Hoops, Hoops, and More Hoops!

Buying a house means jumping through a lot of hoops. Selling a house means jumping through a lot of hoops. Both buying and selling a house means . . . well, you know: a lot of hoops times two! But how blessed we are to be in such a position, so I shouldn't complain too much. Slowly but surely we are plowing through conditions, inspections, contingencies, negotiations, financing, forms, and all the back and forth. It can get dizzying! And so long to wait as well. We are ready to begin doing things to our new home that need to be done and getting going, but have to wait until our expected closing on August 27.

Later today we go up to visit my Dad for a few days. It will be good to both see him and get away. It is my vacation after all, even if we're staying home for most of it and doing housing stuff. More later . . .

Ratified

The offer we placed on a house was accepted, so now we have ratified contracts to both sell our current home and buy a new home. So as long as everything goes smoothly and the home inspection doesn't reveal a money pit, we go to closing on both houses on August 27th. Then we just have to move and fix up the place we got! But it is good to know things are moving in the right direction and that hopefully we will be in our new home by the time school starts.

Front of house

Front porch

My favorite room! Sun room in the back.

Back yard

VBS Classes

Here are a couple pictures of the classes for our VBS. Thanks to our teachers for their love and dedication!

Seminarian Fields teaching about Pentecost - God the Holy Spirit coming down to us from above.

Mrs. Cassell's class looking up a passage in the Scriptures.

Group photo!

Housing News

Well, it has been a very full week, which is why I did not post a VBS day 3, 4, or 5! (We did, in fact, have them.) But in addition to VBS, we did receive, negotiate (a little) and accept an offer on our house, then found a house that we like and will be putting an offer on tomorrow. And during all this leaving our house with some frequency to allow realtors to show it. So it was a very hectic week.

The house we found (actual picture to the left) needs a little work- some really ugly wallpaper, paint and rug colors, and a few other updates - but overall is nice and would fit our needs well. Finding a "grandpa suite" on the main floor isn't easy, but this one has a nice one. It is also only about 1 mile from our current home, which means none of our kids have to change schools, we get (I believe) to keep our phone numbers (home and church), and already know the neighborhood and where everything is. There are many positives. So, tomorrow we'll meet with our agent and submit an offer, and hopefully get it and put a lot of this behind us.

I'll write more soon about VBS and our Kid's Fitness Fair which we had on Saturday as well. Stay tuned!

VBS Day 2

VBS is rolling right along. The kids are a lot of fun and learning well and quickly! Some pictures from day two:

Looking at the baptismal font, where we are born from above.

Making bronze serpents.

VBS Day 1 and Housing News

Well, the first day of Vacation Bible School is in the books. It was a good day. In the past, the kids are usually very calm and mild mannered the first couple of days, and then when they get used to things and get warmed up, the last few days are much more raucous. But this year, they started right in! So it was a fun day.

We're using the Higher Things package "From Above." It is affordable (only $75 and reproducible) and well done. The kids can easily understand the different directions - we can't go up to God, God comes down to us from above. So I'd recommend it to others, especially if you have a small VBS. Here's a couple of pictures from day 1 of the kids building their "Tower of Babels" from sugar wafers, graham crackers, and chocolate icing!

In other news, our realtor made our house listing "active" Saturday around 1 pm. That same day we had three folks come to look at the house! Sunday we had 6-7, and Monday a couple more. Today, one is scheduled so far. Last night we received one offer, which we'll talk over with the realtor today. So things are moving, at least on the selling side. Now we just need to find one to buy that is big enough and suits our needs. We'll be looking at one today right after VBS . . .

New LCMS President?

I'm sure this will be fixed by the time you read this, but when I went to the LCMS web site and clicked on the link to read about the announcement of the presidential election, I was taken to the page entitled "Who is Jesus?"  :-)  And I didn't even know he was on the ballot!

Anyhow, here's the evidence . . .

If you click on this picture to make it bigger and then look at the bottom left of the window, you can see where clicking the link will take you: "lcms.org/jesus"! Not sure if this was intentional or not, but gotta love it! (Well, the "missionals" won't, but that's another story . . .)