What Kids Say Wednesday

People are always asking me what funny things my kids say. I thought it would be neat to try and give you one each Wednesday and call it What Kids Say Wednesday. However, with the way life goes over here, it may not be every Wednesday!
This story is about a child in the room next door to me. He is a sweet little boy who talks in his own little sweet way. Yesterday his class was doing prayer requests and one of the other boys in the class said "pray for my dad, he got bit by a bee. He is allergic." This other boy then responds, "well my dad got bit by a Cheeto!" "A Cheeto?" said his teacher. "Yes, a cheeto!" Come to find out that what he meant was his dad got bit by a mosquito!!! hahaha! It had me laughing the entire day!
Hope that brought a smile to your dad like it did to mine!
Vanessa

A House Update...She's Pending!!!

Yes its true, Chad and I are just a mere week away from being home owners!!! But maybe we should back up a bit as it has been quite a few weeks since I updated everyone on the house situation and A LOT has changed. The last time I wrote about the house I told you that we had been picked out of a bunch of offers to have the opportunity to try and buy this beautiful short sale home. I didn't think about it at the time, but the time we would have waited for the outcome of that house could have been months. But the house was all done, small, but all done. A few days after we said yes to that house, out real estate agent called us and said another house we had looked at just had a higher offer fall apart and the sellers agent said if we wanted it, the house was ours. Now I got this call, literally 5 minutes before I was to leave for work. I panicked! I was like I can't make this decision in 5 minutes. This house was big and unlike the other one, needed a lot of cosmetic work. All doable, but I had gotten used to the idea of moving into a home that was completely finished. But this house was quite a bit bigger and gave us both a family room, and living room, something that none of the other houses had to offer. The other drawback was that we would back up to the freeway but we would be at the end of a cul-de-sac (I know I spelled that wrong) and because of both of those factors we would have a 7,000 square foot lot. What this means, we would have one huge back yard! My boss was kind enough to give me an extra 45 minutes to talk and pray it over with Chad. Chad was like lets go for it, I took a little convincing but I soon hopped on board. And with that we started to go into escrow. All seemed to be going well. We had to buy some things here and there to get through some of the inspections. Got through the inspections and an appraisal with flying colors. Everything with the loan was going great and we were expected to have final papers by last Friday. But instead of papers we got news that an out of town appraiser had come in and totally screwed up the appraisal. Now I don't completely understand the situation but we had to put in a rebuttal to the back, and this and that... well let's just say God worked it out so there is no reason to go into all the mumbo jumbo. Plus like I said, I never fully understood the situation to begin with. So here we are, about a week away from closing on our first home! I am so excited. The house is structurally sound which is great, it is all cosmetic stuff that will need to be done over the years notice the lack of grass in the picture above). I love it though, the house is a blank slate ready for us to come in and do what we want to it. It is 1500 square feet and so it has enough room for us to grow into. We will have a garage and our own backyard! (Remind me of all this excitement when I am paying my first mortgage payment in a month please). So the process is almost over and boy am I relieved! I can't wait to be moved into our new home. Our very first home :) Oh how good God is!
Please keep praying for us that all will continue to go well. And of course thank you for your prayers thus far. We can't wait to have you all over to our new casa:)
Vanessa

A New Challenge

Wow, I have not blogged in quite some time. The reason I have not blogged is that I have been so crazy busy! Along with working and packing up to move I have been doing some serious training. Wait did she say training?!?!?! Yes I sure did! This Saturday I will be participating in my first ever triathlon. Now before you say "woah this girl is crazy" I must tell you that it is not an Olympic distance but a sprint distance. That's means I will be doing a 1/4 mile swim, 11 mile bike, and 3 mile run. I have been working hard since I returned from China and I think I am ready to do this. My goal for this one is to just finish although I hope I finish this under 2 hours. Last Saturday i did clinic in Santa Cruz which included an ocean swim. For any of you who know me you know that I DO NOT swim in water that you cannot see the bottom of. Even after growing up next to the ocean and spending summers lakeside in Minnesota I have never been comfortable swimming in waters where some type of critter may come up and bite my toes. Swimming in the ocean was a huge feat for me. The waves were 6 to 7 feet high on the morning of our swim and the group before me got totally wiped out but a huge wave. I stayed calm and made it out no problem. We were swimming at Sea Cliff where there is this huge cement boat that is completely falling apart. We basically had to swim around it. It was tough and at one point I had a Sea Lion swim a little ways in front of me. People later said to me "Vanessa you are crazy, there are sharks out there." I honestly wasn't thinking about that or any other animal coming up to bother me. I just wanted to get back to shore and finish. I did in fact finish and after climbing 154 stairs back to the top of the mountain, I was pretty winded. I was glad to get some pointers and practice in before my first real tri. Luckily this triathlon will be in a lake and not the ocean so hopefully it will be a lot easier. I am excited but nervous at the same time. It has been hard to train since I went back to work and I have been extremely exhausted. But I am liking the rewards that I have already seen. After I complete this event on Saturday I have another challenge on my mind that I would like to complete in November. But that's another story for another day!
Please pray for strength and confidence for me. I know that I can do all things through God who gives me strength. I will do this, even if it takes me forever to finish!
As of this second there are only 5 days, 10 hours, 34 minutes, and 28 seconds until stat time...here we go.
Check back in a week for results:)
Vanessa