As promised: A Virtual Tour

I won't be overly wordy here. This is simply to show you a few pics of our rental home. It is still quite empty, so bear with me-- and use a little imagination!

First, we'll begin out front. Here is a picture straight on from the cul-de-sac.


This one is from our neighbor's driveway so you can clearly see how to get to the door.


Here is a picture of what it will look like when you walk up to ring our doorbell!


Inside, this is the entryway and front living room. I love the bay windows!


Straight back from the entry, you look directly through the house to the back door and dining room!


From there, if you walk past the partial wall that divides the living room and kitchen, you can clearly see we got a lot more cupboard and counter space than we had! The boys SO enjoy having to do their schoolwork here...



If you notice, you can see the pantry door open on the far left side of this picture. It is incredibly nice to have the pantry. I hardly know what to do with all my cupboard space! BTW- Zach is now hiding behind the counter!


Going through the door off the dining room, you enter what we affectionately call our theatre room. Notice the aforementioned 30 thousand dollar screen and the wonderful makeshift media center...




Going into the room and turning right, you first come across the fourth bedroom, which of course we aren't using as a bedroom. It is going to be our office/school room. Notice how the clutter has already begun?


On your left down the hall a few paces further is the door to our downstairs bathroom.


Through a door at the end of the hall, you then enter the laundry room. In it now resides a brand new washer and dryer compliments of my darling husband.


Lest I forget, I will also show you the great "back-doors." (Yes, I know I am not really funny, but if not for poor attempts like this one, this post would be WAY dull!)




As an afterthought, I figured you might want to see the view from my back door. See how easy shopping is for us. Oh and banking is just a stone's throw away...




I did not take photos of the upstairs rooms, as they are empty shells of what they will be. It really is hard to gain perspective from 4 empty white walls. When furniture arrives next week, I'll be happy to show it off. Till then...

Ta-Ta!

PS- Hi honey, I miss you!

Alex's 8th Birthday

Well, we may not have been here very long, but we have definitely made some friends. We invited over 4 familes to help us celebrate Alex's birthday Sunday, and we ended up with 20 kids here! And all we had was 5 lawn chairs! It was great fun though and Alex had a blast while receiving a few gifts. I think he felt special!



















Today, Alex and Daddy took off on an airplane to San Francisco then catch a red eye flight to DC. Before John left, he was kind enough to build our very own 30 thousand dollar projector screen. See, if we bought it, it would've cost a thousand dollars. But we made it, so it only cost $30. Cute, eh?



Don't suppose we told you that God opened the door for us to rent a 4 bed/3 bath/3 car garage house in a very nice and centrally located area of the city. We moved in less than one week after we decided to stay. It was really quite neat how it was laid in our laps-- and at an unheard of price tag!. Just another confirmation from above that we are where we are supposed to be right now. I take some photos of the house and post them. Hmm, maybe tomorrow!

So be it

This is going to be an interesting post. Many of you that read this will not understand what I'm saying. Sorry about that.

This has been an incredible journey for us. The point of the whole thing (sometimes lost in the fun) has been to find a new place to live. More specifically - the place that we feel God wants us to be. You see it wasn't just John and Stephanie deciding to leave Virginia. Our faith is very important to us and we felt that God wanted us to move on. There were several reasons for that - but chiefly we felt it had to do with our immediate family having more time to spend together!

When we began our discussions on this last fall - around a year ago - we began looking at areas of the country we could move to. It was obvious to us that we couldn't stay in the DC metro area - it was just too expensive to be closer to work. And I couldn't support my family from any employment in Fredericksburg. So, we started doing research. One of the places that rapidly came to my attention was Boise, Idaho. Now I honestly couldn't tell you WHY it stood out to me. Maybe it was the recreation opportunities, or the fact that Boise has been in the top 5 as one of the best places in America to live according to Money and Fortune magazines for several years running . Anyway - it quickly became the favorite of mine on the short list of places to check out.

Before we left Fredericksburg, we talked to our pastor and told him we were leaving and why. We told him about our short list and he said that he didn't know anything about any of the other cities, but once we got to Boise we just HAD to check out the Vineyard Church there. OK... I guess we can do that. Now for some of the people that we know that are reading this - going across the country to check out a church may seem a bit wierd - I understand your perspective - I really do - but bear with me here. We were checking out the city anyway so it wasn't out of our way!

While we were traveling through the south during July, we visited some friends in Birmingham, Alabama. We attended church with them on a Sunday and had a little chat with their pastor about our adventure. Interestingly enough, he said that he didn't have much to say about the other cities on our short list, but if we visited Boise, we HAD to visit the Vineyard Church there. Hmmmmm - very interesting. Almost conspiracy like .....! John, our friend in Birmingham, also suggested that we talk to a couple that he knew and ask them to pray over us. I figure we can ALWAYS use any prayers offerred on our behalf! They spoke with us, prayed with us and prophesied over us (yes- prophesied). They spoke a few things concerning us, but one in particular stood out to us in a peculiar way. They said that we would find a place and think that it was the right place for us to be. We would be there for a while and God would prosper us there, but then we would move on to another place and that was where God really wanted us to be. (OK. Did I understand it? Not really. Why couldn't we just skip past that place and go directly to the place that we were supposed to end up at?? We didn't ask them that but as we reflected over it we wondered that and other questions like how would we know?) I tell you this so what comes later will hopefully make more sense to you.

We visited lots of other neat places over the next month and a half. We've related those stories to you here in this blog. Tweleve days ago we arrived in Boise, Idaho. There was an illuminated cross on the mountain to greet us. It was cool, but odd to us. We also found there are no less than 8 christian rock stations and a Bible college in town. That first Sunday we were in town, we attended the Vineyard Church. It was a cool church - one that we felt quite comfortable attending. It looked like a food court when we walked in according to Steph's first impression! (They love their java up here.) After the service, we went to the welcome center to find out more information about the town and the church. While we were sitting there, someone who wasn't part of the welcome team walked up out of the foyer and handed me a brochure for the men's retreat the following weekend. I accepted it, but thought that it was irrelevant because we would be gone by Thursday. As the week progressed, I started to feel that maybe I should attend the men's retreat because I needed to get closer to God and hear from Him. I needed to hear if this was the place. I had been falling in love with it, but I didn't want to come here for me - I wanted to know what God wanted from us.

So, I went. I made quite a few new friends on the retreat. It was interesting when we went around to introduce ourselves - I didn't attend their church or really even live in their town - I was just passing through! They accepted me like I had been there for months though! Friday night I got up through the middle of the night and went out to stand next to the campfire and warm up. I had been out there for only a few minutes when a man named Brad came out of his tent to hang out at the fire as well. He was being an insomniac - largely due to the intense snoring of so many of the guys! (I had brought earplugs so it hadn't been bothering me!) Brad and I talked for about two hours before I returned to my tent to get some additional sleep. While we were talking though he said that God had given him a particular scripture to share and since I was the only one awake, he thought it must be meant for me. He read me Jeremiah 31 and, I'll be honest, nothing really jumped out at me - until the next afternoon. After one of the teaching sessions, I climbed the hill or mountain or whatever( - about 1000 feet of elevation change from camp) to have some quiet time to read my Bible and pray. I reread Jeremiah 31 (among others) and had two things jump out at me - one verse talked about "I will prosper you in the desert" and another talked about "planting vineyards on the hillside". I wondered if this was referring to Boise, as it is considered a high desert and the Vineyard is the church we were directed to from across the country. I also wondered if it was just me trying to make the scripture fit Boise because I liked it. I wanted something more than that to base a decision on!

I didn't hear specifically from God during the retreat. Several of us left Saturday evening after the last session. There was to be no more teaching to happen so we decided to sleep in our own warm, soft beds! Steph and I had a conversation before sleep on Saturday night. I told her that I hadn't specifically heard from God yet but I really liked it here - I thought it was probably the place for us. She said she kind of liked it, but her gut said no - it is not the place. She said that she had not heard from God on it either, so she wasn't ruling it out - but probably not. I was crushed - her response hit me like a sucker punch because I thought she was feeling the same as I was about the town. However we were not in agreement about the city and that was paramount to us in importance. We knew that it was incredibly important that we agree on where God wanted us to be. In light of this I resolved that we would leave on Tuesday to continue our search.

I have a side note here - Are you familiar with the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac? How God told him to go and sacrifice his son? And then when the time came to actually go through with it, God said stop - He just wanted to know if Abraham was willing to do what He asked of him. OK - hold that thought!

On Sunday morning, we went to church again and it was cool to have so many new friends there that I had met on the retreat. Travis had been the worship leader during the retreat and he and his wife "coincidentally" ended up sitting next to Stephanie and I during the service. After service, I was talking with Travis and just telling him about how I was feeling and how it hit me hard that Steph was not feeling the same way I was about Boise. I began to relate to him the conversation I had with Brad at the retreat and began to tell himm about Jeremiah 31. Travis stopped me from reading it to him and just said to tell him what stuck out to me. I told him about prospering in the desert and planting vineyards and he was blown away. He said the previous Thursday God had led him to those exact same verses in the exact same chapter of Jeremiah. He went on to immediately invite us to be part of a small group of people who were going to be leaving Boise in a couple of years to plant a Vineyard church in Bend, Oregon. WOW! Steph mentioned that he really didn't even know us, and his second answer blew me away even more. He said that in life you have many friends, some who you consider good friends, but only a few people in your life who are really lifelong friends who you know you can really trust. Travis hardly knew me but said inside he knew I was one of the few. Double WOW!

So, anyway, Nan (Travis' wife) invited us to their home group that Monday night, anticipating that we'd already been invited to 5 others by then. We hadn't, and since we were still going to be in town, we decided to go. While there, we met several other couples with and without kids. We enjoyed the very laid back evening of just getting to know more people. One of the couples' little girls was having some health issues and Travis brought up that he had just acquired a Body Cleanse device that is supposed to pull toxins from the body through the pores of your feet. Being me and having worked for a bit of a nut case, I was incredibly cynical. But, I also figured it was worth giving it a try if it might help Stephanie get rid of her MS. After the home group was over, I went outside to talk to Travis about maybe getting Steph in to use the detox machine to see if it would help her with her MS. Travis cocked his head at me and said, "You knew I was a chiropractor, but did you know that I am one of a thousand brain stem specialists in America? I don't clain to heal anyone, but by putting the brain stem back in proper position, God has brough healing to every person who has ever come to me with MS. A man came to me who had been paralysed from the neck down due to MS and today he rides a bike!"

I was flabberghasted! When I told Steph, she was overwhelmed. She had been struggling with moving to Idaho because she never intended to be this far from family. But she kept having the verse from Matthew come to her mind that said "If anyone loves their mother or father more than Me (Jesus), then they are not worthy of me." So even though she struggled and cried a lot with it, this final news from Travis that through what he does God can heal her was more than the proverbial burning bush. It was a forest fire that could not be ignored.

So, this is where God has brought us and this is where we will be for a time. I think God just wanted me to place my desire to be in Boise on the "alter" as Abraham had to place Isaac. God never intended for Isaac to be sacrificed just as He never intended for Boise to be "sacrificed" by me. He merely wanted to see if me and Abraham were willing to trust him even when it made no sense to us. I like to think we both passed that test!

Quick update

I apologize for not updating in a while. We have been staying very busy lately. I have a large post in the drafts folder - but it's incomplete. I hope to finish it shortly.

To quickly go over the highlights - we're still in Boise, Idaho. This is where we have chosen to move to. The story of it all is in that previously mentioned large unfinished post! We put in an application yesterday to rent a house for a year. We'll find out later today whether or not it was accepted. I will be heading back to Virginia soon to get our stuff out of storage.

Everyone is in pretty good health and spirits. David has a cold and it's dragging him down a bit. I have had a nasty headache for a couple of days. Steph and the other boys are in good shape!

We've already made several friends - families that will be an important part of our lives for years to come. It's quite a change from when we moved to Virginia and knew no one for a few months! We really feel welcome here!

There's a lot more to say, but I don't have much time at the moment - constantly on the move!! Like I said - I want to tell you the whole story! Soon....

John

Boise, Idaho: A Laid Back Vacation

Who would've thought we'd be so laid back? Here we are, still in Boise, kicking back and actually relaxing. Hopefully, many of you have started receiving some postcards from us. We have had busy fingers lately, realizing that we were lax on the first portion of our journey. We did, however, just receive a shipment from a client/friend of John's in Fredericksburg who was kind enough to make us personalized postcards that will leave us without excuse in the future!!!

We have done a little bit of exploration as we have been here a week now. We have a good grasp on the city lay out, have found the mall and a good cheap theatre. We went up into the hills one of our first days here and quickly found out that those are NOT the cheap seats in town! But the view of the city from there was very nice and we can understand why folks want to live there bad enough to pay for it. See...





The people in this town are refreshing. Everyone is so friendly, and they smile a lot. The merchants are more than fair, not charging us for finding non-existant problems on the RV. Even had one store manager just GIVE John a new water filter off the shelf because we were having trouble with our's hooking up properly. The church was great, too. It actually looked more like a food court when we first walked in. The sanctuary was separate and they had java and snacks, an info station and lots of tables and chairs and people talking and eating everywhere. The worship was top notch and so was the teaching. I think we are finding we like Vineyard churches- and not because of the food court!

We decided totake a road trip to see how long it takes to get to the local ski resort, Bogus Basin.



It has a designated road straight from the city, through the foothills to the mountains. It took us a about 30 minutes, but on a winter day would likely take much longer as it was by no means a straight shot! They also provide public transportation to and from the resort. We spoke to one woman here who told us that she sends her teens on the bus to the resort unescorted. She said it is very safe.

While we were there, a storm rolled in. You can see from the pics that it was quite ominous looking. It hailed/sleeted on us all the way back to the foothills, where it suddenly stopped. Funny how The valley and the foothills receive little if any precipitation all year.





It's considered a high desert here. The caretaker here at the RV resort said they had a "wet" spring, but it didn't rain a drop for 2 months after. Others we've spoken to say they generally get little rain or snow and if they do it is quite short lived. (So if you see green in the valley, it's NOT native. If it's not watered daily- it's gone! The mountains beyond the foothills have hydration, and therefore DO have green stuff!)

We did get to bike ride a couple of times. We biked on the Greenbelt for 12 miles one evening. It is a paved path (like the WO&D in DC) that goes along the river for 25 miles, criss-crossing the river over bridges, going through downtown and through neighborhoods. They have patrols on it that keep it clean and safe. It is well used, too. This town is very recreation oriented. I need to get some shots of it. It is really pretty to ride. There are certain weeds here in the valley that get spiked and hard as nails in the fall. They call them "goat heads", probably because they look a little like them. They popped 6 of our tires on the day we rode the Greenbelt! Now all of our tires have slime in them and we know to stay on the trail! (I stayed on the trail so mine were fine!)

We also did some real mountain biking- although it was only in the foothills! We drove up 8th street to the first of many public paking areas for the dirt trails (many on private land that the owners voluntarily let riders on). I should probably call them sand trails, as it is all sandy and nothing green but a few sagebrushes and hearty flowers.









If you look closely at the above pic, you'll see John on the road. We accidently missed our parking area and ended up at the technical riding parking lot. We wanted easier stuff, so the 4 guys took off down the dirt road we drove up and I followed in the Jeep, snapping a few photos along the way.







Got a couple of other scenery pics, but not much of the trails we rode. Just know they were sandy and lots of up hill! So much up hill, the boys tuckered out 2/3 of the way to the crestline and I had to take them back to the Jeep. John did the full loop. After you made it to the top, he got to ride the crest line a mile or so before getting the fun ride down. He loved it- even though he said it scared him a little when he caught air!

So, anyway, looks like we're here till Tuesday now. We had the Rv checked out for mechanical issues this week. We were afraid the alternator was going out and the brakes had air in the fluid. But upon checking, all is well. The only things we had to have fixed were the leak in the toilet seal, a minor gas leak on the stove and the handle on our refridgerator door. Then, we heard the generator making funny noises, so we had a mobile tech come check it out today and he let us know the starter is going out on it. He ordered the part, but it won't be in till Tuesday morning. He'll fix it and we'll be on our way knowing that the RV is in great shape for the remainder of our mountain adventures.

Oh, and John went on a men's retreat with a local Vineyard church. He left today and we'll get him at church Sunday morning. Say a prayer for God to speak to his heart this weekend. I'm sure he'll update when he returns.

I'll leave you with a view from Bogus Basin. Till later,

Steph

Boise Idaho

We've been here for a few days and I need to update the blog again! We arrived in Boise around 9pm local time on Thursday. We got settled at the campground and went to bed. Steph had a rough night and didn't sleep well. She felt very nauseous and wanted to hurl but never did. I let her sleep in on Friday morning! I got up and did school with the boys and kept them quiet so she could rest. After she got up, she was feeling much better. We went out and did some exploring. Initially - it seems like a decent town. It was a lot flatter than I expected - the mountains are just north of town - but the town itself is flat. We returned to the RV, had dinner and watched a few episodes of Enterprise.

On Saturday we did more exploring including checking out some homes on the hillside and mountainside. They ain't the cheap seats folks! Anything with a view was more than 750k!! Most were million + OUCH!! That's out of our range - now and forever!! I don't have any rich relatives likely to leave us a large inheritance, so....! We drove up to the ski resort. It's only 15 miles north of town but took us 30 minutes to get to just because the road is so winding! Seems to be a great local mountain - it's almost 5000 feet higher than the city - offerring 1800 feet of vertical to ride!! I'd love a chance to check it out under good conditions! It hailed on us up there. Weird weather in comparison to the valley. We stopped on the way back at TCBY and had a cup of frozen yogurt. Wow - that is soo good - it's been a looong time since I've had White Chocolate Mousse frozen yogurt. Yum! We returned to the RV, threw some Buffalo Burgers on the grill and then chilled with some LOST episodes and then watched Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. We enjoyed it, but it wasn't nearly as good as the audio book!

Today we got up and went to the Vineyard Christian Fellowship church right around the corner. It had been recomended by our pastor in Fredericksburg as well as our friends pastor in Birmingham. We were not disappointed! We went to lunch with Damian and Allison and their kids. They're a neat couple and were very patient - answering our questions about the area, the church, housing, employment, etc. After lunch, we drove around and looked at some houses. About 8 mile south of the city in a town called Kuna we found some incredible new housing for reasonable pricing. Like 2450 sq ft for 158k - yeah that kind of incredible. Boise is beginning a huge boom - the population is expected to double in the next 5-6 years! We came back to the RV and did video chats with the grandparents. It was nice to see and talk to them. Technology can be sooo nice!!

We'll be here for several more days - I'll update you again soon.

John

Pics that I promised

I promised pics and here they are. We made it to Boise and will be exploring for several days. I'll tell you all about it. In the meantime, enjoy the pics of the last 10 days!!

John

Badlands Redux

Mt Rushmore to Devils Tower

Yellowstone Page 1

Yellowstone Page 2

Yellowstone Page 3

Yellowstone Page 4

A Week at Yellowstone

I know it has been entirely too long since our last update and for that I apologize. The time that we spent at Yellowstone National Park was absolutely incredible. It was also a break from electronics - especially cell phones - as cell service was incredibly limited. The park is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined - and I only found two places that gave me any kind of coverage. Add to that the fact that my laptop was acting up and refused to connect to the internet - even in those places. No radio stations and no TV signals. Truly a refuge apart from the rest of the world. I read a USA Today from cover to cover yesterday because I felt so disconnected (while doing laundry!)

Today we left the park and headed to Jackson Hole, Wyoming via Grand Tetons National Park. Internet access began working again once we had Verizon cell coverage so I was able to pull in email. Between Steph and I we had over 600 emails (most of them spam - but still a lot of mail to sort through!) So here's what I'm gonna do. I will write a few words and offer a few hilight pics tonite to hopefully whet your appetite and then provide more info and pics in the days to come. OK??!!

So things started over a week ago in South Dakota. Steph was feeling better and we took her back to the Badlands to explore with us. The next day we went to Mt Rushmore

We then visited Crazy Horse Memorial, Deadwood, Devils Tower and made our way across Wyoming to Yellowstone. It's a big park and there is so much to see. Here's a pic at Mammoth Hot Springs in the northern end of the park:

Of course no visit to Yellowstone would be complete without visiting Old Faithful.


Gotta love the hat that Alex picked out, don't you?? We ran into another family living in an RV and trying to decide where to call home. Our kids became fast friends and played frequently whenever we were in the campground. We're going to keep in touch and are invited to visit them wherever they settle.

Pictures are forthcoming, but did you know that we woke up on Saturday September 10th to an inch of snow on everything but the roads. Quite a shock to us!! Wasn't I just talking about the 105 temperatures in South Dakota last week??

The trip is not without it's educational opportunities. The boys have completed Junior Ranger programs at both Devils Tower and Yellowstone. The Yellowstone program was muc more intense - requiring a lot more work and thought from them as they visited the parks many exhibits. They were required to attend a ranger led program, partake in a hike and complete 5 to 7 pages in a guidebook (depending on age).

David was the first one done - on Sunday, so I took him to get his Junior Ranger award.

After that, I had promised to take him on a backcountry overnite hike. It seemed that the forecast was better for Sunday than Monday so we hurried and got ready and at 2pm Steph, Zach and Alex saw us off.

On her way back to the RV Steph got this very cool pic that I include here for you

The other two boys finished their Junior Ranger requirements and got their awards.

Then right outside the Ranger Station they were treated to a VERY rare but exciting treat - a momma and two grizzly cubs!!

It is sooo not fair. You need to understand that seeing a grizzly was one of my main goals for this trip to Yellowstone and in fact our backcountry hike was intended to aid in that, as it was to an area that 2 bears had been known to frequent. Yes we took safety precautions - but the extent of wildlife that David and I saw was a few deer. It started raining/sleeting around 3am for us. We packed up camp in the morning and began the 9.7 mile haul back to meet Steph. We were cold, wet and miserable just like I promised David we would be - but we had FUN and we did it. There's more to tell - but it will have to wait!

Today before we left, we visited the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. Steph led us on a huge descent of a hike to get a great view of the falls - and wow - what a view!!

And here's a great pic of the Tetons as we drove through.


So I help this helps bring you up to date on our adventures. Like I said, I'll get more info and pics here as soon as I can. That's all for tonite though - it's after midnight and I'm tired!!

John