Update

Our previous trip to Bend, Oregon was more than just a family vacation. We were invited to guest lead services for Bend Church of the Nazarene. We also interviewed for the Worship Pastor position. Ryan got a call last Thursday from the pastor, and they offered us the position. We have been in prayer about this for some time now, and after being offered, we accepted. We know that God has great things in store for us through this ministry. It's a real "step out of the boat" experience. Everything is happening so fast. A few days after we accepted the position, we found a house that is right within our budget. It is a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath. It is such a blessing because it is only $150.00 more a month than we are paying for our current 2 bedroom, 1 bath here in California. The extra room will allow our family to continue to grow. We feel so blessed. We thought we would share the pictures so that you could all see our new home.

This is obviously the front of the house.

This is the living room and kitchen. We are so excited to have a fireplace. It snows quite a bit in Bend so I'm sure that the gas fireplace will get used a lot.

These are the plans for the house. We were excited to find out that it also has a small computer niche and the washing machine and dryer are upstairs so I don't have to cart laundry up and down all the time. The garage will also be a nice change from our small carport. We don't have any storage so all our stuff is crammed into our house or into the shed and it gets very dirty. Also, Riley and Hannah will not be waking each other up at night anymore since they will each have their own room. Yay!!!!! More sleep for Ryan and I.

Overall, we feel that God has been in this from the moment that Ryan was contacted by the Bend Church of the Nazarene, and we are excited to see what God can do in and through us.

Pantry Challenge Anyone?

If you don't know what a pantry challenge is I will explain it.

A pantry challenge is using your existing food stores and resources, like your pantry and refrigerator, to make all of your meals. It is a challenge to not buy anything new from the grocery store to complete dinner. A pantry challenge can be anything you want it to be. You can do the challenge by yourself or as part of a group. A group challenge can be a lot of fun. You can keep each other motivated, inspire each other and share tips and ideas. Why should you have a pantry challenge? There are a few good reasons. A pantry challenge can come in handy when the budget is running low, and it is better to make do with what you have for as long as you can. A pantry challenge can also help you use up older items in your pantry that you tend not to grab when it comes to dinner time or the left overs from a few nights ago that might otherwise spoil. Now is when it's time to get creative with the stuff in your pantry and fridge and to save the money that you would have spent on food for other things like paying off debt. The only things you can buy at the store are milk, eggs, and small amounts of fresh fruit. The goal is to not shop so that you can use that money for paying down debts and to use the stores of food that might otherwise get thrown away. I think I have enough food in my pantry and fridge for about 12 meals or so. I am up to the challenge of seeing how long I can go without shopping. Obviously, you don't want your family to starve, but you do want to use up as much food as you can from your current stores. By the way, you're also not allowed to eat out if you don't have anything in the house or it's not a REAL pantry challenge. Anyone up for this?

Day #6

It snowed all night last night. When we woke up this morning there was about 2 inches of snow covering the ground and the cars.

After a morning rehearsal, we got a chance to eat an early lunch at the Westside Bakery.

Ryan chose to eat breakfast, of course, and ordered one of the biggest cinnamon rolls known to man.

The whole parking lot was covered in snow and looked very beautiful. There were even icicles hanging from the awning.


We also got a chance to visit with our old friends, Ed and Laura Moulton, who live in Hines, Oregon. We didn't get a chance to take any pictures with them though. Here are some other random pictures from today.


We won't be able to post anything tomorrow because we fly home tomorrow after church. So for those of you in Yuba City and Gridley, we'll see you all soon.

Day #5

Sorry no pictures today because we had a pretty busy day. We'll try better tomorrow. Ryan was on the phone half the day trying to figure out how to get the Gridley church enough equipment to do service on Sunday. As you can imagine, that it quite a difficult task with us being in Bend and not able to be there in person to help set up another sound board. Hopefully we will get everything together by tomorrow so that we don't have to worry about whether or not the church will be ready for Sunday.

Also, it snowed today in Bend. It was just a little flurry but it was great fun. We are supposed to get snow off and on for the next couple of days so hopefully tomorrow we will be able to catch some on film. It might be hard to see on the pictures but we'll try our absolute best. Well, I think we have to sign off now. It's almost 10:30pm and we have an early day tomorrow that will also probably be a long one. We'll post more tomorrow though.

Day #4

We spent the first part of today looking around Bend with Ryan's dad, who came to visit us from Newport, Oregon.

Bend has some neat communities! We have found out that the city is divided into East and West sides. The East side is more of the older part of town where mostly working class families live. The West side of town is where the more wealthy affluent people live. It has more modern housing with what are called "earth elements" to them. These are things like rocks on the outsides of the houses and shops. They also have more earthy/neutral colors. Then we ate again at Red Robin (Ryan's dad's favorite restaurant) before he had to travel the 4 hours back to Newport. Overall, it was a pretty good day.

On a more sour note... we got some horrible news tonight that the Gridley church got broken into and a bunch of equipment was stolen. Even worse, most of the stolen equipment was Ryan's. His bass guitar, some microphones, and an effects processor were all taken. The church's sound board was also taken. Ryan is trying as best he can to sort things out over the phone but it's very difficult. We would appreciate your prayers.

Bend - Day #3

We made an amazing discovery today. There is a preschool here that has an attached indoor play center. For six dollars a kid (five for Riley), you can let them play while you sit in comfortable chairs. We figured that Hannah and Riley earned it for putting up with having no toys for the past 3 days. We also figured that we earned it after having to chase them around and shout "No!" for 3 days.

Happy New Year!!! and Day #2

Well, we didn't really "usher in the New Year" as most people probably did. Our children were asleep and we were laying in bed praying for sleep to over take us. We had been up since 1:00am the night before and were running on "fumes." Nevertheless, we told eachother happy new year just before falling asleep shortly after 2008 officially began. Wow!!! That just feels strange to type. This past year sure went fast and was full of lots of changes.

We spent the first day of 2008 looking around the city of Bend. We are beginning to get a small sense of the layout of the city from East to West and North to South. Most of the street names have NW or SW or NE or SE before the actual name of the street. For example, our hotel is on NE 27th street. We have seen a couple of streets without the tradmark compass heading, but for the most part, the majority of the streets have it.

We went into the Old Mill District today to look around at the shops and to take the kids to the children's museum. Unfortunately for us, the children's museum is only open Wednesdays thru Sundays so we couldn't go do that today but hopefully sometime this week. Instead, we walked around the shops which are right on the banks of the Deschutes river (pronounced Deh-shoots). It had snowed a little the day before we arrived here and it has been very cold so there was still a little residual snow "dust" on the ground. It was absolutely beautiful.

Then we ate at Ryan's favorite restaurant.... Red Robin. Yes, they have one here too! This picture is of Riley inside Red Robin waiting for his corn puppies to arrive. Corn puppies are miniature corn dogs. Ryan doesn't like the idea of Riley eating anything called puppies.

Hannah got the good old Mac-N-Cheese. Our pictures of her today didn't show up very well so we will have to post more in the days to come.

The shops at the Old Mill District were very nice. They have A Children's Place, American Eagle, Bath and Body, Motherhood Maternity, REI, and others. It kind of reminded me of South Lake Tahoe's Heavenly Village shops. They also have the old smokestacks still on the top of one of the buildings. It was kind of cool. Here are some other random pictures from today. Check back tomorrow for another post and more pictures