House Showings & Balloons

Sounds like a good weekend already, hu?! :-)

Jason had told us that we would have a house showing Saturday morning (a second showing for these people--have I already said that?) so we worked real hard Friday evening and in the morning Saturday to get the house in perfect shape. Well, as perfect as it can be with all that hail damage we're waiting for the insurance dude to come check out for us. ;-) We were still working on the last few things we wanted done when we got the call that the realtor was on her way, so we finished up real quick and hit the road. Stopped by a garage sale and pet a shih tzu (we spent more time playing with the dog than looking at the people's stuff), then a little flea market type thing they've just started up in the mountains. We ate at Burger Boy for lunch. It's a quaint little joint up here where they treat you like family and never charge you the same price twice--the menu is really of no consequence. Order what you want and they'll fix it up for you, then slap a price on your ticket. :-)

We had been home for less than an hour when Jason called and said we had ANOTHER showing--and they were on their way! Wa-Hoo! Two showings in one day--how exciting is that?! Besides, the house was still shining from the first showing so I didn't even have to clean again--this one was free. :-) We couldn't figure out where to go since we'd already done everything we could think to do up here during the first showing, so we just parked up the hill from the house where we could see the driveway, but nobody would know we were sitting there spying. Every so often we'd drive by the house and look to see if the people were wandering around the yard or still inside. (They probably kept hearing the van pass by and thinking, "Boy, this is s busy street!" Ha!) They were there for nearly 30 minutes, so we took that as a very good sign. We've never stayed at a house that long unless we were really and truly interested in it. :-)

We had tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. I love days like that. :-)

Today I got up at 5:30 (which is way, way to early unless you have a good reason) so we could go to the Balloon Fiesta. Today was the last day and we knew it would be our last opportunity, so it seemed like the right thing to do. It wasn't quite as impressive as last year (it was a little windy this morning and the balloons were sailing by so fast and sort of spreading out all over the sky, so we never saw hundreds of balloons all bunched together this time), but it was still really neat. Though James never did wake up enough to join us. Oh, he was in the van--even did the driving--but he was never really WITH us, if you know what I mean. ;-) The kids and I enjoyed it anyway. We found a nice spot in the parking lot of a bank pretty close to Balloon Fiesta Park to watch the balloons sail over us. Here are some pictures...

I love it when they fly right over you. So cool. :-)
This one was a unique teardrop shape instead of the usual "guitar pick" shape. That's what Joe said when we drove into town. "Do you see all the balloons, Sam? All those little dots over there, shaped like a bunch of guitar picks!" Only Joe.
We didn't see very many of the shaped balloons this year, but Smokey the Bear was there again. We heard there were balloons from 17 different countries this year.
It was in the 40's when we drove into town, so some of the viewing was done from the warmth of the van. ALL of James' viewing was done from there!
After a while the kids got out, but stayed wrapped tightly in the blankets they had brought with them.
Before long Sam's blanket had turned into a cape as he repeatedly ran along this little wall and hurled himself off the end while yelling, "To infinity... and beyond!"

I loved this one. It looks like it's been around for a hundred years. :-)
This one was neat, too.
I always love the bright, happy ones--especially the ones with yellow. They look so pretty once things warm up a bit and the sky gets nice and blue.

We left the balloons and grabbed some breakfast at McDonalds, then drove to church. We were nearly an hour early, so we napped in the van for about 40 minutes until people started showing up. Ha! It must've done the trick because I didn't need a nap this afternoon. :-)

We had a good service today and Brother Chris preached an EXCELLENT message on charity. Good, good stuff. Plenty to pray about. :-)

We came home and had sandwiches for lunch, then the rest of the family took naps while I dinked around on the computer and worked a little bit on the puzzle I had started a few days ago. We got one of those puzzle mats at a thrift store a few weeks ago so I can roll it up and save it for later if I don't get it finished. It's great. :-)

Tonight was supposed to be BTI service, but God had other plans. We had received news of a soul being saved this morning--someone we'd prayed for; the family member of a church friend in the Region--and Brother Chris shared about her giving her heart to the Lord earlier in the day. We took some time to just THANK GOD for it, and the Lord really began to move and bless. The Holy Ghost moved on several and it was so amazing how He worked among us, encouraging and strengthening our faith as we pray for our own family members who need to be saved. It all really fit into what Brother Chris had preached this morning about charity and how we should really and truly bear one another's burdens and take them to the Lord in prayer as if they were our own, and how we should really and truly rejoice with them when the victory comes and they are rejoicing. I felt that so strongly in my heart and just felt sooooo blessed to be a member of God's Church where this beautiful "one body" thing is so much more than a cliche. We feel and experience it all the time! What a privilege. :-)

Without delving into more talk about the house (I'm so tired of it!!!), I'll just say that Jason called today and let us know that he expects good things to happen very soon. I'll spare you the details until something actually HAS happened. Right now we speak by faith and say that GOD IS GOOD and we trust He is bringing the answers we need very, very soon. :-)