December 30, 2013

For those of you who didn't have the privilege of talking to me on Christmas....

Early Christmas Eve afternoon we went to a lady's house with the elders for German food! Then elders had to leave because her son left but we got permission to stick around and watch The Polar Express! Later than evening we went to another single sister's house. We found out that her family in town hadn't invited her over for Christmas so we kind of invited ourselves over. She made us spaghetti and then we watched Joy to the World.

Christmas was great! It started snowing just a little bit while we were studying in the morning. Then Sister McDowell and I got back into her pjs to open presents. We just chilled for a few hours and then went to a member's house for lunch. Then we went straight to another member's house for dinner. SO MUCH FOOD! At which point I got to skype the fam :) PS Kenz I DON'T appreciate being called awkward....it's only gonna get worse by the time I get home. HA and you have to live with me.

So Christmas was almost the highlight of the week, because Thursday was TERRIBLE. We went tracting for awhile because, well we didn't have any appointments. I think just about everyone on this particular street opened their door, said they weren't interested in a not very polite way and closed the door. This one lady didn't even answer. Through the door she asked what we wanted. We told her. Her reply "we love Jesus go away" haha Sister McDowell and I tried to laugh as much as we could. I felt like Thursday was a complete waste of a day. I was in a pretty bad mood by the end of it. Friday wasn't much better. Well district meeting was pretty good. Remember Nathan? I gave him a call Friday night asking if we could stop by the next day. He said to try after 2.

So after 2 rolls around and we try Nathan, but no one was home! I slipped a fell and scraped by knee and got super wet. So frustrating. On Wednesday Chastity texted us saying she wanted us to come over so we could prepare her for baptism! We had a lesson with her Saturday evening. She had read everything that we asked her to. We taught her the beginning of the plan of salvation, she was soaking it up like a sponge! She was very giddy and excited to learn. At the end we committed her to be baptized on February 15th. She proceeded to fill out all the lines on the back of the pamphlet we left her (probably only RMs know what I'm talking about). Then she said "I have a date, it's like I'm getting married or something!" Sister McDowell and I just laughed at her. She then invited herself to our weddings and said she was going to throw cake haha.  Were way pumped about her. In fact at church the next day she went up to the elders and showed them her baptism date.

Sunday was kind of intense. Both Sister McDowell and I figured we wouldn't be staying together, so that's all we could think about. Church was alright, BUT AFTER!!!! Ok this is exactly what I put in my journal entry last night.

"I love being a missionary!!! I wish I could capture exactly the emotions I feel when I teach. After church we walked to see if Nathan was home. He was! He was planning on us just dropping off a Book of Mormon, we had other plans which included teaching him a lesson. We asked him if he had some time that we could sit down and talk to him. We said and opening prayer and did HTBT (I usually forget). Then he told us how it had been a rough couple of days. So we started right into the Restoration. I LOVE TEACHING!!!!!! He was soaking it all in. I did most of the talking...I just get so excited! We went into more detail on the Book of Mormon because that's what he was interested in. Once we got done explaining it and bearing our testimonies, we didn't even have to commit him to read it, he said he was going to all on his own! Then we explained about the restoration of authority and committed his to baptisjm!! Aaaahh...he said yes, obviously. He told us how he had been baptized when he was younger, but he didn't know what it meant. He totally felt the Spirit. He loved the pictures in the pamphlet, especially the First Vision. He looked like he was going to start crying a couple of times. We asked him to pray at the end and he said no because he would start crying. I walked out of his house on clouds! I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay in that moment forever. When I was committing him to baptism I felt like it was a The District worthy moment for sure. I love being able to share my testimony and watch people be able to feel the Spirit. I really wish I could capture every feeling I felt, but words can't describe it. In PMG it says that sometimes we receive referrals because someone else is prepared. Nathan is a perfect example. It's an incredible experience to see someone hungry for truth. He hadn't heard about anything we shared with him."

Seriously nothing could bring me down after that lesson. All the pain/misery from the past two days were swept away in that 45ish minutes we spent with him.

Transfer calls seemed to take forever. The unexpected happened! We are BOTH staying in Plymouth. I think I'm excited?!? No I am. I felt like my work wasn't done here yet, but I felt like there was a possibility that I would get moved. I feel like I'm just getting to know the area, and even though it's hard I think Sister McDowell and I will finally be able to see some changes.

 So I'm looking forward to the next six weeks and the challenges that lay ahead

Kitchen

Thank you to some awesome men that came to help rip out the cabinets in the old kitchen.  They put in more solid then anything I'd ever seen.

Maybe my most favorite part of the new kitchen is this great farm house sink.  It's deep, its big and it will hold my big stock pot!

















This girl and her sister have been so much help with the painting.  Too bad she's gone and her sister will follow soon. :0(

House Remodel and Addition

 After much planning and patience we finally were able start our addition.  We had hopped that it would start just after we had purchased our home but nothing ever seems to happen when we'd like them too.  The first to go was the old deck that was on its last leg so it didn't take much for it to go.

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 An unwanted swimming hole was created when we found out that the previous owners had left the original septic tank in the ground and then we had a ton of rain for about a week.  Needless to say the water had to be pumped out and additional gravel brought in.  This was the first of many surprises.

 Walls of the first floor going up.

 The roof off of the attic was gone and of coarse it started to rain.  We were pretty lucky it wasn't too bad until the wind started blowing.  Then we got to have a lovely blue tarp over our house.  I was glad it was only on the back of the house.

 We discovered the that the original ceiling  when we needed to tear down the ceiling to  add new lighting.

 Upstairs  in the new addition.

 The new upstairs bathroom

This became the temporary storage room where all the stuff from the attic went.  Thankfully it was clean when K and M came home from school.

 A boy with a power tool!

It's finally ours!

Finally after 3 long years of hoping to buy our house and farm we did it!  We are so grateful that things have come into place.  Now we are planning for a remodel.  They say if your marriage can survive a remodel it can survive anything(I don't know who "they" are).  But I  don't think it will be too bad since we already built a house together.  I'm really looking forward to getting rid of the 8 different colors of carpet, including the carpet in the kitchen....what were they thinking????

Doesn't anybody want to stay in one place anymore?

These are Kyla and Mackenzie's friends that moved to Arizona last week, we were very sad to see them go.  They did leave their older brother behind to finish his Senior year so we are glad they will need to come visit for football games.

 I grew up in the same town for most of my life, in fact my mom told me this week they have lived in the same town now for 40 years.  Hard to believe it's been that long. 

The first 7 years of our marriage we moved 7 times, then we stayed in CA for 2 years, Portland for 7 and now we've been in WA for 8 years.  It's been hard to see so many people come and go but I guess that is how life is.  Although now it's nice to know that we have so many friends in many places.

Anyone want to move to Lynden?

Skiing at Mission Ridge

Craig and I decided that we wanted to take our kids skiing for Christmas and let those that have never been skiing give it a try. After much debate we dicided on Mission Ridge over on the other side of the mountains. I was lucky enough to find lift tickets for half price and we found a house to stay just outside of Leavenworth that was large enough for our brood. As it got closer to going I started to worry because of the lack of snow in the mountains. The good side it made for a really easy trip picking up Brendon and then going over the pass. Bad news was there was only about 20 inches at the base and maybe twice that much on top. The resort was making snow but I found out for the first time it just is not the same. The other issue was it was soooo cold. I don't think it got over 20 degrees that day any the runs that were open didn't even see the sun

It ended up not being too bad for most of us. Brendon is already a ski bum, Craig and I both grew up skiing and it was like riding a bike. Kyla and Jensen did not have fun and ended up in the lodge most of the day. Kaden started out frustrated and then finally caught on and Mackenzie is a natural. So......5 out of 7 Mayberry's love skiing. We hope to try it again at another location with even better results.

You know it's been a long time since you've blogged when........

You have 9 months worth of pictures to blog about.

Christmas was 6 months ago and you haven't bothered to download them and blog about them.

Your friends ask about your blog and why you haven't updated it.

You have almost forgotten the web address for your blog.

Guess I'd better get caught up!

Graduation

Mackenzie and her friend Abby

 Hard to believe but our 3rd child has graduated from high school!  It was also our 3 graduation that was held inside the gym because it was raining outside the day before and ended up being a gorgeous day on Friday.  Thankfully the gym wasn't nearly as hot when Kyla graduated.

Mackenzie will be heading off to BYU-I in the fall.

Jake and Mackenzie

Mackenzie, Kyla and Taylor

7 Long years......come to an end

When Craig decided to go back to school to get his PhD we thought we had the big plan all figured out. He'd go to school for 4 years, graduate, get a job and we'd live happily ever after.

The reality was we lost our income from our business in OR when it shut down. I had to go back to work, Craig had to find other income(including a paper route for a time) and both Brendon and Kyla graduated from high school before Craig graduated. Although Craig ended up employed with Western Washington University even before he graduated but it still took 3 years longer then we had hoped. Craig had said the last few years he was not going to walk in graduation and I said he was. Guess I won. It was pretty cool. Each of the PhD students had a short write up about what they had done their studies in. Most of the group had done their PhD in some kind of medical research, but Craig was the only one that was business related.

We were also lucky enough that graduation was American Thanksgiving week-end and Kyla was able to come home. We sure wished that Brendon could have been there too. Maybe next time.....oh wait, there had better not be a next time for Craig just the kids!

I'm glad he went back to school but I'm also glad he's done. Farewell UBC!

Long or Short???

I was recently at a church youth activity Kyla mentioned to me in front of a couple men in our ward that we needed to hurry home to cut her hair. The one guy said "Your not going to cut it short are you???" We were going to just cut her bangs a little shorter. This prompted a discussion on whether or not women should have short or long hair.

Since I do cut hair I've always been bothered by men that think all women should have long hair. I have nothing against long hair but a lot of factors go into any hair style. Age, height, lifestyle, if your hair curly or straight and amount of hair a person has have a lot do do with what style a women can wear.

My other opinion is the woman should decide how she wants her hair not her husband. He's not the one that has to wear and style the hair. Besides that I loved it when I heard on "What Not To Wear" that hair is an accessory and it should be changed just like jewelery.

So what is your opinion? Long or short?