Full House

The house is full. All available floor space is now occupied. Church was great this morning, came home had breakfast, and hung out with the family. It was great. Angela and I got to relax and have girl talk for a couple of hours. Mark and the boys and Ceco did the man thing. Zachery build this master piece as part of his craft at church. He is so proud of it. I promised him I would put it on the blog for everyone to see. :-) He is creative!

This is little Laila and her Papa's hat! Isn't she so precious??? Marcus is crashed, do you see the other set of bedding? Zachery for some reason is camped out UNDER the bunk beds in the space where the trundle bunk goes..... Did he think we ran out of run for him?? I wanted to get him out of there but Mark said to leave him. Mark said he probably thought it was a fort. This is what I came home to from the planning meeting at church.....

Tomorrow is a big day of opportunity to minister to others about Jesus. I prayed about what God would have us do since we are now hosting in our home. Mark and I agreed that we could help our church's efforts as long as we could do it at home. So we are baking cookies and popping popcorn. We will take it to the hotel tomorrow night when we show the movie "Godman." Please pray that the Lord would use us in amazing ways to glorify Him!

4:00am....

We hear the baby fussing. Our family had just gotten in and were trying to get settled with out waking us up! It didnt work. But thats ok. Mark and I got up, showed Bettie and Ceco the room with the "king size" bed and off to sleep they went. Angela and the girls settled in on the air mattresses and they were out. So here is a picture of them after only 3 hours of sleep. We are so happy they made it before the traffic got crazy....

We are ready.... We Hope

We are ready to host our guests as they flee hurricane Gustov. They left Lake Charles and Laffayette, LA about 2 hours ago and are headed north our way. Our guests are Angela, Mark's sister, her two girls, ages 3 and 1, and Angela's mom and step dad. We have not seen them in over 4 years!! We have two air mattresses set up, one for Angela and the other for the girls. We took Zachery's bunk beds down and put them together to make a king size bed for Mom and Step Dad. I went grocery shopping and filled the cupboards, frig, and freezer, so we would have enough food and drinks for the time they are here. At least 4-5 days we will be blessed to show them the love of Christ in our home. We are so excited to be able to open our doors to help others. Please keep us all in your prayers...... I will post pics tomorrow.

New pool, but for who???

The girls must think we bought this pool for their enjoyment. They sure are having a good time. We found this at the store and it was only $35! We also got the cover for only $6.50. It was over 50% off. Finding deals is my speciality.

I will post some pics when we get to play in it!

Party time

Today Zachery went to his first B-day party here. It was fun to see him making friends and playing. He is looking forward to his big day later this month!
Marcus is grounded for fighting....

The real deal....

Today was the real deal. The bus finally came and picked up the boys for school. Yesterday when I dropped them off, I saw the bus at the school so I went and talked to the driver and asked why they had not been picking up my boys. She didn't know to get them. So we figured it out and today she showed up on schedule. 6:40am. I know, I know, that's pretty early. But the boys WANT to ride the bus and they don't complain when they have to get up in the AM. We will see what they have to say this evening. Now that they are riding the bus, I will be able to work 4/10s. I will have Wednesdays off and plan to spend it at the school in the classrooms. I will keep you posted...

Watermellon

We all like it, even the girls!

Really?? The last one......???

Does she really think this is the last letter home? Please, this is day 2!! of the new school year...... Little does she know.....
Dear God,
Please give Mark, Miss Sorsby, and I the patience and wisdom to help Zachery through another year of school. Please give Zachery the ability to sit when asked and the patience to focus on his school work so he can learn. Please help Zachery to enjoy his recess times and burn as much energy as he possible can so he stays out of trouble with his teacher and classmates. Lord, I know that only with you, are these things possible. We trust in you for the skills we need to raise our little Zachery who we love so dearly. In Jesus's name we pray, Amen.

hhhhuummm.....

Do you think they really wanted to talk to me? 55 Messages and only 7 actually left me information. The others just hung up. I looked and the other calls were from 2 truckers. That means 2 truckers called me 48 times and did not leave me a message.This is what happens when I don't answer my phone for 3 1/2 hrs so I can reconcile a dental insurance bill for 500 employees. Truckers are SSOOO impatient. But hey, my job is to serve them and so I do it with a smile on my face when I call them back!

First day of school....

....Didn't start off so well. Well kinda. The alarm went off at 6am. Boys were dressed, shoes on, and teeth brushed by 6:10am. Then we got their back packs and school supplies ready. Next we watched cartoons for 10 minutes. By this time is was 6:35, we went out to wait for the school bus.

It is really cool because the bus stops right in front of our house. Talk about service!

Finally! The bus arrives and the kids get on.............

Then they turned around, and got right back off, it was the wrong bus. Can you believe that the houses right across the street from us are a different school district? They are! And this bus was for them, not us. So we waited some more. At about 7 I decided that we could wait in the house as I still needed to get ready for work and needed to meet my carpool partner at 7:30. I jumped in the shower, got ready and we were out of the house by 7:25! Our bus never showed up :-(

I dropped them off at school in time for them to eat breakfast. Had I known how the morning would go, they could have eaten at home! Oh well.

The boys said they had a great day and they like their teachers and have each made at least one friend.

Also, we received the notice that we qualify for FREE breakfast & lunches. There I go again, saving money! I think I have issues with this. It only worked because I filled out the paperwork before Mark had a job, but we will take the help where ever we can get it!

Productiveness.....Key to sucess

Look at the boys cleaning for me! You know this is my favorite thing to do and it was so hard for me to let them help. SIKE! I hate cleaning and they like making money so it is a perfect match. We even adjusted the vacuum handle length to be Zachery size for easy use! Gotta love it. :-)

Remember we let the boys grow out their hair all summer long? Look how long it is. Not anymore!! Tomorrow school starts and so we got it all cut off.
The boys begged for Mo-Hocks, and I gave in cause I'm so nice. See the smiles?


But only for a minute. Now they are back to clean cut, handsome young men. The best part is that the place was having a back to school special and the cuts only cost $5 each!! There I go again saving more money. Look how beautiful they are!! Just like their Momma and Daddy. hehehe

Frustrated

Blogger SUCKS today. I am having probelms posting pics to the blog.

WOW Time Flies

I cant believe it has been 5 days since I posted! We have been pretty busy. On Saturday we had our hands full cause Chloe went into heat. We were not expecting that. We had an appointment for her to get fixed on Monday, we knew the time was getting close. So we had to keep her outside and chained up all day and night. That was hard for us since we bring them in at night. Sat afternoon we took the boys fishing and Zachery had fun skipping rocks. Good times at the lake!
After the lake we went to Sears and exchanged our yard tool for a new one. I love the fact that Ozell bought us Craftsman tools and when they break, for whatever reason, we can take them back for nice, new, clean ones.No questions asked. And of course I love that is was FFRREE.
Sunday was church and it was great. We are really starting to fit in and connect with people. Sunday evening we went to a birthday party for Linda, from church, and had a good time hanging out with everyone. It was a pot luck so there was lots of good food. They even had an Olympics set up for the kids. It was great. We were there till after 9! Late for a Sunday when we had to go to work the next morning.
Mark started his job Monday at SRT. He likes it. He is starting to get the hang of working on big semi trucks. Its not the same as low riders!! He said he forgot how much is sucks to work with fiberglass. Please pray we figure out a way to keep the fiberglass from his skin. He needs some of the white coveralls he used to have at Sierra Aluminum. If any of you reading this are from Sierra, show Mark some love and send him some of those!
We dropped Chloe off Monday AM to get fixed. We had to leave her overnight, sad. I picked her up after work on Tuesday and now she is at home. Glad that is over!
The boys have been making. Marcus has his friend coming over this Sunday. He is the same age and just got a Wii so they will be playing that from start to finish I am sure. Zachery got his first B-day party invite for next Friday. They are both so happy to be connecting and making friends.
Tomorrow night Amanda and her two kids will be coming over to hang out with us and have dinner. Our husbands are off together with the men of church at the men's conference. I figured it was the perfect time to try and connect with her.

Curio, Dinner and Petsmart

Its Friday night, long week, Mark got a job today.Yea!! He also got the curio cabinet fixed today. It was the last piece of damaged property from the move. When he put it up in the truck and tried pushing it back he did so with his knee right through the bottom glass. He didn't get hurt physically but he did emotionally because Ozell gave that to us. We also had one of the glass shelves brake. Today to he got the glass cut and put it all back together and it sure does look good in the living room. Now I get to put more pictures in it. Everything else that was damaged in the move we have been able to repair, except for a big family room TV. We don't know what happened to it. To the eye, it is perfect. But it wont come on. We are going to take it to the shop to see if it can be revitalized. :-)

So to celebrate all the good things of this week, we decided to go to dinner. We got a coupon for CiCi's Pizza Buffet from the glass place and it is right around the corner from home. Food was great and it is a family friendly kinda place. With the coupon, it costs $15 for the 4 of us.

After dinner the boys wanted to walk through PetsMart. I thought, free entertainment? Absolutely!! What do you do when you go to PetsMart? You use the animal toys as weights and do some exercise.

We went up and down every isle in the store. It was fun and free.

We all had a fun evening and were very tired, including Chloe who keeps jumping the fence in the back yard to roam the neighborhood when we are not home. It is a good thing she is getting "fixed" on Monday. She is zonked out on Bella's bed.

Isn't she just so cute??

Mark is now employed

Praise the Lord, Mark is now employed. SRT offered him the position in the body shop!! He starts on Monday @8. We are so excited to work at the same place. Hopefully we will get to take a few lunch breaks together. Plus he will be working a 4 day work week and that means we will be able to spend more time together and that will be great for our marriage. Please keep praying for us, so far, no real challenges....... but they may be lurking out there...

Opportunity on the horizon!!

Today Mark came out to my job and had an interview with the head of our Body Shop department. My boss happens to be friends with this gentleman and she called in a favor. Bottom line, the interview went really well, over two hours!! They told him they would talk to Tony (owner) about bringing him on. Tony will be back either tomorrow or Friday, so please say a few prayers for us, that if this is the job God has us waiting for, we will know it! Mark is supper excited and hopes this is the job. Next week Mark leaves for the Men's Retreat on Thursday. They are going to the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. It is arranged by Calvary Chapel. That is going to be a great time of fellowship and spiritual learning for him! I cant wait to see how God works in him while he is there.

Today I was able to clean and organize my office a little more. One if the managers stopped by and commented on how much I have done since starting there. So that was nice to know that others are paying attention to the hard work I have been doing. Everything else is good. Kids are doing great! They start school in 11 days! Yea.....

Lazy Days

Rain rain come and stay, please don't ever go away!

Today was one of those days where you just lay around and don't do much of anything. Church was great! Talked with friends, then came home and stretched out on the bed for a nap. It didn't help that it rained for a good three hours. Nice and steady, relaxing, calming, rain. I am so glad that we did all the yard work yesterday so the rain could soak in and give our well pump a few days off. When it was dinner time Mark and I looked at each other and asked who was cooking. Of course neither one of us wanted to. We ended up going to Golden Corral.

For desert Zachery and I had some strawberries with sugar and whipped cream. It reminded me of the lunches at Sizzlers with Marian, Sara, and Sakuna from work. Marian and I always enjoyed sharing a plate full of strawberries and toppings! I was reminded of this tonight. I miss you ladies!

I HATE BUGS

These pics really dont show it, but there is a bog red welt on his chin by his neck.
And two more huge welts on his arm. He was taking a nap and woke up like this. We have decided that he will sleep with his brother and Mark will be spraying the room again. We are not sure what he is getting bit by. This happened to him a few weeks ago and they went away within a couple days. Once I have insurance I will take him to the docs and see if they can tell us what it is...

Out with the old, in with the new

This is the old dishwasher, white, ugly, and did not work so well
This is the new dishwasher, Blk, stainless, and works great! The best part of this?? It was FFRREEEE!!!! Thanks to our home warranty that the sellers bought us when we purchased this house! We also got our garage door fixed from the warranty. :-) I love free stuff.

Welcome to the south #2

I got a different taste of it today and it did not taste good. At least it happened at the end of my day. I was talking with a lady from work, a lady I talk to every day. We were talking about her house on the lake and that fact the two guys bought a piece of property across from her and the rumor is that they may be gay. I said "who cares?" She said that she did not like it. OK. Then she said, "I also don't like racial marriages." I said, "What do you mean by racial?" She said, "black and white people marring." I said, "why not?" She said, "I don't know I just don't like it." I said OK. At this point I just kinda sat there. I was not real sure what to say or what to do. I knew I felt like I just got stung by the racial bug, and I was dumb founded. So then she started talking about something else and I was real quiet for about 5 minutes. Then she looked at me and said, "oh my, are you married to a black man? Insert foot in mouth." She knew! I looked at her straight in the eyes and said, "Yes Ma'am I am and I love my husband."

The look on her face was mortified. Not that she was embarrassed by what she said but by the fact that she offended me. I told her how good Mark was to me and our boys and that I am so thankful for him. Most of you know that when I get nervous I start to giggle and cry from the laughing, that is what she did. So I know she felt bad. She just kept looking at me like she wanted to say something. But she didn't. I did tell her (with a smile) that if she would have come to look at the picture of my boys on my desk, she would have known they were mixed.
I got home and told Mark about this and he was so humble and he just reminded me that we live in the south now and its not like Cali. I knew this when we came here, just hoped I would not have to deal with it. I told Mark I was waiting for her to apologize but then I said to him that I guess I should not expect that cause she was sharing from her heart and this really is how she feels. Isn't that what Sandals taught me? To be real with others, myself, and God? I just happened to be on the offended side of this one. Now all I can do is pray that God will work on her heart tonight and every night, and maybe she will start to look at "racial" marriages differently. I have already forgiven her, and will continue to talk to her. I hope I can show her that it does not matter what color we are or the color of who we marry, God loves us all equally. Maybe this is part of why God sent us here??

Good News: I will be on the SRT payroll effective Monday and I got an increase in pay. Not what I was hoping for, but it will do for now. Yea!! I really do like my job!

dog, fence, dog over fence

This is what we have found out in the last two days. Chloe knows how to jump over our fence. Lucky for us, she just comes and sits at the front door. We are hoping to encourage her to stay in the back yard with treats. Last night I took her for a long walk around the area and she really enjoyed that. I can't take Bella because she does not know how to walk, all she knows how to do is drag me. Hopefully Chloe does not teach Bella how to jump the fence.
The boys are good, Zachery is doing much better this week now that he has had his medicine for a few days. We had to take him to the clinic and pharmacy. That was not cheap since we don't have any insurance. But we had to do it! Work is still good, should know this week if they are going to buy out my contract and hire me on full time with a raise. Today was some major happenings so no time to deal with me with the owner.
Mark is still being the wonderful stay at home dad. Working around the house, and cooking dinner. Still looking for work. Keep praying.

Studio 3305

Move the couch over and everything out of the way, turn the music up loud, and enjoy the fun, cause the Funches house is now Studio 3305. Well at least it was this Sunday night!

Before dinner and dancing we took the boys and girls to the lake for some water fun.

The water was a nice break from the heat!

This is Chloe! Isn't she cute? Everything was great yesterday till we tried to feed them and WWIII broke out in the back yard. We figured out that we had their food bowls too close together. So now they are at opposite ends of the yard and we have a BIG yard. Today, no problems that we know of. :-)

Everyone needs a friend

Isn't that true? Everyone needs a friend! Today, it was Bella's turn. I would like to introduce you to the newest addition to our family, Cloe. Cloe is a 7 month old Lab/retriever mix. She is gold like Bella and she is the same height and weighs about the same. Last weekend Mark and I were talking and decided that since we are not home all day to play with Bella, she needed another dog to play with. This morning we told the boys we were going to surprise them today. We got lost on the way to the animal shelter but we finally got there. When the boys realized where we were, they knew the surprise. It was great. The only sad thing is there are SO many animals that need homes, you want to take them all. Now we are off to go get some dog bowls, food, and collars for the girls.

Love Love Love

Tonight I sat here at my little desk and watched the memorial service for Christopher Laurie, son of Pastor Greg Laurie, and wept like a little baby. It is so inspiring to see the love for Christ this family has, even in their time of sorrow. It reminds me that tomorrow is never promised. It reminds me to live each day as if it were my last. It reminds me to love my husband like never before. I reminds me to take the time to rub my kids' backs before bed, it may be the last back rub. It reminds me to go to work each day as if I am going to work with God himself. It is so easy to get wrapped up in our day to day events and not stop to take the few extra minutes to show some extra love. Watching the service has reminded me of how important family and friends are. How important it is to be a part of a church and church family; to serve God and His church with the gifts He has given us.To let those around us see God's love shining through us by our acts of love, words of love, touches of love. Jesus said" and the greatest of these is Love." Tonight I am reminded to Love. Love like I have never loved before. Tonight I sit and think (only for a second) did we make the right choice to move to Texas? Then, I think back at all the blessings from God in this transition and I know that we were sent by Him . He has great plans for us here and will give us many opportunities to love His church and those around us. Tonight I close with this: To all my family and friends, I love you. I may not say it as often as I should, but I love you. I pray for you and your families and ask God's blessings upon you always. Love one another as He first loved us. Good night!