Pictures from the move

John almost lost this mattress in the wind

Jess :)

Dan Murphy, the first domino to fall in our Redcloud shuffle

Movies kept the kids busy

Guilt

I feel as though my stuff is doomed. That anything I leave here is being left to its death. A really weird feeling to abandon it all here!

Last Night

I would love to share all that has been going on with us the last few days, but honestly, I don't have the time. However, I did want to give you a quick update. We did not know it, but we spent our last night in our home last night. The board said they don't want anyone to spend another night in their trailers. So we are staying at the Family Ministries Lodge tonight and everynight until we move into our new home. Which for us, should be only a few more days! YAY! We are excited but we just found out this evening and it has been a VERY long day for us. So we are about to grab our jammies, head over to the lodge and crash. I will update you more very soon! Please be praying for sufficient rest and strength for us as we are about to start a very crazy week.

Saying goodbye to a season

As long as we have been serving Camp Redcloud, John and Pat Sloan have served as our CEO/President. But to me, they have been more like our serogate parents/mentors/disciplers/family/serogate grandparents to Ethan/supporters/dear, precious friends. We love them so much, but their season at Redcloud is coming to an end. They will continue to stay involved and help in the summers; however, a couple of weeks ago, we spent 4 long days packing up their house to make room for another family. This has allowed the Burgesses to move out of their trailer (see previous post). It was a huge sacrifice on the Sloans part, but a very needed one. Camp now has a new CEO/President whom we are growing to know and love. The Jacksons are an answer to our prayers and, well, a new season, that God has placed before us. I am just having a hard time saying goodbye to the "Sloan Season." Why can't I have two seasons at once? The problem with calling it a season is seasons always come back around, usually every year. John and Pat will never fill their previous position as CEO at Camp, but I do hope they never stop filling the position they were to me and that I get to see that season every year! It has been such a sweet season with its storms and its sunny days. Thank you John and Pat!

Pat and I on Moving day (we labeled her shirt with a Hershey's Hugs paper that says, "hug me, hug me, hug me.... ")

The Main Issue, ...this year

You may recall the water main leak from last year. It took us weeks, if not a month or two, to find it. This winter, we started having the same issues again, much to John's dismay. He had just passed his "Small water system operators" class and was now the go-to guy for the water system. They looked close to the spot that broke last year, where they found and fixed the new leak in a couple of days! Praise God! He has been so good to us. Thank you for always praying for us and for the Camp.

The Rug!

We finally got the bear rug back! Until we move, he will remain in John's office. You will notice that it is folded in half to fit on the wall. This is because he measured 7' 6" square!

Exciting stuff!!!

The first family has moved out of their trailer! PRAISE GOD!! On Monday of this week, the demolition of their home started, which was a big spectacle around camp. Seeing this trailer come down was amazing. Amazing to see God providing for the families here, amazing to see the dream of so many, finally coming to fruition! As an added praise to this week, $300,000.00 has been raised to finish the housing and get the rest of the families out of their trailers. Our family is scheduled to be moving in the next few weeks. We are a little behind schedule but we continue to pray for our safety. I am glad I don't know everything that was in the inspection report of our trailer because I like to sleep at night, and I am learning to trust God to protect us another night... And every night after, while we remain in this trailer. He has protected us for 5 years now and many other families for 20 years before us!

John and the Boys celebrating the destruction of the trailer!

The "footprint" of the trailer

Moving

So, Good news.... 90 days have flown by for us and we are moving in the next few weeks. Yes, I know, the 90 days have not gone by in a week but for our family, we didn't have to wait until May 1st. The home we are going to move into will be opening up in the next few weeks. Pretty crazy!

I am so excited but also humbled and sad. Our sweet friends, Brant and Jessica, will be moving out of their beautiful home so we can be safely out of our trailer. It is so bitter sweet to me. I love their home and I love visiting them there, but now I feel as though I am kicking them out. They have assured me they have chosen to move into town and rent so we can enjoy their home but it is still a lot to process. The Sloans have also chosen to move out of their home to allow another family to move out of their trailer.

Please pray for the money needed to get the remaining 3 families out of their trailers. There is still so much work to be done in the next 90 days.

OH....and the bad news..... water is dripping out of the light socket above my computer. So I have a bowl on top of the monitor to collect the water. Maybe I won't miss this trailer!

90 Days

I hesitate to write this entry as I struggle with my emotions. I am so excited yet cautious to get ahead of God and be let down. I have chosen to share my excitement and trust the Lord!

Last night we had a meeting here at camp to discuss our housing arrangements. Those of you that have visited us know that we, and 5 other families, live in old mobile homes (roughly 30 to 40 years old). We are so thankful for the housing but they have their "issues". Camp has been struggling to provide new housing that would replace the trailers but the money has not yet been raised. A couple weeks ago, we had an inspector inspect our homes to see what he can do to make them safe. As he went through each one, he found that they are irrepairable. Camp has decided they want to have each family out of their home in 90 days and they are coming up with a plan to provide housing for us. However, the money will still be needed to complete the plan.

We need your prayers for the next 90 days! We have made a plan and we will wait eagerly to see what God’s plan is. Money is not an issue to God as he will provide for all of our needs. So, Please join us in praying for funds, building resources, and wisdom. Praise the Lord for His protection over our homes throughout the years!

SNOW!

We Got our first Snow!!

Handed Down

This spring, after our weather port (a.k.a. our storage shed) collapsed under the incredible amount of snow we got, I started going through our belongings. I had way too many baby clothes that I had saved in hopes of having another little one. Now six years later, no more little ones have come into our home and I realized that I have bin after bin of clothes I love but are doing no one any good sitting in a storage shed. It was incredibly hard to part with all the little outfits, but hardest of all was my baby furniture. I know I didn't HAVE to get rid of it but it was taking up a lot of space and I knew it was time. This does not mean I have given up hope of having another baby... it just means that it was time to stop planning on it. It was a really good process for me to go through and reminded me of how blessed we really are that God gave us the son we have. He is a beautiful gift from God as were all of the wonderful things people gave us when we had him and it was time to pass that gift on. Our Crib came from Walnut hill and the matching changing table came from Paul Quinn. It was so wonderful to see God provide for us then and that they matched!! That was not planned but a huge blessing for me! Anyhow... I ended up giving most of our clothes to a couple here at camp that were pregnant with a baby boy AND I finally gave up the crib and changing table. If God blessed us before, who is to say he wouldn't do that again! I know that he would! So just today I recieved an update to her blog with pictures of their nursery all set up! It is so cool to see someone else receive joy from the furniture, But it also tugged at my heart. Hopefully someday that will be me again, but if not, I am so thankful that God has given me the son I have. I wouldn't trade him for the world!

Ethan's old crib and changing table in Chester's new nursery

New Addition to our Family

We have been looking for a while for a vehicle that would fit our needs. Our needs being: better gas mileage, 4 wheel drive, decent clearance (for the rocky roads we have to drive), cheaper parts than our Isuzu and enough cargo space to travel. Finding something to match all of those requirements is pretty much impossible. So which ones were the most important? That was a question that kept us awake at night. OH.... and like anything else, of course, it had to fit into our budget. Well, it is a very long story, one I am sure you don't want to hear, so I will spare you. But we had pretty much given up when we saw this one online in denver, and since we had been given a 2 night stay in Colorado Springs (just 35 mins. away), we decided to give it one more weekend. We looked at the Denver vehicle on friday and piles of cars in Colorado Springs on Saturday. After finding nothing in C. Springs, we went back to Denver for one last look. If we didn't like this one, we were done for a while. They accepted our first offer on the vehicle and we didn't pay more than we had planned!!! It was such a relief but also nerve-racking driving it the 5 hours home through the mountains. It is a 2003, Jeep Liberty Renegade and it has 54,000 miles on it! (it also gets anywhere from 5 to 8 mpg's better than our Trooper) I think John and I have only bought one vehicle that had less than 100,000 miles and it was just barely under. We praise God for this vehicle that should last us a long time!

Horse Club

If you read the previous post, here is a horse club picture that another mom sent me. This is Ethan and Sparky.

First Day of School

We are homeschooling Ethan and this picture is his first official day of school for his first grade year. Not the typical picture of a kid in a large class room with his back pack and cubbie, but It is pretty exciting for him. We pulled out the school table and set up for the day. Our first week went very well and we are looking forward to starting our second week tomorrow. Well, at least Ethan is, I have yet to sit down today and work on our lesson plans. Today was the first day of fall Horse Club. I cannot believe the improvement over last year. Last year I was his teacher, mainly getting him comfortable on the horse and getting him used to trotting and steering. But he would get very frustrated with me making him make the horse obey him. Weird sentence but it does make sense! It brought up a lot of good opportunities to share how John and I feel trying to guide him when he wants to do his own thing. Today was awesome though. He was with a group of 5 6yr. olds and he did great. I didn't see him fighting with the horse and he seemed to be very assertive with Sparky. Of course I forgot my camera, but I will get some pictures next week.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

What John has been up to

John got a archery bear tag this fall but wasn't sure if he would have the time to fill it, since it coincided with his Elk hunting season. Then we found Mr. Bear up a tree near our house. John and the guys waited for him to come down and he got a good shot, hitting one lung, but the bear still had some life left in him. They tracked him from 9:15 am til 3:30 in the afternoon. When they found him he was injured badly and almost done for, so John stuck him one more time. This time though it did not glance off the shoulder blade and he died instantly. Now we have, most likely, a record size bear with his height measuring around 7ft 4in and his skull measuring 21 to 22 inches initially, but not officially. He was massive. If you don't like hunting pictures... you may not want to continue; However, I did try to keep the real bloody pictures out.

In this picture you will notice the two blue tags in his ears. This was a problem bear that was relocated and had 2 strikes against him. Next time he would be destroyed and the Department of Wildlife was pleased that a hunter got to him and will benefit from the kill rather than it just being tossed. This picture was taken of him up in the tree, if you hadn't figured that out.

The Hunters (L to R): John, Mark, Brant and Justin. (we missed Kirk in this photo somehow but he was there and a big help)

John and Mr. Bear

John, Ethan, Jimmy (who helped Track him) and Brant

John's Hand in comparison to the bear's front paw

A Men's Retreat was taking place at the Family Ministries Facility and some of the men saw the guys dragging Mr. Bear out of the woods. They came over to help and get their picture taken with the massive bear. They, being from Atlanta, Georgia, were shocked that women and children would be there witnessing the events.

Then we pulled up to the Family Lodge and the men continued to pour out to see it and get their picture taken with it. Talk about the perfect men's retreat!

Kate, Claire and Ethan enjoying the event.

Riding in the truck with bear didn't seem to bother the kids at all

John enjoying the spectacle