On Christmas Eve we celebrated Christmas as a family. Jerry cooked omlets for everyone and while he slaved in the kitchen Kyndra impatiently started opening her presents. Uncle Gary quickly became her favorite when he gave her play dough and then spent time playing with her. They were having so much fun and it kept her busy until dinner was ready.

This is the first Christmas Eve we all spent together since Jessica's last year in college. It was so great to be together. The next morning Josh and Jessica left early in the morning to go visit his Mom and the rest of his family. Gary and Cassie went to his parents and Jerry and I just chilled out. That evening Gary and Cassie invited us over to watch a couple of movies and have pizza. We had such a great time and were so thankful to get to spend time with our kids and their families.

We hope you all had a great Christmas and will have a wonderful New Year.

Tonight I can't help but think about how very thankful I am for all that God has given us.. I am most thankful for my salvation. To think that Jesus died on the cross for me is such an awesome thing. No one will ever love me as much as God. The next thing I am thankful for is my wonderful husband. We have been married for 31 years and we have had some rough times but since we got saved God has helped us work out a lot of problems we had. We always loved each other. That was never an issue but, we didn't always show it and we didn't always do right by each other. The 3rd thing I am thankful for is our daughters. We are fortunate enough to have 2 beautiful and sweet young ladies. God helped us so much to raise them and we are so very thankful and proud to have them for our daughters. All the rest of our family is a blessing to.

I can't help to continue to be amazed by the blessings God has given us this past year. It took us along time to get out of Oregon but since we left Gods blessings have just been flowing over us. We got a house for next to nothing. We have all new kitchen appliances, most of our bathroom fixtures, all of our flooring, most of our light fixtures, and a variety of other things for the house all for under $5,000.00. Every time we think that God just can't give us anymore another blessing occurs. I have never been so thankful and so awe filled in my life. God has proved himself over and over to us and we are so excited about every step of this journey.

To all of you: We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year. If you haven't asked the Lord into your heart please please don't put it off. It is such an important decision and you just never know how much time you have left. If you need help to know what to do please feel free to contact Jerry or me and we can help you.

We love you all and can't wait for the next step in our lives.

It's final. We are now homeowners. While we have been homeowners before this is the first time that our home is paid for. We are so excited and can't wait to get started on our house. We bought the tile for the kitchen, dining room and bath, and laminate flooring for the living room the other night. We have the carpet for the bed rooms and we have the toilet,sink ,vanity, and Jacuzzi tub for the bathroom. We still have a lot to get but it has been really fun picking out what we want. So far we have gotten really good deals on everything. We have a chandelier for the dinning room and all of the interior doors also. It feels weird to know that we have the key and can go over there anytime we want.

LIFESAVERS

Yesterday we went for a drive. We like to do that. Just get in the car and go. It's more fun here because there are so many places we've never been. We find the most interesting things on our trips. Sometimes they are just a few miles. Sometimes they are a few hours. This time we were only gone about a couple of hours and we saw some cute little towns in our area.

While we were driving I was eating some Lifesaver mints. You know the kind that are in individual cellophane wrappers? My favorite ones are the ones that are kind of soft so when you bite them they just fall apart in your mouth. I got thinking about that and wondered what made them soft and all the others hard? They all have the same ingredients. They all came down the same assembly line. They were all handled and packaged and shipped the same way. Why were some soft and most hard. Then I thought people are like that too. Some are hard and some are soft. We are all made of the same ingredients. We all come from the same place. Yet some people are hard and some are soft. I think I'm hard on the outside and soft on the inside. I have had some adversities in my life and I had to be tough to get through them. I grew up in a rough area of town, went to a rough school, had an odd family life. I had to be tough. Yet I learned along time ago that you can't shut everyone out. You still have to let people in so you can love them. The most valuable lesson I have learned from God is forgiveness. It is so hard to forgive people who hurt you. Some don't even want it or care if you give it to them. But for your own sake and sanity you have to forgive them or you become bitter and mean. I have worked the past few years not to be bitter or mean. As people age they think they know everything. They look at young people and only see the mistakes they make. I noticed that if I don't smile some of the lines on my face make me look like I'm scowling. I don't want to walk around scowling all day so I make a special effort to smile.

Now I know I said my favorite Lifesavers are the soft ones but, I have determined that my favorite people are the hard ones. They are more interesting and they have better stories to tell. God has blessed them with challenges so they can boast on his grace and mercy. I am a hard one but I am soft in the middle. How about you?

Baby it's cold outside!

We have been experiencing Illinois cold weather. The other night it got down to 5 degrees. It wouldn't have been so bad but there was 50 mph winds. The propane heater in the motor home was running non stop. Our little space heater was trying to keep up. It wasn't really to bad until in the middle of the night I woke up shivering. The propane furnace had shut its self down. Jerry got up and restarted it. It was only 45 degrees in the motor home. Jerry has found some places in the motor home that didn't have any insulation so he added quite a bit today. The forcast is actually for warmer weather 32 degrees so I'm sure we will be fine.



We have both passed our drivers tests for Illinois. I am such a bad test taker and I was really nervous about the test. What a relief to have that over with.



We are closing on our house on Dec. 21st. Merry Christmas to us. Can't wait to get started. We went to Lowes last night and picked out the tub and sink/vanity/faucet set we want. It will be so much fun to pick everything out and put it all together.

Our new house that God is going to give us.

In Illinois houses are much much cheaper than in Oregon. With that being said we still got a good deal on this house. It was listed at $24,000 several months ago. It is a HUD repo. Our realtor suggested we offer $5,000 so we did. The offer was turned down but they countered at $8,900. We accepted the offer. We are now waiting for the title search to go through so we can set a closing date.

The kitchen is 12 1/2 ft x 11 ft. The window on the end is overlooking the wrap around porch. I have been figuring out different ways to lay it out to add more cabinets. So excited to pick everything out.

The dining room is 13ft 8in x 10ft. The door way leads to the kitchen.

The living room is 12ft x 15 ft. The front door and the window on the right open onto the front porch.

The room we will use for an office is 12 ft x 8 ft 6 in.

The master bedroom is 12ft 4 in x 12ft 2 in.

The bathroom really small. it is only 7 ft x 5 ft 10 in.

We are planning on putting another room upstairs in the attic for guests and a play room for the grand kids. There is plenty of room to expand since the lot is 50 ft x 150ft.

As you can see we will be very busy working on this house once we close. For those of you who weren't there when we bought our house in Oregon it wasn't that much better when we bought it. The main difference is that Jerry isn't working 12 hour days so he can put the time into the house. We are so excited about this project. I will post more pictures when we start working on the house. God has been so good to us and we are so very thankful.

Please pray that all goes well with the title search and we close soon.