The November Whirlwind

This past month has been insanely busy! Let do a quick recap: At the very end of October we went to a Place called Impossible acres; it is a farm where they have a petting zoo which is made up of a bunch of baby farm animals that the kids can hold and touch. They also have a pumpkin patch where we picked up three large pumpkins, a small pumpkin, and some gourds for only 15 bucks! Steven had a blast with all the animals and absolutely loved being able to hold them. We had our first "NO! GENTLE TOUCHES!!!!" moment as he was holding the baby kitten. He was holding it and cuddling it when he all of the sudden "loved" it too much and basically tried to strangle the poor thing. After that we moved on to more "rugged" animals- the pigs. He didn't get to hold these but he had a great time chasing them around and petting them.

 

Then we carved to pumpkins the next day which Steven thought was very interesting. He is a very clean kid and he hates to get dirty. Naturally, he refused to help clean out the inside of the pumpkin so that was solely moms job. He just kept saying "yucky, yucky!" lol, I thought boys were supposed to like getting dirty? Well, not my boy. We decided that it wouldn't hurt to take him trick or treating just for fun so we went out with some of our friends around base. Steven had a pretty good time and was just starting to get the hang of it when it started to rain and we had to go inside. I, uh I mean HE, enjoyed the candy :) He was a giraffe for Halloween.

Then came November. This month holds so many important dates for our family. First we have AJ's birthday (he turned 19 this year). Then next we have our Wedding Anniversary ( we celebrated our 4th this year), my sister Jen's birthday (she turned 22 this year), and Papa's (Steve's) birthday (we won't disclose how old he turned this year, lol). Along with all of this we had dentist appointments for both Stephanie and Steven (it was his first, sniff sniff, he's getting so big), Men's Retreat for the guys, Richard's 1 year Anniversary in the AF, and few other misc doctor's appointments. On top of all of this we have been trying to find a house to purchase. We had put in 3 other offers but we kept getting out bid. Finally, on our 4th Wedding Anniversary and our 4th offer, we got a house! We are in escrow right now and are scheduled to close on or before December 12th. The house is in Suisun City, CA and is about 5 miles from base. It's 1320 sqft- 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. We are so blessed to be able to purchase our own home. Here is a picture of it.

Only by the power of God were we able to do this. It is amazing what God can do, and in such little time. Just a year ago Richard and I were really struggling to make it financially; Richard was working 3 jobs, I was working 1 part time job and  we were still sinking. It was then that we decided that we needed to fully trust the Lord and we made a drastic change. Even though it was terrifying and the future was uncertain, we jumped in and trusted the Lord to work out the details. After much prayer Richard joined the United States Air Force. He spent a few months losing 70 pounds and was finally able to sign up to join. All along we knew and could feel in our hearts that this was were the Lord wanted us to go, but still it seemed so scary and uncertain. Richard wound up trading contracts with someone else and was given only 3 weeks to leave for Basic Military Training (BMT). We were expecting about 4 months to prepare. So we packed up our stuff and Steven and I moved in with MaryJo while Richard was to go to BMT and Technical school. The contract that he traded for was what they call "open general" which meant that he had no idea and no guarantee of what his job would eventually be. You make a list of 5 jobs you can choose from a longer list and they will try to get you one of those 5, but in the end the needs of the Air Force decide what you will get. Richard had put down Security Forces (SF) #1 and Loadmaster #2; the others we cannot recall. Security Forces is basically like a policeman in the Air Force. Richard had thought that he wanted to go into Law Enforcement and even tried to do the CHP before this, but they said he didn't have enough "life experience." So, he decided that he would go into the AF and do SF to get some and then get out and do the CHP. LOL, God was probably laughing as He knew what was in store for Richard. Ok, so he put down SF as his #1 choice and usually if you do this, you will get SF because there is such a high demand for them. It turned out that the month Richard went into the AF was the one month that SF was full; so he got Loadmaster, which is actually the perfect job for Richard. We are so thankful that God is in control and we are not. He always knows what is best for us and even goes ahead of us and ordains those things on our behalf.  WOW! All of this and we still have to tackle Thanksgiving. We certainly have a lot to be thankful for :)