Happy 10 year anniversary to us:)

We just celebrated 10 years of being married! When we were first married Vince was a janitor and I was a receptionist. He drove a 65’ corvair that he had to crawl underneath the car to start (seriously), and I drove a white Toyota tercel. We dated for a year and a half got engaged then married 5 months later. I was 19 and he was 20. The Lord provided for us to get married and serve Him together. We felt like we had so much when we got married. We had a 486 sq foot apartment that was all ours, well ours because we paid the rent. We had two pretty good running cars, a bed, a couch that was just big enough for the two of us and a coffee table, that’s it. It was all our stuff. We didn’t own a TV or computer but we did have a phone in our apartment with our own phone number. I didn’t really know how to cook and we were so busy with work and being involved in ministry that we were hardly ever home. So… I’m not sure what we ate those first few years but I do remember shopping for our groceries at the 99 cents store all the time. I think I shopped for everything we ever needed at that store. We ate lots of macaroni and grill cheeses….and dollar hamburgers from Carl’s jr. Then after 4 years we had our first baby boy (Elisha). I quit my job and Vince worked 2 jobs to provide for us. While he was gone a lot I learned to cook and I made some great meals and some horrible meals, I packed his lunch’s everyday and even started picking out his clothes….but he didn’t really like that very much so it didn’t last. I then for the first time, got to make our house a home. It was hard at times with him being gone a lot but when he came home at night we just loved being together and wanted to do whatever it took to keep me at home with our baby. We loved being parents so much that the Lord blessed us with another baby boy (Josiah) a year and a half after our first. Since then we’ve bought and sold a bunch of cars, rented a house, bought a house, found out we were pregnant for the third time, sold a house, lived in a 1 bedroom apartment with our two kids and now just bought a house again. We’ve had extra money at times and been so poor at times that we had to search our entire house for pennies and eat lots of beans and rice. The Lord has always provided and satisfied us. He has given me a wonderful husband who loves me, provides for me, and always points me to Christ and two (almost 3) beautiful boys. Sometimes it may not look like we have all the earthly possessions to those that are in the world, but I still feel like we have so much, and so much more then we even need. We have each other and we have our Lord. When I stop and think about all the Lord has given me I feel so rich!

New house, nice neighbors, and harvest crusade!

Most of you probably know we moved to new house a few weeks ago. I guess I will use that as my excuse for not blogging in awhile. The house is a 1955 house and we are very excited to have the extra room for when the baby comes along as we were starting to out grow our 2 bedroom, 1 bath house. Anyways one thing that is exciting about moving is a whole new set of neighbors. After living here for 2 weeks the only person we had yet to meet was the guy who lives right next to us, only because he was in his backyard when Vince peaked over the fence…so they obviously started talking. So last night Vince thought we should take our little family and walk around to each house on our street and introduce ourselves and invite them to the Harvest Crusade. I thought that was a great idea (at first); I even thought maybe I could make cookies and we can bring them to each neighbor and welcome ourselves to the neighborhood. Luckily I didn’t have the time to make the cookies because when it came time to walk up to each house and introduce ourselves it seemed so out of place. It seemed so funny as we stood at the door of each house and me being 8 months pregnant. But Vince is totally into stuff like this so I went along with it although I was thinking I wanted to turn around and go home. I was just glad I wasn’t carrying a plate of cookies that would have been even more awkward. On a side note I thought when you move into a house neighbors are suppose to come to you and say “hi” instead all 4 of us were walking up and down our street to each house. So after the first few houses I realized this was going to take awhile….as each house was taking like 10 to 15 minutes to meet the people, invite them to the crusade and so on. So as we talked with our various neighbors the kids ran though the grass, picked flowers out of flower beds, drove their scooter across the lawn, and stood at people’s gates and made their dogs bark the entire time. Josiah even managed to crack and break one of our neighbors lights on there walk way that leads up to their house. And even as I’m sitting here typing this I can see Josiah’s transformer water bottle sitting on the window ledge of the lady’s house who lives across the street. I guess he set it there last night and there it sits. So we definitely welcomed ourselves to the neighborhood and I’m really glad we did, it ended up being fun. Although it was kinda awkward at first it was worth it to be able to invite them to church and the crusade and hopefully be able to share with them more in the future. So the point of this blog is go invite your neighbors to the harvest crusade or even church. You may be the only Christian neighbor they have!

Summer time blahs

I have had the summer blahs. If there is such a thing. Or maybe it's just the heat getting to me. I think I'm ready for fall to come. I'm ready for the cooler sweater weather and to start making pumpkin bread and drinking hot chocolate in the evening. I love looking out the window and seeing the leaves all over, and kids walking to school. I love that you can walk into stores now and see all the school supplies. I don't know why it's not like I go to school or my kids go to school yet. It just reminds me of fall and the changing of seasons. I love that God gave us different seasons. Just when I get tired of one season the next one comes along.

So, in light of my blah mood I haven't had anything to post about. We've just been hanging around the house during the days trying to stay out of the heat. Although we did venture out to Target yesterday. Not to buy anything just to take advantage of walking around the nice air conditioned store. The kids played with the toys and we walked around and looked at just about everything in the store. It was a fun and free event for the kids and I. Sorry i don't have any pictures to share:) Hopefully my next post will be a little more interesting!

Swim lessons

Elisha started swim lessons this week. He seems to enjoy it except when they make him go under water. It is so fun for me to watch him learn to swim because this was my sport growing up. I did swim lessons all growing up then continued on to join swim teams and swim competitions. So I'm going to force my son to be just like me. No just kidding. I just want him to learn to swim for the safety of it.

Notice Elisha is wearing his shirt. It was the doctor's orders for the rest of the summer so his poor skin can heal.

I love summer time

Today the kids ran around in the sprinklers, this was one of my favorite things to do in the summer when I was a kid. They had so much fun!

The Sand at the beach

When we were on vacation Vince watched the kids while I got some alone time with the Lord on the beach. As I sat there I couldn't stop thinking about Psalm 139:17-18. It talks about God's thoughts toward us and If I should count them they would be more in number than the sand. I kept running my hands through the sand and thinking about how much sand was in my hand, and then how much sand was all over the beach everywhere. God has that many thoughts about ME??? Read Psalm 139 if you get a chance, It is all about how much God knows about us! He knows us better then we know ourselves. Which I find soooooo true in my life. A lot of times I don't know what my motives are for something, what my thoughts are for something, or even if I really desire something. Let me put it this way....sometimes I'm just confused in my head. Probably partly due to talking to a 2 year old all day. But it's so comforting to know that God knows me and has everything planned out and under control in my life. All I have to do is surrender to Him and His plans....So I don't' have to worry:) So Again, Read Psalm 139 it's awesome!!!!!

P.S. Veronica & Brandi......do you like the title of my post??? It's the best I could do (inside joke)

Vacation pictures

We were VERY blessed to be able to stay down at the beach for a week. We had an awesome time as a family. The kids both loved it and especially loved the sand. They were both eating it by the hand full. Elisha actually dipped his chicken nuggets in the sand. Sand dipped chicken nuggets. They were very crunchy :]


As much as I love the beach i'm actually really glad to be back home in smog filled Riverside :)

Elisha and Josiah swimming

Well not really swimming.... just sitting in a little pool. This counts as a bath right?




Josiah trying to push Elisha under

Are they not so cute? :)

Beach Trip

Elisha and Daddy relaxing by the waterVince's foot, Elisha & Josiah
Daddy & his boys