A Blessing in Disguise

The week following Kristi's wedding, Rick left his job at the bank he's been working for. This didn't come as a shock, but it was pretty stressful during those first days. We soon could see God's hand at work in our lives even in the midst of our worries ~ with Rick no longer having to go to the office every day, he was suddenly free to spend more time with the family than he has ever had before, and more importantly, he had much more time to spend with his dying father.

Ashlie seemed to be the most upset when she learned that daddy wasn't working at the bank any more. "What will we do?" "Where will we get money?!" As I reassured her that everything would be okay, Allie made a suggestion. "We can always sell lemonade!" Yep. When life gives you lemons, . . .

Having this extra time at home has allowed Rick to spend more time one on one with Annie, and they have really begun to grow closer. But poor Rick. Within hours of learning that he was no longer having to go to work (for now), I started making THE LIST. We've been so busy for so long (and out of town for so many weekends while we visited his father and our older kiddos), we haven't kept up with everything that needed to be done around here. So we are now whittling away on that project list!

Here's one small project we accomplished this week - rather than spending money to replace our outdoor light fixtures, we took them down and spray painted them with a new finish. We're really pleased with the results! (The "before" picture is the white fixture; "after" is now brown.)

In addition to house projects, income taxes, etc., we decided to take a much-needed family vacation over spring break. We spent a few days at Pensacola Beach and then spent our last few days visiting Chelle, Leo, Bella and Maddie in Mississippi. We had such a wonderful time. I'll share pictures of our trip in the next post.