What's Been Happening?

     I realize that it has been a while since I updated our blog so I thought I would take a moment and update you on how we have been doing.
     We are still adjusting to being back in the United States which comes with everything from shopping, driving, missing the kids and people at Esperanza Viva, living arrangements, jobs and lots more.
     We are currently living with Jim's mom in our old house.   It has been an interesting thing to move back into the house we left but it is not really our home.   Jim's mother has been living here for the past year and loves it.  The house is 1512 square feet with three bedrooms, two baths and an office which is now serving as Mother's bedroom.  It's a little snug but we are getting along.  With prices and interest rates so low, we decided to put in an offer on another house on our same street.  It is a bit smaller, 1220 sq. ft. but the floor plan is great for us and we are looking forward, Lord willing, to be moving into it by the end of September or earlier. 
     As far as work, Jim is going back to work for Adrian in San Jose once more.  We are looking forward to that.  Also, I have applied for a job at our church as the administative assistant in student mimistries.  This would be quite the change for me as I have not worked outside the home for many years.  If I do get the job, we would most likely be putting Erin in a private christian school, which is what she is rooting for while Jonathan would continue to do independant studies at home.  The job would be Tuesday through Friday, five hours each day.  The school we would like Erin to go to is half day every Monday and then full days Tuesday through Friday which would work well for my schedule since I will need to oversee Jonathan's school on Monday.  It is a lot to think about and we are leaving it in God's hands.  If this is what He wants, then everything will fall into place.  For now, we beginning our 2010-2011 homeschooling journey.  Please keep us in prayer as we continue homeschooling and for God's will to be done in the job situation.
     I will be starting Ministry Training Institute at our church tonight.  This is an intensive, one night a week class for 36 weeks, that prepares you and trains you for many types of ministries.  I am really looking forward to it.  It will be a lot of work, but I think I am up to the challenge.
     We have been going to a lot of garage sales picking up things we will need.  We bought a beautiful solid oak table with six chairs, a mission chair with an ottoman, a glider rocker with an ottoman, a coffee table and many odds and ends.  The kids have enjoyed the garage sales also.  Erin got a small CD/Radio stereo for only $1.00.  One speaker wasn't working but thanks to my very talented husband, she now has a perfectly good stereo with two working speakers.  Jonathan got three extra controllers for his X-Box for only $10.00 for all three and it included the X-Box.  Okay, the X-Box has what is called the red ring of death, but he is having fun taking it apart to see if he can fix it under the supervision of Jim, just the controllers run $50 each new so it does not matter if the Xbox ever gets fixed for it to be a great value. 
     We continue to enjoy getting together with friends, hugging our grandbabies and seeing our adult children.  We are also checking out a small group at our church and went to a Labor Day BB-Q.  It was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast also.

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The house we are trying to buy.

The kitchen.

The living room/dining room area

The pantry.

Some of our garage sale finds...

glider rocker and mission chair

Our grarage sale oak dining room set - it also has a leaf to make it bigger and two more chairs. The dining area in the new house is smaller so we wanted a table that could be round most of the time.  This is perfect.

coffee table - only $10.00

Erin's $1.00 stereo

At the small group BB-Q visiting with new freinds.

Erin and I play a game of Mexican Horse Shoes. At least that's what they called it.

Jim visiting with our great friends, Rod and Lynn.

Jonathan playing on the trampoline with the kids.  He is so good with the younger kids.

The whole group.

Giving Devotions to a Home School Co-op

We were invited to share the devotions at the Middleton's home school co-op group. We had a great time teaching on "Mission Impossible." Jim shared about everyone having a mission, from the body of Christ as a whole, to the church, to the individual person. We talked about Jesus sending out the disciples with the power of the Holy Spirit. We asked how many of them had little brothers or sisters and of course many of them did. We shared with them that they could be witnesses to their brothers and sisters in sharing the gospel to them. Everything went wonderful and we had so much fun.


After that, we were invited to share in a Spanish class where Jim lead in the game - "Simon dice..." or "Simon Says." The kids had a great time. After that, we were able to share about where we are going and the kids all had really great questions. It was a great experience.


Erin went to both of her friend's classes and had a great time. The first class was a basketball class that Amy taught and then she sat in on a science class called Creation Science with Jonathan Park.


Tomorrow we will be traveling to San Jose where we will be meeting up with friends that we knew when we lived there. We will also be spending time with Adrian, Jim's boss of almost 29 years. We look forward to the time there.

Packing Curriculum

We are now down to 2-1/2 months before our departure to Mexico. In the past weeks I have been putting together our curriuculum for homeschooling. Knowing that we won't be coming back for up to two years, I have needed to purchase two or more years of each subject. So, what you see in the picture is what we are bringing so far. I am trying to keep all of our books to no more than what will fit in these three boxes. This has been very hard. I have gotten rid of far more than this by bringing old curriculum to a local homeschool store that sells used curriculum on consignment. This has helped pay for some of what we have purchased.

The thought of bringing only what fits in our car is a bit overwhelming at times. We will have a cargo carrier on the top of the car and we have a shelf that hooks into the hitch on the back of our car. That will add a little more space of which I am extremely grateful.

I think that is all for now. I will keep posting as we get closer to our depature date which is now looking like it will be closer to April 13th instead of the 20th.