Hey! Bring back our cooler!

the view from our front step

 This week has been pleasant and productive.  Josh had a very successful week of booking and the boys and I completed a full week of schoolwork for the first time in a few weeks! :)  Yay!  The park we're staying at is very pretty and peaceful (geez, I seem to have a thing for adjectives that start with "p" today)! :)  We've also been blessed to spend quite a bit of time with some dear friends who live in the area.  We met this family about 10 years ago.  Since then both of our families have grown and we've all moved several times.  It has been a joy watching God guide them in ministry and being able to reconnect with them often over the years!  They have 5 kids and one of them is a son that is right between our boys in age.  The three of them have SO MUCH FUN together!  Josh and I are also always so encouraged when we have the opportunity to spend time with them!  We have visited with them a couple times already this week and plan to enjoy most of the day with them tomorrow!  Friends like this make our life on the road so much less lonely!  Thank you Lord for this blessing!

starting our school day with our Bible lesson

Today was our official "family day off".  The weather was gorgeous!  We spent the morning hiking in Coeur d'Alene and then had lunch at Costco (nothing beats a Costco hotdog for a cheap, tasty lunch)! 

    

This is what happens when I leave for a few hours to run errands! 

LEGOs take over the trailer and a two foot long aircraft carrier is built!

In addition to hanging out with friends, hiking, and building LEGOs, we do actually do some ministry work during the week as well! :)  Besides the hours and hours that Josh spends practicing and booking, we also are continuing to work on material for our worship cd.  The worship cd will be mostly worship song covers, but will also include a couple songs that we are writing.  In addition to the worship songs that we often lead at our ministry events, we recently decided (i.e. I told Josh I HAVE to sing this song! ;) ) to learn Matt Maher's song "Lord I Need You"!  We began working on learning it tonight.

God continues to work in and through us!  I am so grateful for the privilege of being His daughter and His servant.  I am reading through 1 Samuel right now during my personal devotion time in the morning, as well as reading a couple of books that God is using tremendously in my life.  Praise the Lord that He who began a good work in me, promises to carry it on to completion (Phil. 1:6)!  I know I have so much to learn!  I am so thankful for His Word and the gift of knowledgeable teachers and pastors in my life. 

Beginning Sunday we have a very busy schedule.  We have two church services on Sunday as well as Tuesday and Wednesday night services.  Then we travel on Saturday.  As always, please continue to pray for us to follow our Shepherd well! :)



One more thing: I really struggled to think of a title for this blog post!  I just couldn't come up with one.  I don't know why it was so hard.  I guess I had "blog post title block"!?  Anyway, then I remembered that when we woke up this morning our cooler was gone.  We leave it outside the trailer.  It just had a few of the kids sand toys in it, no food.  Well, apparently someone needed a cooler and thought ours was up for grabs.  This was weird but in reality, it's not that big of a deal.  The only real issue is that now we worry about someone coming back to break into the truck or something.  Whatever.  God knows and maybe someone really needed it.  Whatever the case, it supplied me with the needed post title, so there you have it. :)

*Visit my new blog location at www.stilllearningtofollow.com *



First Weekend of our Summer Tour

Our Summer tour is in full swing now!  We started with three services this weekend, one on Friday and two yesterday.  Friday we packed up the trailer, gave kisses and hugs to the cousins and set out for Wenatchee.  The temps were high and our truck did not particularly appreciate all of the work it had to do through the heat, so it punished us by over heating.  We spent most of Friday driving with our windows down and the heat blasting, trying to keep the truck cool!  Friday evening was a church we've been to twice and it was a blessing to begin our summer schedule worshipping with familiar faces! :)

Saturday we packed up and headed to Idaho.  We were grateful not to have any mountain passes but did have to tow up out of the gorge, which again required the windows down and heat on.  As I sat with my legs tucked under me (to avoid the heat blasting my feet) and my hair blowing around, I reminded myself that this is truly a first world problem!  We are blessed to have a trailer to tow, a truck with the guts to tow it, and air conditioning to blast when the road flattens out.  God is good and I am spoiled!  I am praying God will teach me to have a grateful, uncomplaining heart! :)

We parked our trailer at a cute little RV park in northern Idaho Saturday afternoon.  We have not camped here before and were excited to see what a beautiful and peaceful place it is.  Two weeks in this park will be a pleasure!

Sunday morning we drove back into Washington to minister at a cute little country church north of Spokane.  We walked into the church to hear the Gaither's music blasting in the background and find a couple women stuffing cookies and tracts in baggies to distribute throughout the week, another woman working in the kitchen to prepare the meal they offer free every Sunday afternoon, and a young man busily looking for any little detail around the church that needed attended to before the service.  After praying with the pastor in his small office, he shared about the church's work in the community.  They offer food and clothes throughout the week, pickup trash from those who cannot afford trash service in the community, host a recovery group weekly, offer scholarships for church camp to neighborhood children, and so much more.  This is truly a church that extends well beyond the building walls.  They are loving their community and spreading the Good News!  I was humbled and awed by there hearts and service!  What a privilege to be small part of their great work in that community!

Last night we returned to a church that we've been to three times in the past two years (four times now)!  This is another small church that is doing BIG things to reach their community for Jesus.  Every time we come they welcome us as family and amaze us with stories of their work in their neighborhoods!  We feel at home there and sharing our ministry feels comfortable and refreshing!

What a gift to kick off our summer this way!  I feel energized and ready to see what God has in store in the upcoming weeks. 
For today, it is homeschooling, laundry, emails, planning, and cleaning! :)

A Day in Our Shoes: Part 5

I'm sure I've said this before, but being "home" is exhausting!  We do treasure this time.  We need it and we love it, but it wears me out!  Being on the road definitely has become our "normal".  When we're traveling, we are able to have some level of routine and predictability.  When we're back here however, every day is different and super busy!

With that in mind, I thought I'd do "A Day in Our Shoes" post about our times back here.  Of course, this is kind of a silly thing to try to do because there is so very little consistency with each time we're back.  But I can at least give you a little bit of an idea of what our time looks like when we're here.

First of all, where is "here"?

Well, we always tell people home is where our trailer is.  That is definitely true!  For the sake of this post though, you can assume that when I say "home" I'm referring to the greater Seattle area.  My parents and siblings all live north of Seattle and our home church and most of our friends live south of Seattle in Renton.

We usually park our trailer at my sister's house, so that has been "home" for the past two weeks.  We sleep, eat, and do schoolwork in the trailer, but the boys and I spend a lot of our time in the house with my sister and her kids.

 

What do we do here? - Here's a brief rundown of the past couple of weeks.

 

5/14 - drive to Anna's (my sister), set up trailer, visit with cousins

note: "cousins" = Anna's kids.  Anna and I work hard to make sure our kids spend as much time together as possible.  I have lots of wonderful memories of playing with my cousins as a child!  Anna and I want that for our kiddos!  So far so good! :)



It takes quite the stack of boards to get our trailer level at my sister's house!

 

5/15 - spend morning with cousins, drive to Lynnwood to work on recording, dinner my family

Engineer and Producer by day, Guitar player by night ;)

Yes folks, that's me in the studio!  Stay tuned! :)

 



5/16 - drive to Eastern Washington, stay in hotel

5/17 - do two church services in Eastern Washington, stay in hotel

5/18 - drive home from Eastern Washington, spend time with cousins

5/19 - Josh spend day booking, Sarah and boy's hang out with cousins

5/20 - Drive to studio & drop of Josh to record (and Noah to play), Sarah and Caden drive to dentist and orthodontist appointments, then come back to the studio to do a little more recording once the feeling returned in my cheek!

Curse you Starburst Jelly Beans! :-P

 

Things did not start off so well in the studio!

But after a few tries I felt better! :)

 



5/21 - Josh dentist appointment and then spend day recording

5/22 - visit with my brother & his girlfriend, drive to Renton to spend time with pastor and friends from church

Auntie Debb always has a fun project for the boys when we visit! - decorating pillow cases



 5/23 - Josh breakfast with our pastor, spend time with friends, Sarah get a hair cut, RELAX

 

 Shhhh!  I didn't ask any of these lovely people's permission to post their picture!  Good thing I know they love me! ;)

 

5/24 - attend home church, lunch with church friends, drive back north to rest because I wasn't feeling well

It is always such a blessing to visit our home church.  This is a place that we feel most at home and with family!

 



5/25 - homeschooling, Josh recording

5/26 - homeschooling, Josh recording and booking

5/27 - homeschooling, Josh & Sarah recording, sort through storage, begin preparations to leave

5/28 - homeschooling, pack to leave, spend time with cousins

5/29 - drive to Eastern Washington - Summer Tour Begins

 

As you can see, we do a TON of driving around when we are back here.  We have family in Lake Stevens and Lynnwood, friends and church in Renton, dentists in Edmonds, Shoreline, and Renton, and doctors in Lynnwood and Burien!  (if you're not familiar with the area, pull out a map and imagine horrible traffic anywhere you go between 7-10am and 2-7pm!)

 

Despite the running around and the exhaustion, we love being back and connecting with everyone here!  Our summer tour is the longest one of the year so saying goodbye later this week will be particularly difficult!

 

Now you have an idea of what we've been up to the past several days and why I don't blog much when we're here! :)