Hqppy Things

Happy Thing #1

Hummingbird nest with two babies at Grammy and Pappy's house

Mylie named them "Michaela" and "Uncle Michael".  "Michaela" flew the nest two days ago, while "Uncle Michael" seems content mooching off of mom for a little longer.  Seems to be a pretty accurate parallel to real life.  To be fair, even though the man Uncle Michael, not the bird, lived with his parents until practically his thirties, he did turn out to be a doctor, so at least there's that.

 Happy Thing #2

This Girl's Cheese Face

Oh my goodness, she is such a ham.  Between her now infamous "Mick Jagger Lips", to her rendition of The Beib's "Baby", to this cheesy face,  I just can't stop smiling at her funny personality.  Thank you God for a happy girl!

Happy Thing #3

Unending supply of moving box entertainment  

Is it wrong to let the girls sit in the box for like, let's say, an hour?  Because they do, and it feels heavenly

Happy Thing #4

This girl lost her first tooth!  

That little sucker has been loose all week, but what finally tipped the scales to get it out was a monumental temper tantrum while in time out.  It is amazing to me how she can turn it off in an instant to shout, "Hey, my tooth came out!"  

Happy Thing #5

Sweet Hipster Baby

This gal was intermittently awake all night with a fever, but she's still a happy one.  She gets her Hipster ways from her sister.

A Plethora of Blogworthy Stuff

Well, the past month has been some of the most busy days of my entire existence... We kicked off the madness with our Haiti Meet and Greet luncheon at church.  The purpose was to share our vision, and our church’s vision, for our purpose in moving to Haiti.  We were so pleased to see so many people from my childhood church who came to support us.  A few days later, we found out that after 8 months, our house finally sold!  While we celebrated this fact, we also were more than a little overwhelmed with the fact that we would be out of the country for eight days, then we had five days to move out.  Did I mention the fact that we had NO IDEA where we were going to move TO?  No?  Well, we it’s true.  We started calling everywhere we could think of to try to get a 10 week lease.  Turns out that is really really hard to do.

I’m getting ahead of myself. 

So, the house sold.  Yay!  We decided to worry about the house stuff upon our return, and we left for Haiti on April 27th.  I’m so glad for the trip, but it was really hard for me emotionally.  We traveled with about 20 people from The Grove, but split our time once there between group stuff, trying to find a house to rent, and navigating life in Haiti without the comfort of a team leader.  It was as difficult as you can imagine it to be.  

We did have a truly Haitian experience our first time out by ourselves.  We hired a driver to take us about 12 miles from the guest house we stayed at in Tabarre, to Titayin, where we were to meet up with another missionary couple and look at a house for rent.  As we were leaving the neighborhood, we turned the corner only to discover that some men were cleaning out the car catchers and the road was blocked with rubble and debris.  We, plus the three cars behind us maneuvered some diligent 18-point turns to go back in the direction we came from and try a different route.  We found another street, in which some entrepreneurial young men decided that this was the perfect opportunity to earn a little more that day, and charge cars a toll to pass.  We waited in line for each of the ten cars in front of us to argue with the self-proclaimed toll collectors, when it was finally our driver’s turn.  I have to say that Jean was nothing if not calm.   I don’t speak Creole, but I was still impressed by his assertive, yet calm, "no way".  A short 45 minutes later, and we were finally on National One headed out of Port-au-Prince towards our destination.  The rest of our day went surprisingly smooth.  

The rest of our week was split between the Good Neighbor Orphanage, and begging rides and meeting with a vast array of Haitians and Expats.  It was a good, productive, and emotionally draining week.  I really missed my kids.  

On the way home, we had a layover in Atlanta.  We were commiserating about the fact that we had roughly five days to sell the rest of our belongings, pack up a house, and move somewhere, yet we didn't have a place to rent yet.  As it turns out, a family from our church (He was on the trip, She is in my Bible study), has a place for rent, and they would rent to us for only 10 weeks!  Yay! 

We got home around midnight on May 6th, got up a few hours later and went to church.  We spent Monday and Tuesday getting rid of most of our stuff, packing on Wednesday and Thursday, then finally moving out on Friday.  Sounds pretty smooth, no?  It. Was. Not.  

We've lived in our (former) home for over nine years, and I have never had to pack a house while entertaining a toddler.  It was tortuous.  I'm glad she's still alive, because there were a few dicey moments when I thought to myself, "I'll just let her play with those chemicals and choking hazards for a few minutes so she won't scream or pull things out of this box I'm trying to pack right here."  

Also, the husband who never gets sick, got sick.  Like for realz.  Gary went in for a blood test to check for malaria on Thursday.  We're still waiting for the results, because apparently a test and access to malaria meds is the one thing Haitian health care has up on the U.S.  His doctor actually asked GARY how to test for malaria.  I'm all... "Dude, you best be going in the hall to google that, let's instill a little confidence in your skills, shall we?"

Noah and I went to his Kindergarten alma mater, and the school I taught at for the last three years of my teaching career, to speak in chapel on Friday.  Yes, the same Friday that was Moving Day.  I was nervous.  I cried.  I hope God was heard.

Grammy and Pappy were on Crazies duty, all day, and we had some wonderful friends show up and help us move and clean on Friday.  With their help, we got everything moved and into the new place with 15 minutes to spare until our deadline.  In the last 15 minutes we were in our house, it finally hit me as I peeked in the kids' rooms one last time.  So many wonderful memories... newlywed bliss, home projects gone awry, babies coming home, middle of the night feeding and cuddling, Christmas trees.  I fought the ugly cry and lost.  This has been a really great season of life.  And while I'm equal parts scared and excited for the next one, it is sad to leave this part behind.

Yesterday included laying around like a lard on the crib mattress turned couch, eating more than my share of ice cream, and sifting through carelessly packed boxes.  Sunday is always my favorite day of the week, so I took the kids to church by myself.  Gary's feeling a little better today, so here's hoping he's on the mend and that it isn't actually malaria.  

Here's to a brand new week, one that does not include moving!

Leaving On a Jet Plane

Gary and I head out with a team from our church to Haiti for a week in just a few short hours.  I felt pretty calm until a few hours ago, and now I'm a little weepy.  I have been away from The Crazies before, lots, but it is still hard.  It is especially hard to leave the wee one and Mylie is having a particularly hard time.

A few prayer requests as we head into our trip...

*  Safety for our team, health
*  Safety for our children at home
*  For Gary and I to find a house to rent!!!
*  For God to be glorified in everything we do... in a nutshell, please help us represent Jesus in an honorable way and not to do more harm than good

I will do my very best to update during the trip.  I'm expecting great things!  I know God will answer our prayers in surprising ways, and I can't wait!

He Remembers Me

The roller coaster of emotional highs and lows keeps trucking on.  Many days find me somewhat in disbelief that this is the path God has chosen for us.  I feel totally and utterly not good enough.  I find it very easy to focus on my faults, on my weaknesses, and on the talents that I simply lack.  I feel like God picked the wrong person, because I'm pretty inadequate.  Through this whole process of preparing to move to Haiti, there has been so many encouraging gifts from God to remind us that He remembers us, He remembers me.  I don't want to keep these things to myself, but sometimes I forget how amazing God is, and I take for granted the gifts of encouragement He sends my way, just when I need it most.

One such situation has been trying to find a connection to someone in Haiti.  This may sound relatively easy, given there are so many ministries going on in Haiti right now, but it feels like the biggest need, and also the area where we were hitting the most dead ends.  We reached out to many people, missionaries, living in Haiti right now, only to be left without any real connection.  It felt personal, like they were rejecting us.  In truth, there's probably a logical explanation for each person failing to respond to our emails, but it felt frustrating and personal.  I prayed that someone would respond.  And we waited.  And waited.  And continued to reach out to anyone we could find.  God answered this prayer in a bigger and more complete way than we initially hoped He might.  Through a series of  bizarre coincidences, although I do not believe it was coincidence, I believe God timed it just so it would work out, we met a couple, Seth and Charity, who just days before had moved to Arizona from Haiti.  And not just anywhere in Haiti, but a mere miles from where we hope to live.  They are not from Arizona, but are here for about a year so the husband, Seth, can complete training for his pilots' license to fly helicopters for Samaritan's Purse in Liberia.  We have spent some time getting to know them, and they have just been a wealth of information for us.  They shared with us their contact list in Haiti.  We are talking about two year's worth of getting to know people in all sorts of positions in Haiti, including but not limited to, someone who has a house for rent, doctors, nurses, veterinarians, and connected Haitians.  This has been an amazing resource for us.

Another encouragement was a visit from one of my favorite friends.  My friend Sheila is a friend who I consider one of my "wise counsel" type of friends.  She is giving and wise, and a visit with her was just what I needed.  Plus, she flew all the way here from Michigan for our big "Meet and Greet" at church.  This meant so much to me that she would take the time and money to be here for us for an event that is pretty big in our move preparation.  I feel refreshed after her visit, which will make the next couple of weeks much easier and more productive!

In my Bible study at church, we have been doing a study on Thankfulness, using the Bible as well as the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  Through this study, and by practicing the discipline of thankfulness, I can say that today, even in the midst of of quite a bit of chaos (more on that tomorrow!), I'm pretty excited to see how God is going to work this whole thing out.

Thank You God for moments of encouragement during an emotional and often stressful transition!

Five

Our second born hit the big FIVE milestone this week.  I am just in awe of how fast this happened.  We celebrated in Krull tradition, by taking her to Disneyland by herself.  She had us all to herself and it was lovely.

It was a very different experience from when we took Noah on his 5th birthday trip, but even two and a half years ago, we predicted this would be true.  They have very different personalities you know.  I made the mistake of looking up the weather for Anaheim a few days before we were to depart.  It didn't look too good for southern California.  Monday and Tuesday were supposed to be sunny, high in the low 70's.  Thursday and Friday were supposed to be sunny, high in the low 70's.  Wednesday, our Disney day, was supposed to have torrential rains with a high in the 50's.  We were very disappointed and thought about doing a spontaneous upset of our travel plans.  We just wanted the day to be perfect.  Despite our apprehensions, we stuck to the original plan.  I'm not gonna lie, I prayed for good weather.  I prayed the rains would rain everywhere else, except for over Disneyland.  Then, I prayed that if it did indeed rain, that our attitudes would be positive and we would still have a wonderful day even if we got soaked.  Well, Wednesday at Disneyland was BEAUTIFUL, the lines were super short, and we made some wonderful memories with our oldest beauty.

Mylie's favorite ride:  Thunder Mountain Railroad

Love their happy faces!

Happy fifth birthday Mylie Mae!  

Heard Around the House {March 2012}

Mylie:  I love Miss Jana.  Why is her hair red?
Me:  That's just the way God made her.
Mylie:  God did not give her red hair.  She dyed it.  That's just the way God does it sometimes.


 Mylie:   Dad, do you see that Congratulations up there?  That's when mom was Congratulated.  (pointing to my diploma, from when I graduated from college)

Noah:  What's that smell?
Me:  Salmon
Noah:  Yuck, it's making me seasick.

He is such a ham.

Friday Happenings

Support letters have been mailed, there is no turning back!! ;)  We sent out over 100 letters to friends and family.  This was exciting and hard.  Exciting, because it is real, and we have begun the fundraising process to make the move to Haiti happen.  It was hard, because I suddenly feel very vulnerable to what others may or may not think about this whole thing.  And to put it bluntly, it is hard asking people to support us financially.  We are prayerfully waiting on God to see what He does with this whole thing.  I took the kids with me to the post office to help stamp all of the envelopes, then I took a picture.  Noah looked up at the flash, and said in his best 17 year old impersonation, "Seriously mom, we're just putting stamps on envelopes.  This is not a big deal."  Oh, but it is!

We have also planned a "Meet and Greet" lunch for April 22nd, to which YOU are officially invited.  I'm not too fond of calling it a "Meet and Greet", because many people attending we already know, but I'm not sure what else to call it.  We will meet you, and we will greet you.  We will also feed you lunch and provide childcare.  Oh, and entertainment... we will also entertain you.  That's a pretty hard invitation to turn down, right?!  So please come learn more about what our ministry in Haiti with the Grove will look like, and how you can get involved too.

Sunday, April 22nd

12:00 noon

The Grove

2777 S Gilbert Rd.  Chandler, AZ  85286

3/4th grade classroom (to the left if you're walking in from the front parking lot)

We have a moving sale planned for tomorrow morning.  Signs are made, items are priced, and we hope to sell it all, because it is not coming back inside the house.  Please come! 7am-Noon

 Email me for directions at garyandmichaela {at} hotmail.com

And lastly, and update on the kids' passport pictures.  Mission accomplished in only two trips.

 If Jason Bourne had a son, this would be his passport photo.

We were lucky enough to get a very nice Grandma employee, who got a picture of the wee one that was good enough for our government's approval, with no tears involved.

Mylie Mae?  Well, at least she's not crying in the picture... just before and after.  Poor girl is going to regret this ten years from now when she's fifteen and still using the same passport.