We've got luggage! Yesterday Ryan's parents gave us a combined birthday present of a good quality luggage set. We are still waiting and praying for our house to sell, but it was a blessing for God to provide in yet another way for us.

Well, Moses and I have gotten the nasty head cold bug that Ryan and Elijah had. Elijah still has a cold so all three of us have been feeling crummy this past week. The weather has been beautfiul here so that is helpful. At least we're not feeling yucky with yucky weather to go along with it.

Healthy Dessert

I just made this really yummy but very healthy pear crisp that I got from world's healthiest foods site. It doesn't have any sugar or flour, I was impressed with how it turned out.
Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 4 d'anjou pears
• 3 cups water
• ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
• ½ cup apple juice, divided in half
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2/3 cup almonds
• ½ cup raisins
• ½ cup rolled oats
• 1½ TBS chopped fresh ginger
• 1 TBS honey

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
   
2. Place water and lemon juice in bowl.
   
3. Cut pears into quarters, cut out core and slice ¼ inch thick. As you do this place the pear slices in water with lemon juice to keep from turning brown.
   
4. Drain and toss pears with cinnamon and ¼ cup of the apple juice.
   
5. Place almonds, oats, raisins and ginger in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until well ground and mixed. Place in a bowl and add honey and rest of apple juice. Mix well.
   
6. Place pears in an 8x8 baking dish and cover with topping. Bake for about 35 minutes until pears are bubbling.
   

Serves 4

Spring Forward

Turning our clocks one hour ahead is a hard adjustment because we still have to get up at 6am. Lately, I guess all of one day, I'm not tired until 10pm, which would normally be nine. But one nice thing is my boys are sleeping in until 8:30am-9am instead of 7:30-8am! We'll see how long that lasts before they adjust! So, Hawaii doesn't have daylight savings so when we move there will be a 3 hour time change to get used to! I hope that doesn't mean the boys will start waking at 5am!

Brief Update

We've been encoraged by to see God provide for us in many ways and show his faithfulness to us again and again. We are still preparing to move to Hawaii, thought the exact date is not set yet because we are waiting for our home to sell. We have sold two major items which is yet another confirmation that God is providing and leading us to Hawaii. We sold our expensive dining room table last week and we sold our car yesterday. These were two significant sales and now the third is our home. Please pray that God would provide a buyer for it. Once we sell our house we will, buy our tickets, have a moving sale for the rest of our stuff and give away what we don't sell and we'll be off. Our desire was to be out there by the end of March...so we'll continue to wait, pray and see how the Lord leads.

Please pray for Elijah too. He has a bad cold and I took him into urgent care yesterday just to get checked out and make sure it was nothing serious, which it's not, but he he has bronchiolitis, which is the same thing he had at a week old. But he has a runny nose, bad cough, and sounds wheezy. I have an inhaler I'm giving him every 4 hours, but if anyone has any home remedies or any advice please pass it along. He is happy and in good spirits overall so that is a blessing, but it's so hard when your baby is sick:(

I've learned my lesson!

I am convinced that it does not save time or money to take shortcuts, at least I have not learned how to make shortcuts work for me. I have had several frustrating situations in the last couple of weeks happen to me and I have resolved to not take shortcuts again (at least not any time soon).
Okay, so my husband was sick a week and a half ago and we went to the store to get some cold medicine. Well, I was comparing brands it seemed that buying the store brand would be just as good as the name brand, considering it had all the same ingredients. Well, this particular medicine had no affect at all on him, whether or not it just didn't work because it was not a name brand or I just bought the wrong stuff I'm not sure, but I have concluded that when it comes to medicine I'm not going to buy the store brand again. So, here I was trying to save us money by buying the cheaper stuff, but instead I ended up spending twice as much time and money when I had to go out the next evening and purchace another cold remedy for my husband (this time it worked).
Here is my other frustrating situation: A few nights ago I had to go to the store for a few groceries and diapers. I went to one store for the groceries and they also carry diapers but they were $1.50 more than I would normally pay and you got 8 less than I usually get. So, I decided was going to save $1.50 and get 8 more diapers by going to Walmart which was 2 minutes away. So, I drove over there and thought, hmm, I'll just park in the back of the store by the Walmart car shop (where they sell tires and work on the engine), and go in that entrance. This will save time driving around the store and trying to find a spot. It seemed like it would be much quicker going this way (which by the way is something I never do). So, I also had my 17 month old with me so I carried him in the store and didn't even get a cart, I'm going to be quick I thought. Well, I got the diapers then I remembered that I needed toilet paper too. So here I am carrying toilet paper (12 double rolls pack), a package of diapers and Moses. I let him walk some, but again, I was trying to be quick and things were getting heavy! So I made my way to the back of the store where I came in and when I got there the only register that is in the back was closed! I couldn't believe it! So, there I was with two big packages of diapers and toilet paper and Moses and no cart! I was overcome with grief and anger, I just dropped to my knees beside Moses and let my packages fall... Then when I realized that there were no employees around to see my dilemma, I "girded up my loins" so to speak and began the journey to the front of the store to check out. I was so angry at myself for the choices I made that brought me into Walmart to begin with. So, I carried my load down the aisle and around the corner and I can't even remember if I prayed or not, I was just so mad at how things were turning out, and the Lord in his goodness provided an empty cart just down the next aisle. I whispered a thank you Lord and piled in my goods, made my way to the U-scan and "quickly" paid for my items. I finally was able to head back to the rear of the store exit and back to the car. This whole ordeal took about 25 minutes or so. I was exhausted by now and I had also worn my most uncomfortable pair of shoes, certainly not made for walking! Oh, and then get this, when I got to Walmart, the diapers I usually buy were way up high on a shelf that I couldn't reach and there was no one around to ask for help. So after I waited for a few minutes, I decided to buy the next cheapest brand. So, I really only ended up saving like $.30 which by no means was worth the time and hassle that I ended up going through! Next time I'll take a hit at the other store, pay $1.50 more and get 8 less diapers all for the sake of preserving my sanity!

These two situations were very frustrating because I was trying to be a good steward of our money but it ended up backfiring in my face! I am learning that I need to just make sure I either do more research beforehand (like find out what is the best cold medicine to buy) and make a good purchace the first time so I won't end up spending twice as much to make up for poor planning or a bad buy.

It's all so Sweet

Sweet Blessings
Days go by so quickly the older you get(don't you think?), unlike when I was a child and it seemed like my birthday and Christmas took forever to arrive! But now that I'm so old (almost 24), the days go by so fast and each day is so wonderful when I look at my husband and two sweet little boys and realize how incredibly blessed I am. I wish that I could somehow bottle up these precious moments that are going to vanish ever so quickly and keep them forever. By God's grace I hope to savor these days that he's given me with my husband and children. I never ever thought my heart could be so overwhelmed with love for them. I shake my head now at the memory, but I remember thinking once when I was a nanny in college, will I be able to love my kids? How silly...I just thought that God had given me such a love for other people's kids, I felt afraid that I wouldn't be able to love my own. Little did I know...
God is so wonderfully good, upon a wretch like me he has bestowed such bountiful blessings.

Sweet Days of Waiting on the Lord
We are going through another season of trusting the Lord and walking by faith in a more intense way then we have in awhile. We are being stretched and it's good, life is too often lived by sight and our faith is weak, but praise God for his faithfulness to us! Life has been full and busy here at our home. We are preparing to move to Hawaii soon to join our friends in church planting, but there are some big details that we are waiting to be taken care of first. So we're not sure when the move will take place, but we hope it will be mid to late March. The biggest thing is selling our mobile home. We had a potential buyer but it doesn't seem like that is going to work out now. Please pray that God would provide another buyer and work out all the details involved. Pray that our faith and trust in the Lord would increase and that we would daily grow more in love with our Lord.
So, once we sell our place we'll be able to buy the tickets and hopefully all the other little details will fall into place. We are confidant that God is calling us out there, so it's just a matter of faith and trust on our part to look to the Lord to lead and guide us. If anyone would like more specific details on our move to Hawaii or the church plant, please email me and I'd love to pass on more info to you.

Chocolate, Sweets and Other Not so Healthy ThingsI suppose everything is okay in moderation, except when one consistently craves it! I go through phases with food, and sometimes I'm totally fine without eating dessert or chocolate for long periods of time, but then there are times when I want something sweet every day, or twice a day! It's frustrating to me because I end up driving myself crazy in my mind. I can tell I've given in to the desire too much because in order to get my chocolate or sweet "fix" it has to be a fair amount or something stronger than usual (like a rich chocolate). I think and think about eating it, then I do, than I'm like, ugh, why did I do that? I realize I've been trying to fight my craving in my own strength and I need to really pray and look to God to help me.. but there is a part of me that really doesn't want victory just because I really like my sweet treats. So where does that leave me? I realize that I need to have a greater desire, a greater pleasure, so how do I quit? Does this craving have anything to do with that time of the month? Does anyone know? It's hard going cold turkey, so I think that it would be good to have some sweet yet healthy alternatives. I bought some organic chocolate coolies today, they're like Oreos but they're called Newman-Os or something like that, and they taste okay, almost like an Oreo but they're sweetened differently. Now, I don't think that a great pleasure than chocolate is some other healthy sweet, I just think that might help, but I believe that a great pleasure might be how great it will be to eat more healthy or to feel more healthy. I don't know, and I rationalize so much too like, I don't eat potato chips or processed food or any other "junk" period, I just like chocolate stuff! UGh! Okay, well, I need to end this because this is becoming venting rant and I don't know what profit it is to me or anyone! I would gladly welcome anything thoughts, advice and suggestions about whatever if it would be beneficial to me. Thank you so much for listening.

Changing Cultures

I have not posted for quite some time because we have been very busy! Last week was preparation for our traveling and then we flew out to Hawaii to visit our friends who are church planting on the big island. The picture to the left is road near our friend's house. This particular area is very jungle like, very rural and not anything like one might invision Hawaii from travel brochures and postcards. There is a great need out here for strong churches as this area is one of the most unchurched areas in America. Hawaii is really a forgotten mission field because it's apart of the united states and often only thought of a tourist attraction and paradise with golden beaches. Anyways, we feel that God is calling us to join our friends in church planting and to minister to the people there.
I will write more soon, but I just wanted to post a quick update about what is going on with us. Also, if the Lord puts it upon your hearts, please pray for us as we prepare to move and all the details that requires. Also, for the people of Puna, that God's spirit would move among the people and that many would come to know the Lord. This area has a lot of people who have actually moved out from the mainland who are into new age kind of thinking. There are a lot of hippie-type of people, and drugs are pretty bad here. I don't know a whole lot , I'm still learning about what it's like there, but it's good because our friend who is the head church planter was born and raised there and we might be living with him and his wife for awhile so we'll be able to learn a lot from them.
Please feel welcome to post any tips on travel, moving, or other words of encouragment.
Thanks for your prayers!