Hello From Seattle

Where to begin? The story is a long one and I can't do it justice here, but I do want to say that God is in it all, and He continues to amaze us each day as life unfolds before us.We praise His Holy name, because without Him, we are nothing.
Three weeks ago now, we pulled away from our Clovis house with our awesome friends, Rich Kowamoto and Yvonne Downs to make our way to our new home in Seattle Washington.
God has seen fit to give Jeff a job here with the Seattle's Untion Gospel Mission. We will be working with the homeless and addicted people in this city and we are thrilled!
I wish I could tell you all the things God did, to bring this about, but you'll have to come visit to hear the whole story :]
Anyway, our drive was perfect. We had a blast together and arrived to find our realtor with keys in hand to our new home.
We live in the community of West Seattle and are just a few blocks from the Sound.
To say it's beautiful here is an understatement.
Below are pictures of our home as we found it. A 1935 house, it is in great shape, but the walls were very dirty and everything was dusty!
Yvonne and I spent one whole day scrubbing the little kitchen from top to bottom for example.
I am having great fun setting up house. I'll keep you posted on things as they
progress.

God's Leading

Where do I begin? I have not blogged in quit awhile. I should be telling you all about my missions trip to South Africa (and I will some day), but for now, I guess I'll talk about what happened in my life the day I got home...
I guess I'll just spit it out. My husband lost his job.
I don't think I should go into all the details of why, instead I'll just tell you that this change has brought sadness and many sweet moments as well.
We have worked and lived at Hume Lake for 29 years now (minus the 3 that were spent at Bible college). Hume is our home. It's where we have lived, gone to church, loved our Hume family and served our Lord, so it seems so wierd that we no longer live there.
We have no doubt that this is all God's perfect plan for us and for Hume, but it's still hard to say goodbye to all that has been so familiar to us.
I think I will miss the people the most. My sweet friends and the darling kids at preschool, where I got to help each week this past year.
I'll miss my house and all the fun our family had there.( holidays, parties, dance parties, hours of visiting over coffee, snuggles with our babies, long serious talks, tears, laughter...)
I'll miss the view from my kitchen window
I'll miss the school room and all the hours we spent there
I'll miss my red door
I'll miss my bathtub
I'll miss sitting on the front porch in summer
I'll miss walking the lake
I'll miss the fresh air
I'll miss the view at the lake
I'll miss knowing that people are coming to Christ and that we are playing a small part in that
I'll miss busy summers and quiet falls
Enough of that...
I have been so blessed by the peace that God has given me. Honestly, it's been amazing and surprising. I know my heart is broken in several places, but for the most part, I have felt ok.
I am so thankful for the prayers of friends and family. I know this is why I am doing so well. I am especially thankful for our kids and their kind and gentle care of us during this time. I know they are very sad themselves, and yet they have been encouraging and helpful and have had such good attitudes. (Thanks Guys)
As of today, we are living in Clovis, with our son Nole and his family. Jeff is job hunting and I'm taking each day as it comes.
I'll close for now, but will continue as I can. I know this isn't written well, but if I don't just ramble, I'll never do this.
One last thing. God loves us, He's closer than ever and we will be ok.

Blossoms in the snow...

It's snowing really hard outside, as I type. The tree branches are bending low with the weight of so much snow. It's a beautiful winter wonderland where I live. We won't be seeing signs of spring for quite awhile here...
So, you can imagine my glee to find two delicate, white jasmine flowers blooming inside my home!
Jeff bought this jasmine for me to set next to the front door last summer. When the weather became cold and I put away all my potted plants, the jasmine was still so pretty, I brought it inside.
I kept moving it around (mostly because it's big, and it was in the way), until it landed next to our sliding glass doors that face the back of the house. The sun comes through these windows every day and the jasmine seemed happy there.
Well, just recently, long, fresh limbs began to grow and vine around the older branches, fresh baby leaves began to unfirl, and wonder of wonders, two little blossoms opened their faces to the sun.
If you get close enough, you can even smell their sweet fragrance.
Spring may be far off here at Hume Lake, but my jasmine doesn't seem to care.
Hopefully, it will take residence near the front door again and bless us with more of it's sweet flowers. Until then, I'm content with these two.

Valentines Day with my Guy

My husband and I had the BEST Valentine's Day weekend ever! No, we didn't go away to the coast, or stay in a beautiful Inn somewhere. We just had a blast at home. Now, we do live in a beautiful place, but that wasn't what made it so special. Honestly, it was the fact that we just love being together.
We have been married now for 27 years and our love and passion for eachother is amazing! I feel so blessed.
Jeff gave me a darling basket filled with bath stuff, candles, chocolates, chick flicks, home magazines etc... He also brought home all kinds of fun picnic type foods and we had a picnic in front of the fireplace. We talked about all our Valentine's Day memories from our lives and remembered a similar picnic we had in England one time together.
Our son, Edward wasn't home for most of the day on Valentine's Day, so we got a sneak peek at what the "empty nest" will be like :)
I love my husband more than anyone else on this earth. He is God's richest blessing in my life.

A Fresh Look

A Fresh Look

We have never spent any real money on our bedroom. It always seems like we choose to spend the money on other parts of the house. So,the last time we were in town, I began dreaming about a new bedroom look and asked my husband Jeff, if we could spend some money. He said we needed to wait a few more months and then we could do it "right". So, later that week, I took almost everything out of our room, cleaned it really well and used some old things to give it a new look.
I wish I had a "before" picture. But, you'll have to use your imagination. We had two small vintage tables with old green paint on them, bedding in muted red and tans, and lots of odds and ends for decoration.
I thought a clean white look might make the room look bigger, so this is what I ended up with. Jeff likes it a lot, and I'm fighting the urge to add some color.
What do you think?