We're in!

Well, we're in! We moved in Tuesday and the unpacking is never ending right now. Who knew we ever had so much stuff.

We are really enjoying the new house as well as all of the neighbors we have met. Everyone is just so nice and welcoming.

Night time is especially wonderful here. You can sit outside and just look up at the sky and see the stars and unlike our other house, we hear very little noise. It is so peaceful. It even smells different out here. In a good way! :o)

The kids seem to be liking it pretty well. Things are still a bit awkward as we haven't gotten any shelves up and they are still living out of their suit cases.

We got our appliances yesterday. Sadly, the refrigerator came damaged. I thought for a while we would have to wait another week for one but a couple of hours later, the delivery men returned and will just let us borrow this one until another one arrives next week.

I love my new washer and dryer. I thought at first they were broken, but....they are not. Just shows that my other washer and dryer are so old they don't include any of the standard safety features as the new ones do. Pretty funny! But it's kinda nice to have a matching set now. Not sure we've ever had that.

Being here is a little overwhelming. A bit surreal. Sometimes I just have to sit and think "do I really live here?" I wonder when all of it will sink in. I see this being our home for a very long time. I am pleased with it. I am pleased with how the purchase of it went.

The home is something so "material" in the scheme of things. I believe we all want something nice. We work hard for nice things. We sacrifice for nice things. And when it's time, I think we are rewarded for the good things we have done to show our faith in Christ. The past 9 months was very tiring trying to sell the house, live there, work, go to school, home school, and raise a family. Many times, I thought my marriage could have ended because of the amount of stress it was putting on both of us. But our bond is greater than something so material.

It wasn't until we finally gave up, stopped cleaning the house from top to bottom everyday, and trying to impress the lookers that we finally got the offer.

It wasn't a good one, but we feel good knowing that we are being able to bless someone else with a new beginning in that house. We gave up a lot, but we gained so much more than we could imagine. God is great in the way that He works. He made this happen and I learned a lot of valuable lessons.

When you go through life storing up so many treasures, you lose focus on the one thing that matters most. We we gave up on the house, the Realtors, everything, is when God came in and swept us off our feet. One day we will look back at all of it and laugh at how hard the past 9 months was. But being able to share in this experience with our kids is priceless. They learned what patience is and how we handle certain situations in life. They will learn from the mistakes we made and they will marvel at how God worked through those.

We will use this home to glorify God in every way possible. We are so thankful and grateful for all he has done for us. And if it's gone tomorrow, we'll understand. But for now, it feels really nice knowing how He walked with us in this just to see us come out on the other side with huge smiles!

Praise God!