dish that was wrapped in newspaper (and that was almost everything) and found a LOGICAL home for it in my cupboard or pantry. She was the brains in the kitchen and kept us going.
My friends Kristen Coovrey, Michelle, Mandy, and Meg Bosquez, unloaded box after box.
We had an ARMY of help! Travis called his airsoft buddies last week and I'm proud to say
Greg and Adam Carman, David Salisbury and Jake Fontz, showed up to do the heavy lifting and lift they did! Thanks Guys!
And Hannah asked her friend Olivia Salisbury who also came and was a BIG help!
Michael Rivera and Jason Bosquez were the Tetris Packers Extraordinaire helping put everything on the trailer from the storage unit to go to the house.
Ken, Claudia and Natalie Hope loaded their car up multiple times and even drove one of our vehicles for us loaded up with more stuff.
My friend Kelly Sakal, loaned us her sixteen year old son, Bryce for the day.
Tonight, we have a full on turkey dinner with all the trimmings prepared by my dear friend Anne Trapani, And I have a bottle of yummy wine from my friend (whose identity I'll protect, see sistah, I gotcher back!)
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! to all of you who helped!
Earlier this week we moved our beloved RV from it's spot at the Rock'n E RV park in Cold Spring where we have stayed for the last five months to a storage facility less than one mile from our new house in Kingwood.
If you talked to us when we first arrived back in Houston we would have told you we were looking for a house very different from the one we ended up buying. I keep telling people this house is like BATMAN! "It's not the hero we want, but it's the hero we need." And it really is a beautiful house!
Trusting that God knows our needs better than we do, we know God has been with us each step of the way and although His direction for us may not be clear our hearts are turned toward Him desiring His glory in our lives, in our journey as individuals and as a family.
So as we bring to a close our epic 10,000 mile, sixteen month, 22 state, 'round the USA adventure which has included amazing sights of God's creation, fantastic experiences of natural and man-made wonders, and pain and joy and despair and hope we look to the author and finisher of our faith for the next chapter.
He is writing our story and we are so blessed to have you be part of it.
In the next year, if the Lord wills, our family will expand by one Chinese daughter which really is the focus of the next few months. Well, that and moving into a new house and getting nine kids back to homeschool and routine.
We are so blessed that you have come along for the ride and we hope that you will stay with us as we journey together into the coming year.
