jonathan’s blog

This summer is just blowing by too fast!  Here are the three monsters doing a group hug.  August is not yet over, Labor Day has not yet arrived…but Kay has already had her first day of the 1st Grade!!!  Here she is, backpack ready and lunch in hand.  We packed her a Turkey Sandwich, Cheese ‘n Crackers, Apple Chips, Granola Bar, and Orange Juice.  She used to have a snack time during Kindergarten…but here they just go straight through till lunch.  I thought for sure, she’d finish everything.  But when I checked her lunch bag…she had only done her orange juice and part of her sandwich!  What happened?  She ran out of time!  If you’ve ever eaten with Kay, you know she loves to talk, most often at the expense of eating.  I guess she chatted away her lunch period, with her new friends Kayla, Trinity, and Faith.  (Trinity and Faith…gotta love being surrounded by IHOPers)

1st Grade, at the Daniel Academy.  Here she is, with her ‘marvelous comrades’, Luke and Juli.  The Daniel Academy is a tag-team private school - home school.  Mon, Wed, and Fri…they hit the usual topics as well as Bible studies, prayer and intercession.  Worship/Prayer three times a day of course!  Tues and Thurs is up to us to make sure Kay is learning on target.  Their aim is to raise up this new generation, to excel and change the world for God, like Daniel and his marvelous comrades.

But before school started…the kids got their fill of fun.  Check out this personal theater we have access to at our apartment.  It’s right next to our swimming pool, and so far we’ve had 2 swim days/movie nights, A Bug’s Life and Mulan.  Here they are, getting ready to watch.  Check out Noah sharing his popcorn with Sarah…not sure if she’s supposed to be snacking on stuff like that just yet.  From left to right, Luke, Bekah, Juli, Kay, Jesse, Noah, and Sarah.

Roll film!

Leather recliners, video projection, surround sound!!!

In addition to movie nights…swimming has also been fun.  Here is Noah, trying on his life jacket.  This kid is fearless…therefore it’s terrifying (for me) to take him swimming, I thought the life jacket would help.

If not movie night, or swimming, then…hide-n-seek?

Tabitha taught Kay how to finger knit.  I don’t know exactly what it is…but apparently with just yarn and your fingers you can knit!  It’s great…because it keeps the girls quiet and busy.  The flip side…we have tangled yarn and pieces of finger knit EVERYWHERE!  Kay is an expert, and has been teaching others how to do this.  She continually churns out fabric much taller than herself.  Bekah…likes to try, but ultimately gets bored of it pretty quickly.  You can see her purple yarn, she was knitting, then she was sleeping.

So what’s going on with the house?  Insulation and sheet rock/drywall.  No pics of drywall…but here are the rooms after insulation.

Here is Kay in the girl’s room.  The 2 girls will be bunking in here…she is currently standing in their little reading nook.

Noah in his room.

Yeah…it’s a bit scary.  No walls, no handrails, the stairs aren’t even finished yet…but the kids LOVE taking a peek at our new home.

Here is a view of our neighborhood.  You see that guy mowing his lawn?  That’s going to be me after this is all done!

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Life in KC these past weeks has been quite the blur.  We’ve been dragging the kids all over the place, having them nap in the car as we run errands.  But the last couple of days, we were able to have them nap at home in their own beds.  This has been really good, as it gives us all some much needed rest.  I also get to focus on cranking out some emails for work.  After getting caught up on the the daily MD ’stuff’, I decided to take a few minutes and lie down.  Literally, seconds after my head hit the pillow, Noah announces his awakening.

He’s the first one up, I’m still tired, he’s bored.  So off he tramps to his sisters’ room.  Here he is climbing on Bekah, who refuses to wake up.

Here is Noah trying to wake up Kay.  Maybe a kiss?

Maybe if he sits on her?

Nothing.  No one wants to play!  Here is Noah, sneaking a sip of Lemonade from Bekah.

Here he is, brushing the lemonade out!

Yay!  They are all awake now…and we are off to meet the Yaps for dinner at Cinzetti’s, an all-you-can-eat pasta place.  Delicious!

Noah, copying his sisters as they worship in the car.

admin My Family

Sheesh!  Been too busy to post!  So much has happened in the last 2 weeks!  Flew out to KC.  Living with the Yaps.  Cars arrived.  Got our temporary apartment.  Stuff arrived.  Working on new home.  Working for MD.  Missing the family, friends, and the exodus.

Here are my three goofballs.

Wider shot…to see the apartment we are living in.  We are on a month to month lease until our new home is complete…then we become permanent residents of MO!  This apartment is only 2 miles from the job site.  It’s really nice, clean, new…has a shallow pool for the kids and clubhouse that we can reserve.  3/4 of our stuff is in a public storage unit about 20 minutes from here.  We kept the bare essentials, which is a good thing…for some reason, the layout looked a lot bigger on the internet!

3 bedrooms, 2 bath.  Girls share a room, and Noah gets his own so that he doesn’t wake everyone up.  The girls have decided to grow up really fast.  Sometimes I’ll wake up to find the two of them up, playing, lounging around in their PJs, having poured themselves some juice, coloring, or watching TV (as they now know how to work the OnDemand!)  I asked Bekah how many Calliou cartoons she watched today.  Bekah’s answer, “I don’t know.  two, three…maybe four?”

The house is coming along really fast.  The foundations and the outside got laid out and came up really fast.  Now they are working on the ‘guts’ of the house, plumbing, electrical, etc…

As you can see…we are going to have a HUGE front yard…which in KC talk means, lots and lots of mowing!  VERY tempted to get a nice motorized sit down lawn mower.

Back of the house.

Inside!  Standing in the kitchen, looking at the dining area and great room then library.

What kind of crazy picture is this?  That’s Noah in the middle of the street…don’t worry, we are in a very safe and private cul-de-sac.  But back to the picture…on the top left is our new home.  On the bottom right there is a home…but beyond that is a blue home.  You can only see a part of it…that’s the back of the Yap’s.  Told you we were close!

We have a lot more rooms to furnish.  There’s also no IKEA in KC…so what do we do?  Well…the last time we were in KC, Mitch told us about this place called Nebraska Furniture Mart.  He said it was big.  But nothing…NOTHING could have prepared me for just how insanely HUGE this place is.  They sell everything, appliances, furniture, electronics, everything.

And get this.  I’ve been to IKEA’s customer pick up.  This takes that idea to a whole new level.  You pull up IN YOUR CAR.  Talk into the intercom, where they direct you to one of FOUR loading zones.  They wheel out the furniture and help you tied it to your car, and then you are on your way.  Amazing.

And just so you know, here are the store hours.  Oh…and don’t forget, NO HANDGUNS!…leave them in the car please.

Here is Noah and me on an indoor jumper/slide.  Poor guy, I guess he was more scared than I thought!

Indoor playgrounds are a great idea.  It’s way too hot in the summer to play outdoors.  It’s way too cold in the winter to play outdoors…so play inside!

Speaking of weather.  It’s been 95-100 degrees and really humid.  it’s gross to go out, even at night.  Last night, we had some crazy thunder/lightning storms.  I fell asleep, and missed most of it…but Emily tells me it was unreal.  I did get to see some today.  Today a delivery man made some comments about my car, I told him the rain was great, it would rinse off my car.  He game me a strange look…and said, “You know, we have hail.”  I nodded, and thought to myself, why in the world is he talking about hail?  It’s in the middle of summer and 80 degrees outside.  15 minutes later, it starts to hail.  Not the pansy tic-tac sized SoCal hail.  I’m talking about chunks of ice coming down in torrents with the rain.  I ran outside to bring the car in, and just got pelted by chunks of ice!

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