VBS was good and we had three saved. The next week our Teens went to camp, they had a good time and many decisions were made for Christ. 8 were saved and many surrendered to do what ever God wanted them to. The girls played a prank on the boys that was really funny, they made some homemade Oreo's, but the filling was toothpaste. The boy's said it tasted pretty funny. I'm down to babysitting one child, part time, but I'm still busy, taking classes for the next year of taxseason, trying to teach Mysia to read and caring for Malachi. Speaking of Malachi, that little guy is growing fast, he started walking on Father's day and now the only time he crawls is if he falls down and needs something to pull himself up on.
Unfortunatly, when God does something good, Satan is also at work. A couple of our friends have been atacked recently, and we covet your prayers, with us, for them. It's hard to know what to say in these situations, because we want everyone we know to be praying, but we also don't want to be spreading rumors or add fuel to the fire. So just pray, pray, pray that God will get the victory in this situation, and that He will comfort the people involved.
~Lydia

Well, folks it been a busy couple of weeks and this week is going to be even busier, as we have VBS this week. But I wanted to take a few moments to write about all the things that have been happening in our lives. First of all I am no longer babysitting full time, the parents of my fulltime baby decided they wanted him in a different setting with more personalized care. But, God is good and he gave me a new family to sit for. 2 children, curently, number 3's due any day now, 3 days a week. This gives me a few days to take my kids to the park or the library, hang out with other moms, ect. Also the children are 4 and 2 so they are able to do things with Mysia which is a big help so she doesn't feel left out because Mommy has to take care of the babies all the time, I'm really enjoying the new "job".
We took a short vacation the last of June and went to the Laura Ingles Wilder Home in Mansfield, and hung around home. We also went to an English Country Dance, hosted by one of the local homeschool families. There was a great turn out and it was a blast, I loved learning the old time dances and had a wonderful time. It's a great workout, and I was out of breath at the end of most of them. We are looking forward to the next one.
Matt and I are going to become Aunt and Uncle for the first time, later this year (or early next year). Matt's brother Ben and wife Ana are expecting their first. We are all excited and can't wait to see if it will be a boy or girl, ... or twins. Mysia and Malachi are excited to get a little cousin.
Well, not much else to report. The kids and I went to the park today, and played in the water. One of our down town parks has a water fountain creek and water fall for the kids to play in. It was very beautiful, the kids are exausted and crashed almost as soon as we got home, leaving me to check email and update the blog in peace and quiet. I'm sure I won't get a chance to write anymore this week but I'll try and update it next week and tell all about VBS.

~Lydia~

The Power of Wheeling and Dealing

Ok to give you guys a bit of background on this. Matt and I have been sharing a AT&T Family (cellphone) plan with Ben and Ana for about the last two years. However, all good things must come to an end, and with them living in Columbia they wanted to change the plan so their numbers would have their area code and since we don't want to change our area code, so you see the problem. Anyway, today I called AT&T to find out what we're going to have to do to separate the plan. I had Matt look up Alltell's info because I wanted to see where the better deal was and if I could get AT&T to lower their prices to keep a customer. This is what happened:
I call and go through the whole automated system (which I absolutely hate) there is no question about transferring service so I hold for a customer service rep.
Rep answers I tell him the whole story only to get this response: "Well since he's wanting to change his plan then you will just have to get your own plan, and that requires the purchase of new phones, a two year service agreement, activation fees, ect."
I was thinking "now hold on that's ridiculous"
So I told the guy: "I already have a perfectly good phone. I mean if I have to do all that it would be cheeper for me to go with Alltell."
As soon as I said Altell he was like "I can transfer you to our wireless department they might be able to do something about that I can't do anything"
I said "thank you very much"
After waiting on hold fro a few minutes I again explained my situation to another lady who was like "oh no since you are already a customer you don't have to do a new service agreement just transfer the service to a new account. They might do a credit check but that's all . So have him (Ben) call and verify that you are going to transfer the numbers and then call this other number and they'll be transfered. No problems."
I was so relived I forgot to try and get them to change the price or minutes, I guess I'll try that when we actually transfer.
More Later
~Lydia~

Still waiting...

Malachi ran a fever for 2 days and then it was gone. Matt's chest pain got worse and he went to Urgent Care on Sunday, it turned put he had strained the cartilage and muscles on his breast bone that irritated by coughing or hard work, which he had been doing thinking it was congestion that needed to be loosened. This put a halt to the rest of our remodel and all we needed was the faucets and the doors to be installed. Fortunately for us, we have family and friends that are able to help us, and Matt's parents and Abigail came over on Monday and his dad helped him finish the bathroom the only thing we need now is to add some trim around the tops and sides. But at least we can take showers and baths at home again. We are still waiting for the air to get fixed, I think Matt said they should be coming Thursday morning to do that.
Malachi got his first big boy hair cut this last Friday, he looks so grown up now.
Mysia is wearing training pants to bed and working hard on learning her letters so she can learn how to read. If only Mommy could stick to her schedule, so we can get school done everyday. Well that's pretty much all that's going on at our house. So I'll go for now.
~Lydia

The Remodel!!!

Well, for those of you who don't read Matt's blog, I'll give a quick recap of how our remodel is going. In my last post I told you how we bought a tub and wall surround for our bathroom on Tuesday, well Friday came and no word on when it would be delivered so Matt called Lowes (see his blog for how well that went) and was told there was nothing to be delivered to us but that they would try to fix it and call him back. When he got off the phone he noticed it was really hot and muggy in the house so he went to turn on the air conditioning and close the windows. Within a few minutes he realized that it wasn't working and the fan wasn't turning, so he called his dad who gave him some instructions to check if something was keeping the fan from turning. Nope that wasn't the problem, but he discovered the breaker had been switched off he switched it on and suddenly there was a pop followed by a screeching sound and what looked like smoke billowing from the unit. So Matt turned it off and called the repair company, who told him someone would be out in the morning.
Saturday: the kids woke us up fairly early, to pouring rain. We got up and started getting ready, knowing we had a full day planned. Since Lowes never called us back Friday night Matt called them, while we were getting ready and waiting on the repair man to show up, the problem still had not been fixed they take his info again and promise to call back soon with a time that it would be delivered. Soon after he got off the phone he got call from the repair man saying he was on his way. When he got here we discovered that he wasn't going to be able to do much as it was still raining and he didn't want to take off the cover of the unit and expose the wiring to the rain and risk getting electrocuted, he left us saying it was probably the compressor but he would be by on Monday (Memorial Day) to find out for sure and get it fixed and someone would call us to set up a time. After he leaves Lowes finally calls back, they've figured out what happened, the cashier didn't put it down as a delivery (duh) and so they've fixed it and it will be delivered on Monday we just need to pay the delivery fee. Matt reluctantly gives them our bank info and pays it. While I fume in the background. With all the stressful stuff taken care off we leave to go to meet Matt's family at Grandpa Taylor's grave. We put some flowers on the grave and sang some songs, there was a military funeral going on across the way we wondered if it was a young soldier killed in Iraq or an older veteran, but it was interesting to watch and see them do the 21 gun salute and play the taps in his honor. After a little while we left, we were going over to Vicki's for lunch, but we had a few stops to make first. The first was Lowes and I went in leaving Matt and the kids in the car and headed straight for the customer service counter it was crowded of course being the holiday weekend and all, I'm waiting in line impatiently when a guy comes from behind the counter and as he's passing me asks if he can help me with anything I said "Sure I'm here to make a complaint about one of your cashiers this grabs his attention and he grabs a pad and pen out of his pocket as I tell him the whole story, I'm not ugly about it but I let him know that I am upset. He hurried back around the counter and asked for my phone number and within a few minutes had refunded our delivery charge with an apology for our trouble. Score!!
We ran to Wal-mart and the Library and then on to Vicki's where we had a wonderful cookout and a good time visiting with family. Matt called the repair company, since no one had contacted him and it turned out they are not open on Monday and wanted to send some one out that evening. So we gathered up our things and headed to the church to pick up the van and then home again. As Matt pulled into the drive the technician called saying he was on his way. When he arrived he looked at it and said he wouldn't be able to fix it that night but someone would be by on Tuesday to take care of it. Thankfully the unit is still under warranty because the labor alone is costing us close to $400 and the compressor would be another $400.
Sunday: we went to church, visited my Grandpa McAdoo's grave with the McAdoo clan, then we went home and crashed until time to go to church again.
Monday: Was rainy and wet, the kids woke us up at 7:30 after a quick shower and breakfast Matt went and started knocking the tile off the wall, my brother Silas came over to help and arrived just as the delivery guy was leaving. In a few hours he and Matt had it all knocked loose and the dry wall cleared out. Next they needed to remove the old tub but Matt was unsure of how to remove the drain so he asked my dad to come and help. They worked on it for several hours and finally got it out. Silas' girlfriend came over and they watched a movie and he made supper for all of us, we visited and then watched another movie.
Tuesday: Matt went back to work and then after work went to Lowes for more tools and floor boards, because when they got the tub out they had discovered that part of the flooring had to be replaced because it also was rotting. God was good, and one of Matt's coworkers had some floorboards left over from a recent remodeling project he had done so he gave it to us and Matt was able to finish the flooring last night.
Today we are going to Matt's folks house to get showers, that we desperately need and then Matt and Mysia will go to church Malachi and I will be staying there because since I started writing this he has spiked a fever of 103, and if it doesn't come down soon we will have to go to Urgent Care, so please keep him in your prayers.
~Lydia~