A little drama just for fun

Last week we had some drama go down around here. I'll just start at the beginning.

Two Friday's ago my husband and I settled down for the night with glasses of wine and a movie (yes that's what we do pretty much every Friday) when my husband got a call from a good friend (JJ) to say that his building site had been robbed. All of his tools had been stolen and his new dirt bike (Lots of thousands of dollars here). My husband had been keeping his dirt bike over there and his was left laying in the dirt for some reason.

My husband, being the manly man he is, jumped up, grabbed his shotgun! and told me he loved me before he was running out the door to help JJ. I waited around and soon he called to say that they were going to wait for the robbers to come back while hiding in a camper, and when they came back to take his dirt bike they would "run out, unload some shotgun rounds in the air, startle the guys and then pound their faces in". Yes, my good Christian husband:)

Needless to say I only got fits of sleep that night and at 5:30 my phone rang, but I was already awake and very very worried. He called to say that the plan was working, until they fell asleep around 2 am and now his bike was gone too!

Why didn't he chain it to something? His answer was "I know, I know".

I have been reading the Psalms every day and that morning I read Psalm 71:10-16 "For my enemies speak against me; those who wait to kill me conspire together. They say, "God has forsaken him; pursue him and seize him, for no one will rescue him." Be not far from me, O God; come quickly, O my God, to help me. May my accusers perish in shame; may those who want to harm me be covered with scorn and disgrace. But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more. My mouth will tell of your righteousness, of your salvation all day long, though I know not its measure. I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, O Sovereign LORD; I will proclaim your righteousness, yours alone."

Now this is where the story is his and he'd have to tell you because I just kept getting little phone calls and text messages of what was going on. Basically Bill called around to all his "old" buddies and coincidently his best friend had gotten a phone call from someone trying to sell him a list of tools that sounded pretty darn familiar. The guy was someone my husband knew from growing up around here and he drove and found his house. There he found a dirt bike trail going through the grass and down to a shed.

Long story short they worked with the police and got everything back and the guys got arrested. The main guy is sitting in jail as we speak.

I guess I've been feeling very defeated lately and I've started believing that we're going to be overwhelmed with trials for the rest of our lives but Psalm 27:13 says "I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living."

So I was reminded that day that God is for us and he has good things planned for us.

My girls

We've been hanging out at the beach a lot lately with all this nice weather. Luckily I've been remembering to bring my camera. When we went we brought a huge back of delicious cherries. I would have also taken some pictures of Emma and Ruby if they didn't look like this...

And Brayden wouldn't get off his "horse" the whole time.

I'm back... *with an update on the prayer request*

My computer was possessed...with tons of spyware that was continuously wreaking havoc on my machine. I think it must have come from one of my girls clicking on one of those flashing "you won" banners, but who knows.

Anyway, we turned off our cable sometime around when the internet stopped working so I've felt cut off from the world. True I still had my phone, but that takes so much effort.

On the flip side I have been getting so much done around the house!

And I have been storing up endless thoughts and visions that slowly I'll have to unload on here.

Plus I got back in the habit of good old fashioned journaling. Just to give you a taste of how long I've neglected that disapline I had to tell my journal about my 5th child!

So, I'll end this post by throwing out a very important prayer request.. My friends and neighbors are fighting for custody of their neice. They've had custody of her for the past year and the mother had decided to let them adopt, but then after getting some pressure from a friend, changed her mind and decided she wants to fight it. Before my neighbors had custody of the little baby, she'd been living in a drug house, surrounded by that life and all of it's dangers. The hearing is scheduled for tomorrow so please pray!

*Update*
The court postponed the hearing to July 16th. They are basically giving the mom another chance because she didn't do what she was supposed to do. I talked to my neighbor who seemed like the unknowing part is getting to them, so if you remember pray for their peace. Their names are Adam and Becky.

My kids keep me laughing all day

Ruby, Emma and Brayden were listening to music and playing while I was cleaning the kitchen after breakfast this morning. Ruby comes in and exclaims "Mom can we go there? Can we go there?"

I say "Where Ruby?"

Ruby says "To Funky Town!"

Me, trying to refrain from laughing, "Oh yeah?"

Ruby says "Yeah, do they have toys there?" (She asks that about every place we go).




Emma: "Mom when Brayden grows up he's going to marry me."

Me: "No Emma, you can't marry your brother. You have to marry someone outside of the family."

Emma: "Like Ryder?"

Me: "Sure, you can marry Ryder."

Emma: "Well Mom, I'll have to ask him first!"

Me: "Oh yeah, I guess you would have to huh?"




Ruby and Emma went swimming and then were running around the yard half dressed. Emma was wearing shorts and Ruby was wearing a shirt. Emma was telling Ruby that someone would see her bottom.

Me: "Emma, you need some clothes too. Someone could see your boobies."

Emma: "Mom they're not called "boobies", they're called "pipples".

Me (thinking that it sounded a little like pimples): "You mean nipples?"

Emma: "Oh yeah, nipples."

Just a little test

Well this post might be a little different than usual. This has just been one crazy week and something has gone wrong with our Internet access from home.

But I am getting a lot more done around the house...go figure.

So I have resorted to typing this out at the library and it's a little difficult as I am sitting here between a crowd of junior high kids and a couple of girls are discussing their Internet "boyfriends". Let me rephrase that...one girl is talking about her "boyfriends". It's all a little distracting.

Anyway, I really want to tell you about our women's retreat that we had this last weekend at The Firs in Bellingham, WA. It was lovely. The weather was wonderful. The place was so much better than last year and I came home totally and completely exhausted! Yes, you heard me right.

A few months ago while planning the retreat the pastor's wife/ministry leader had the idea to, instead of hiring a speaker, have each of us share. Me, full of zeal, sometimes lacking in knowledge/wisdom, jumped at the opportunity to talk about what God's been doing in my life.

I really wanted to share about what we've been going through over the past year in our finances/marriage/family/hearts and when I signed up to talk I was so ready for God to perform a miracle so I could go to the retreat and say "Look what God did, he got us out of debt."

Well, sometime I started to get the clue that He was doing something a little different from what I was expecting.

I started getting it that He was wanting me to share about having peace in the midst of our circumstances.

So about a week before the retreat I'm trying to get some time to type up what I'm going to say. Not that I would sit in front of everyone reading a paper, but I just get my words out better on paper. So, it was important to prepare.

The next few days is sort of a mess so I might have things a little out of order.

First Bill wanted me to finish all of last years bookkeeping stuff and get it to the accountant for our taxes. I should have finished that a long time ago and he's been being very patient with me so I put off my retreat talk planning and did what he needed.

Then we got a very bad phone call from our bank. Our account had been frozen by LNI who was wanting a payment like two months ago. I, seeing the test, stayed remarkably calm.

Then some other stuff happened that I might fill you in on later, but for now I'll just say that it tested the hell out of our marriage and tested my feelings toward my husband. I'll just add that it had nothing to do with him at all. We were definitely being attacked by outside forces.

THEN after going on a whirlwind of damage control as far as our finances go, I finally sat down on Thursday to type up my retreat talk about having peace. I was actually impressed with myself for keeping the "right" perspective on everything and remaining calm and cool.

I was on a roll with my writing, until I left to pick up Shariah from school........

I came home to a FROZEN COMPUTER!

Let me remind you, this is Thursday and the retreat is on Friday and I'm supposed to be talking about having the peace of God in the midst of our circumstances!!!

After hours I downloaded some new security software, which discovered 38 viruses/spy ware/worms!!!

And I still could not get it to work or even print what I had or back up my bookkeeping just in case.

I tried to write it out but typing is so much easier for me and I couldn't think. Nothing was coming together. But still, I remained calm. I ended up going to bed praying and surrendering the whole thing to the Lord.

On Friday morning I woke up to a miraculously working computer. Thank the Lord I finished my talk with it coming together good enough. I did want to get up to the retreat a little early so that I'd have time to polish my words and my presentation.

I met a couple of friends and we headed up towards Bellingham. We were feeling great and so ready for a weekend of relaxing.

THEN.....on the freeway, about nine miles South of Bellingham, while driving through a windy curvy heavily treed area with very minimal shoulder room, OUR LEFT FRONT TIRE BLEW!

We pulled over on the left side, but there was not room for our car so we were sticking out in the lane.

Gone was my calmness! Gone was my peace! I hate to admit it but I panicked! I jumped from the car and ordered everyone else to follow me. I pictured someone hitting us, sending us over the guard rail and from there I wasn't sure if we'd roll and be stopped by the trees or make it completely over into the South bound lanes.

The driver who was staying calm, probably subconsciously balancing me out, talked to 911 and told me that they had told her that we needed to stay in the car.

I was so scared. I knew this was a test for my peace and I didn't even care that I was failing miserably. We all held hands as cars swerved not to hit us and I prayed/cried "God, I am really scared! I don't want to die!"

After half an hour the highway patrol came and escorted us to the other side of the freeway. He changed the tire and we were on our way.

We arrived at the retreat in the middle of dinner, with the session starting immediately after so when I finally got up to speak, after having no time to polish things up, I was still shaking.

I will tell you more about the retreat talk and the weekend later, but I will tell you now, I did NOT tell people how to stay calm during a crisis. I did talk about having the peace of God that transcends understanding.