Life These Days

"ONLY IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD"

Yesterday while I was teaching piano, I heard someone at the front door. I looked out front and saw a little girl - maybe 3-4 years old- trying to come inside our house. So I stopped teaching to see what she needed. "i need come inside. i need go peepee." Ummm, ok. I looked outside to see where her parents were- no one to be found. So, after I insisted that she go home and use her own potty, I began teaching againg. Three minutes later I heard her again knocking on my glass door. This time she's standing there with a massive clump of my phlox that she had picked from my itsy bitsy garden. UHHHH! This time when I go outside, my 3 students stand at the door watching- quite entertained at the distraction to their lesson. The little girl proceeds to grab clumps of flowers and throw them into the wind. I'm standing there telling her to stop taking the flowers, looking for parents, police or someone ... and she ignores me. Some other little kids were playing nearby and one came over so I asked him if he knew her- he did, it was his little sister. So I asked him to take her home. They left and I went back inside and was teaching again until:

I hear the water running. Yup, the little boy had collected his little friends and his little sister, turned on my hose and were spraying the flowers, house and door like mad cows. By this point I was very unhappy but my students were laughing their heads off. Back outside I went. After the water was turned off, the little girl goes over to our van and tries to climb up it, then starts hitting it. I told my students I'd be right back, and told the little boy to bring me to where he lives. A few houses down I talked to the dad of the kids and he kinda apologized for them and that was the end of it. I went on teaching and my students thought it was the funniest thing ever. I figured I'd better take a picture of my garden while it hasn't been throughly vandalized- they may be back you know.

We are glad to be moving from our neighborhood (although I'm going to miss having Annie as my neighbor!). Last weekend there were 3 times within less than 24 hours that emergency vehicles were on our street.

It's official: Michael handed off his business to Mark Brumbaugh last week. Along with his lawn equipment, the truck was sold too. The Lord provided a nice truck for Michael a few days ago- this is the new truck (I think it's a ford ranger)? Michael likes it, and we are praying that it lasts and doesn't have many issues.

Last weekend we received word that Michael's grandma has a blood clot on her brain. The doctors decided that doing surgery would not be a good option (they gave her a 20% chance of making it through/after the surgery). So she was sent home with blood thinner medicine. We don't know how long she has here, but she has told us that she is ready to go. Thankfully she knows our Lord! If you remember from previous blogs, this is the grandma that we went to see in January on our crazy last minute trip. Our time together was so sweet and we are soooo thankful for it especially now, not knowing if we'll get to see her again. Michael is thinking about going up to visit during his spring break. Pray for his family during this time- many do not know the Lord.

packing. packing. packing. need i say more?!

Time seems to be going by faster these days and it seems like a lot still needs to be done. The packing, actually, is almost finished- besides the things we are using everyday. I've tried working on things little by little, but my back and hips are still quite sore regardless what pace I work. We have been approved for a loan- praise the LORD! Our realtor has given us several homes that we are going to look at this coming Saturday. We are hoping to move sometime in May...

Our friends who have the alpaca farm also have an ultrasound machine for the alpacas (it's just like the ultrasound machines used for humans). So on Sunday, we got to watch our little Elliot for a while! Chris took video of most of it, but I haven't figured out how to upload video to our blog yet. It was so special to see our little guy's heart beating fast, legs kicking, hands moving..

We even got a picture of his face looking right at us- it was so cute, but alienish looking. We can't wait to meet him in person :)