A few more pics

Janae turned 12, Joshua is an official toddler - into everything, we got some puppies (more pics to come) and Javier and I just celebrated or 16th and most meaningful anniversary in Tucson on New Year's Eve.

Picture update

I know it has been forever since I really blogged. It doesn't seem to fit in as a priority. Life has been hard, but God has been exceedingly merciful. So although I can't find the energy to really post, I will post some random pictures of the past several months. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!


Our Joshua turned 1 in October and he is growing up and walking. We lovingly call him Gordo Lindo. Jordan played flag football, JJ was the "mascot" and Javi an assistant coach and Julia played soccer for the first time. Josiah spent 5 days in Phoenix Children's hospital with something that mimicked menangitis, but after every test and scan you can think of, they didn't figure out what was wrong and he woke up the last day able to walk and move, so they discharged us.


Jordan turned 11. He got some golf clubs and a bag and went golfing with his dad! I think it was his best b-day ever.



We got a couple free bunnies in November.

Join Us for One Day Without Shoes

Join Us for One Day Without Shoes

Free day at Rawhide - Feb. 2011

Grandma went with all of us to Rawhide. The kids got to climb a rock wall, ride a mechanical bull, pan for gold, pet animals and Josiah, Joanna, and Jacklyn got to ride little burros. The other boys were too short :(. They all had a great time and Jameson loved the goat so much he was hugging him and didn't let go when the goat took off - so he got a little ride clinging with his arms around the goats neck :).

We moved! (Before pictures)

These first pictures are of the guest house. I think it will be awhile before we do any fixing up here.

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These pictures are of the playroom - we also haven't done much here.

We moved back to Chandler and now live just one street away from my parents' house. Also, Javier is 7 minutes from work instead of 40minutes and we are more in the center of ministry that we wanted to be involved in. In this post I will show you before pictures of the house. Later I will show you how it looks now. The location, size, garage, lot size and price were all great - but it had a lot of cosmetic issues, tons of plumbing problems and a trashy yard. It has only been 5 weeks, so it is still a work in progress and I am sure we will be working on projects for at least a couple of years. We rented out our other house to a really nice family - so that was a huge blessing too.

After - or should I say the house "so far"

This is an older custom home on an acre with no HOA. This is the neighborhood where I grew up. The people that built this house, converted 2 of the 3 car garage into another living area/kitchenette that we use as the play room and can eventually use for bedrooms. Then they added on a 3 car garage with 5 storage rooms, a bathroom/laundry room for the pool and a guest house above that. The guest house has been used by different friends the whole time. Our hope is to keep it filled with friends, missionaries that are back on furlow and to host international students and hopefully even Ephrem, our son in Ethiopia.

So far cosmetically, we had a guy come refinish the cabinets and one of Javier's friends put in the granite. We have a painter friend who did all of the painting, which I think made the biggest difference. My dad put up all the window coverings, new mirrors and light fixtures and Javier and Jordan have taken out at least 30 cactus and tons of dead plants and weeds.

As you can see, we still need some appliances, fix and refinish bathroom cabinets, paint the laundry room, play room and guest house and work on the yard. Oh we have a couple of broken windows and the boys' shower upstairs still leaks - but little by little we will get this old house in shape :) and hopefully it will be used to bless others and God willing it will be filled with children, grandchildren and memories for years to come.