We're Moving

It seems that we're at it again...change that is.  When we moved here in 2012, we purchased a piece of property that was about 50' wide by 100' deep. It had a large fifth wheel on it which we were given.  After my husband lost his job, we got knocked off our feet and it gave us a chance to get back up and start over.  It definitely wasn't perfect but we loved the wooded area surrounding it because it had the feeling of seclusion and privacy...but as winter came and the bushed between our neighbor and us lost a good chunk of their leaves and there it was, a house, not far from us.  As time went on, we had Kaylee and things became more and more crowded. 

Back in December we were forced to move from our old office due to mildew in the ceiling and a leaky roof.  We were able to purchase our own office space which was nice but of course leasing a space in a large building vs. buying your own large building has a definite increase in price.  One of the things we have been trying to avoid is being in debt, especially in any large amount.  Being members of the LDS faith, we believe that it is best to stay out of debt.  The church website states...

"Since the early days of the Church, the Lord's prophets have repeatedly warned against the bondage of debt. One of the great dangers of debt is the interest that accompanies it. When it is necessary to incur debt, such as a reasonable amount to purchase a modest home or to complete one's education, the debt should be repaid as quickly as possible."

 In the last week we have spent time praying for guidance as far as what we should do.  Now that we have chickens, we want more...more space to raise our own livestock and grow our own fruits and vegetables, and overall, more room to be self sufficient, but we can't do all of that where we are.  We have decided to move into our office as it is quite large and has plenty of room (larger than our old house).  We knew when we bought it that it wasn't set up to live in, sure it has a 3/4 bath and a 1/2 bath but it doesn't have a full kitchen and we would have to rewire/remodel everything to fit in a stove/oven.  As we have felt this great desire to be out of debt we have found ways to work around that by using an electric skillet, something we already do for breakfasts and lunch and a convection oven.  Our goal is to take the money we would be spending on our property here and put it into the office so we can pay it off faster and start looking for something that would fit our long term goals more. 

The last week for me has consisted of washing, drying, folding and putting every article of clothing, bedding, etc. we own in a tote...well, okay, I'm still at it. We had a moth that laid eggs on our screen door a year ago and they hatched before I realized what it was. Just when we thought we'd gotten rid of all the moths inside, we found more that were sneaking in around the screen anytime we opened up our kitchen window.  Ahhhhhhh  So, needless to say, to keep them from going with us to the office, I'm washing EVERYTHING.

Yesterday, Alex came home during the day and worked on cleaning up around the property.  He took the weed eater and cut back a lot of the brush while some of the young men from church came and helped mow the lawn. It gave the property a more open/bigger look for when we list it. We have a guy coming Tuesday morning to buy and pick up the carport from out back.  Our goal is to most of the way out of here by mid week. I will still have to come back and forth to take care of the chickens until we can get a coop built for them out back of the office. 

I have to say that this wasn't in our plans...in fact, it was something that we went back and forth about many times trying to decide whether to keep the property and just rent it our, or sell it and move on. I can't wait for the day that we can purchase another piece of property and build our very modest dream home.  Until then, this will help us to follow the guidance we've been given while giving the kids (and ourselves) room. I know that following the promptings we've been given leads to blessings that we can't always see.  Sometimes, you must sacrifice good for something better and then you must sacrifice the better for the best.  As for now, we're stuck at home with two kids and Alex not feeling good.  Praying that some extra sleep will do them all some good because we have a busy week ahead of us.

A fresh start

Our life seems to be a roller coaster ride and I'm so grateful that we're doing this as a family.  After our leaky roof and broken plumbing issue, we were ready for a new start and we've had it after a few more trials.

We're definitely learning that Heavenly Father's time is perfect and that we must have complete faith in his plan for us.  During the whole process of putting in an offer on the building, we had a lawyer who did nothing but cause problems.  Our intention was to be out of our old office by February 1st but the lawyer worked as hard as he could to push it out as far as possible.  We were getting worried as we told our landlord that we would be out by the end of February.

On February 9th we signed and after meeting with the lawyer and the seller one last time, he signed on February 12th.  It was cutting it close as my parents and brother's were coming up to help us move that weekend.

We spent Friday over at the new office working on the shower (there was no hot water) and cleaning a bit.  Apparently the valve that came with the shower blocked all hot water which would make for an awful cold shower for any guest that came up.  We ended up running to home depot and buying a whole new fixture to get the thing working since they no longer carry that specific valve assembly.

The next day we went over to the new office and started getting things vacuumed and ready for things to be moved in.  My family arrived and helped us continue cleaning and setting up.  Our first few trips to the old office were to pick up largest furniture along with any little things we could stuff amongst them in my parents jeep and our trailer.  I was so grateful to my brother's who stayed at the new office with Luke so that we had extra space to carry things back and forth.

After the first night, Kaylee flopped down on the floor.  

Poor girl was exhausted from running all over all day long.

The long hallway.  No wonder why the kids slept so well.

*SQUISH* hugs. 

After we started moving things in, we realized we had a dilemma. The outlet that we were going to use for the servers was not one, but two 20 amp breakers. All of the other outlets in the room were tied to my office and the one in the kitchen.  If I were to turn the burner on to make candles, I would easily pop the breaker so we had to rethink our plans and move Alex to another room.
 

Kaylee was playing in Daddy's new office.

Nothing is better than running back and 

forth with boxes when you're a little kid. 

My mom helped me set up this set of candles.  

I had to wait till Monday when I went to work to 

pick up another pack of drywall anchors to hang up 

my melts board.  I think it turned out pretty good. 

My family left on Monday shortly after I got back from work.  Thanks to them, we had 99% of our stuff out of the old office and into the new.  On Tuesday we ran back over to the old office with a few boxes, loaded up the remaining stuff, vacuumed, and locked up.  It felt SOOOOOO good to be out of there. 

The Classroom

We got the projector hanging up. 

The Meeting Room

People can rent out this space for meetings.

The Front Desk

This is our front counter where we intake and send out computers. 

We've added a little more to it since this picture was taken. 

The Waiting Area

Grab a chair and take a seat while we look over the computer... 

The Sales Room

Space for vendors to rent out and sell crafts.

Our most recent venture is getting signage up.  I've spent the last two days working on putting together my banners (between the green & blue flag).  Alex helped me put them up today!!!  

The flags in themselves have caught a lot of new attention already.  We are having our grand re-opening ribbon cutting this coming Saturday.  

Luke has been begging me to put names on the doors to their playrooms.  I finally did it today. 

Kaylee's girly font and a flower.

Luke's handwriting turned into big bold 

print along with a grasshopper I designed. 

Well its been a long day and tomorrow won't be any different so until then, I'm off to bed.  I will keep everyone posted on the ribbon cutting!!!

Where there are trials, there are also blessings

In mid-December I was sitting on the floor working on a Christmas gift for Luke when I felt like a drip of water hit my head.  Being inside, it took me a minute to realized something really did hit my head.  I looked up only to realize there was a drop of water getting ready to fall.  We were in the middle of a storm that included a lot of wind and rain.  There had been water damage to the ceiling from the past but we figured the problem had been resolved and just never repainted.  I called our landlord's daughter (our point of contact) and told her what was wrong.  She said she would return my call after getting a hold of her dad.

Right before we left for our week long vacation for Christmas, I was at work for training and I got a text from Alex saying that the ceiling had cracked and a bunch of water poured in. We were all frustrated at this point.  A couple days later a chunk of the ceiling (a little larger than a golf ball) fell in showing us not just the amount of moisture that was up there, but also the black mold.  We ended up calling the landlord's daughter again and let her know the condition had worsened.  Since drips were coming down in multiple spots, Alex tacked a garbage bag up and poked a single hole in the middle of the bag to help it all drain to a central location (a bucket on the floor). We finally made the decision that it was time to move and started looking for other buildings, in the end coming back to one we had looked at multiple times before. 

Since our business is the main source of income for our family and we don't have anyone to run our shop, vacations are not only short, but few and far between.  Our business had grown in leaps and bounds recently and allowed us to take a full week off for Christmas.  We got to go down and visit with family and friends around the Portland area.  Minus the driving, the kids loved it and it was nice to take a break from our daily routine.

We had breakfast with Grammie Sanford on Christmas Eve and then went over to the Johnson's side for dinner. 

Kaylee loved playing with Grandma Johnson's candles. 
It even looks like she was trying to light one with the other.

Luke was super excited to get to see everyone and open his gifts.

Luke got a Jake and the Neverland Pirates set of blocks.  

Him and Kaylee sat on the floor playing with them together. 

On Christmas morning we had breakfast and opened up gifts with my parents and brothers before heading out to the Jordan's house.

Kaylee wasn't too sure about this (doll) sippy

Grandma & Grandpa got her, nothing would come out.

Luke and Kaylee each got their first pair of real cowboy/cowgirl 

boots from their Uncle Josh.  Luke thought they were the 

greatest thing because they were like Uncle Josh's.

Kaylee loved crawling around in the tunnel at 

Uncle Duane & Aunt Joyce's house.

For Christmas dinner we went out to GGma's. 

Kaylee had a lot of fun going in circles with her new stroller. 

The next day we went over to Vancouver to see Bonnie.  Luke loves going to Bonnie's house and Kaylee found lots of stuff she could get into.   That evening for dinner we went to Kevin & Holley's.  While all the big people's were playing ping pong, Kaylee found this toy shotgun in the big bucket...hmmm, she must be mine. 

Luke & Papa were playing with the nurf guns and darts. 
Luke would shoot the dart and Papa would catch it. 
He would giggle and squeal.  

 

When we got back from our little vacation, the roof and ceiling had still not been repaired and we knew it was time to start moving forward with things.  In the middle of January we put an offer in on this building we had been looking at and waited to see what would happen. 

When we came into the office a week ago Monday, our toilet was draining really slow and by Tuesday, it was not flowing at all, in fact, any time you ran water in the sink, the toilet would over flow. We tried plunging, snaking, and even CO2 blasting the dang thing but nothing worked.  On Wednesday morning we called our landlord's daughter and let her know. On Thursday a plumber stopped by to look at the problem and we were told we had a broken pipe under the building...YUCK.

 At this point both us and the buyer have signed the offer and we just completed the inspection and will hopefully be closing on the property this coming weekend.  Our hope is to be out of our current building and into the new one by mid February.  When we get moved in, I will post pictures.

So Thankful

I have so much to be thankful for in my life.  November is a time where we all reflect on those things as Thanksgiving rolls around.  This year my heart truly has overflowed with gratitude for the blessings which we have. No, we aren't rich with money, but we are rich with the blessings we do have. 

When we moved here, our business grew faster than it ever did in Battle Ground.  When I got my job it made it harder to run the business but we did our best.  I thought about quitting my job but it was and is something I really enjoy doing.  After many nights of praying for guidance, we felt inspired to go for a drive one day.  A shop had just opened up in a building we'd previously looked at.  We were able to get in almost immediately and for a low monthly rent that we couldn't beat.  With in a month, we saw our income grow and it has continued to do so ever since. 

Back in October, our neighbor was getting rid of the old camper trailer that had been sitting on the property.  It was definitely not in good shape but a few guys who were kind of grungy came by and got it.  Alex wasn't feeling good so he went back to bed and I took the kids to church.  While sitting in the mother's room feeding Kaylee, I get a message from Alex saying the guys are back and wanting to place an offer on the property.  Our biggest problem was that they all smoked, which would give us migraines constantly.   The second was if they are willing to live in that mold infested trailer, what other junk were they going to going to bring with them?  And third, there is no water or sewer on that property so unless they were going to pull the trailers off all the time to fill and dump, they would probably try and use our trailer hookup for septic and water.  Alex and I both had a bad feeling about this so with a quick little prayer and felt inspired to finally put an offer in. 

In November, we saw our dreams coming true.  We signed the papers mid November and have started talking about building our dream home hopefully here in the next couple years.  One of the things we are hoping to do is move the business onto the property to lower our over all costs and pay things off quicker. 

The same day we signed on our new property, we also participated in a local bazaar that I organized at our local museum.  Alex and Luke had left and I had two ladies come in and nearly wipe out my clearance section with in a matter of minutes.  I meant to get pictures but balancing a baby and two tables full of candles made things a bit tough.  I do believe it was our best event yet. 

One of the things we've been wanting to do is computer classes.  We have been talking about it for over a year but we finally ordered our tables, chairs, and projector ceiling mount.  Our first class will be in December and from there we will continue to grow and expand the classes based on what our clients want to learn about.

As for now, I'm off to bed as I have another busy day ahead of us. 

October Fun!!!

Though the weather really started to cool off, 

we love to go walks out on the board walk on sunny days.

Luke and daddy heading out to look at the waves. 

 

 Kaylee watching the waves...

 

Our beautiful coastline.

Lukas being quite the little ham!

 Both of our kids have goofy personalities and Kaylee loves to show it with her drool covered face.  She won't let me get a picture but she now has six teeth (two on the bottom and four on top). 

In October they have a Cranberry Festival to celebrate the harvest of all the cranberries.  This year we had a booth for my business.  We were sitting right on the edge of the old basketball court and Luke loved to go run in circles. He was also a huge fan of the kettle corn tent.  Watching them pop the corn in the big kettle was quite the entertainment for him.  (He's standing just to the left of the pole in the blue shirt watching them.)

I finally decided to get brave and paint these cute chubby little toes.  I got her one foot done and then she wouldn't stop wiggling so we painted mommy's and then she let me paint her other foot.  She was totally amused by the fact that they were colored.

Happy 4th Birthday Little Monster!!!

He was really excited to get his three new movies.  

He got Bolt, Ratatouille, and one of his favorites WALL-E!

 Grandma Sanford got to come for a visit.  These pictures are so cute/funny and I cried when she left.  I miss her so much and how blessed I am to still have her around. 

You know fall has arrived when you step outside and its not only cold but you see this coming through your trees...

 

 Because of our busy schedule, we ended up just getting on large pumpkin.  I cut the top out and let the kids clean it out.  I was hoping having them on the hall flour, on an old piece of fabric would help make it less messy...what was I thinking?  It ended up a total disaster but the kids loved it anyway. 

This is what happens when mommy lets Luke 'help' sissy with her fruit pouch.  I heard giggles at first, then it turned to Kaylee yelling...needless to say, her shirt, pants, hair, and face were covered in apple sauce.  She was not too happy.  I had to clean her up and find some clothes that were in the 'too big' drawer to fit her into temporally.  

Here are my two little munchkin's.  Luke was a lion and I made Kaylee a candy corn dress.  

Luke's birthday gifts from Grandma Johnson arrived in the mail.  He was excited to open them and even more excited to play with them.  I helped him put them together but once that was done, he wouldn't hold still long enough for me to catch a picture.  

Five Years and Counting.

I can't believe its been FIVE years since the day that this wonderful man asked me to share forever with him.  We've had a lot of ups and downs, we've had a lot of trials that could have easily torn us apart, but we've stuck through it.

Our current major goals are to pay off our property and build our home.


I know I'm a little behind on the blog but to say we've been busy might be an understatement.  Nonetheless, we've had fun and here is what we've been up to this summer.

Lets back up a little.  End of March I got an email from my boss saying that I was finally getting my job back.  I can not tell you how excited I was.  My old boss had said "maybe everything happened for a reason".  I truly believe it did.  Our faith in Heavenly Father grew so much as we went back to a single income, now with two kids.  I got to spend the first three and a half months of my daughters life building a bond with her. 

Back in April, not only did I go back to work for a short time, we also started back at it with my craft business.  Its been three years since we did much so we pretty much felt like we were starting from scratch.  Along with a new start came a new name...Driftwood Beach Crafts.  One thing we'd wanted to do for a long time was candles but at the first market we went to four years ago, the vendor next to us was selling candles and we didn't feel right being competition to her. Now that we were in a different area, we felt like it was something we needed to do.

We spent the months of April and May running test after test on candle after candle.  We wanted to have a high quality candle that burned well.  In the month of June we started producing products.

 

At first we attempted to set up our tent in our parking lot on the busy weekends but it didn't work.  People were more concerned with driving down to the main event down on the strip.  We decided we needed to build up our stock and start taking our business to markets again.  It was exciting, and yet I was a little nervous again.  

Our first event was the Ol' Fashioned 4th down at the museum.  Originally I was supposed to be headed down to Oregon for my cousin's wedding but things started falling through left and right up here and they needed people to step up and help so that's what I did. In turn, they gave me a booth space for free.  I coordinated the vendors and their spaces.  We went from having five vendors, to 12, to 15...FIFTEEN, the day of.  Overall, things went well even though we had a few hiccups. 

Here are some pictures from that day. 

Luke and our GIANT flag.

Our little booth.  Our sign is sideways because we were set up differently to start with. 

 Our awesome (and oh so patient booth neighbor) giving Luke a glitter tattoo.

 Ever since pirate days, Luke has been obsessed.

He was so curious because it was shiny in the sun.

It was a great day and our candle sales went well.  It was a great event and we will be doing it again next year.  Once the day was over, we backed up our booth and dropped everything at the office.  It was late enough and we were tired so we decided to drive down early the next morning.  

The next morning my alarm went off bright and early.  I got out of bed and rotated a load of laundry.  All of a sudden I heard this horrid noise out front.  I poked my head out the door to see a car sitting across the street with the hazards on.  I knew we had to get moving but I also felt like I needed to help whom ever it was.  After talking to Alex for a second, we determined it was a lady out there that hit something.  I threw on a sweat shirt and ran out to help.  When I got out to the road she was sitting in her car on her phone.  I waited till she was done and then I went over to talk to her.  She said she hit something and couldn't move in either direction.  I got down on hands, knees, and eventually my stomach to find an old rusted out muffler lodged under her car. I went and got an eight foot long 2x2 and tried to move it but it wouldn't budge.  She found her jack and we managed to wiggle it out a little at a time, just as her husband arrived.  She whispered to me as I was crawling around on the ground "please don't let him help, he's not well, but don't tell him that.  I just didn't know who else to call".  I quietly said "I won't" as I push it out.  At this point I could have easily said that I'm too busy or on too much of a time crunch to help but I just had the feeling that everything would be okay. 

We did push it making it to the wedding but we got there JUST in time.  It was beautiful and I'm so happy for my cousin and his new Bride.  They were both beautiful and the song he sang for her was wonderful.  Here are some of the shots that I got...

 Tuvya was so cute.  Mitchel was going to help carry the sign but he wasn't feeling well.  Tuv did such a great job.  "BRO-BRO, Here Comes Your GIRL".

Here comes the bride.  Michelle's dress was so beautiful and her smile was radiant.

 Father waiting to give away his daughter. 

 Alex had written a song a while back not knowing just how well it would fit.  Michelle requested that he sing it for their wedding. 

You may now kiss the bride...
Mr. & Mrs. Alex Jordan

After the ceremony we all went up to the lodge for refreshments. 

 

The gift I made for them as they start their life and home together!

 

The next day we went out to 'GGma's' after church for a yummy lunch.  After lunch we went outside to set off fire works.  His favorite this year...the sparkler.

Daddy covering Kaylee's ears.  Gotta love the chubby cheeks.

 

 I love my camera and I'm still learning.  The farm is one of my favorite places to take pictures.  It is where I spent a lot of my childhood and I love nature.  The sky was blue and the moon was out. 

Since we got home in early July, we started making a lot of candles and getting ready for a few different markets. First we started out with the flea/farmers market hosted by our local robotics club.  Its been great getting to know the parents and the kids.  

In the process of us loading one day, not only did Kaylee figure out how to crawl, she also figured out how to pull herself up on brother's wagon...ohhhh boy!

After two weeks there we went to the Saturday Market in Ilwaco.  We did okay down there too but we've come to the conclusion that doing smaller markets is a better option for us.  

We ended up going back to the market hosted by the robotics club's market again this last Saturday.

While summer is coming to an end, we still have a couple more markets/events we're planning on doing before I start teaching again in October.