Recap--again!

July 1- Family moves in!  Nathan's youngest brother Jonathan, and his family of 7 moved in with us!  They are moving back to MN after being in Texas for 10 years!  They are in transition and don't have a house yet, so are staying with us until they find a place of their own.  They have 5 children as well....a just-turned 8 yrd old, 6, 4, 2 and their almost-adopted 17 yr old.  So 9 of the children living in our house are 8 and under!  Thank goodness Alma (17) can help out!  They've set up shop in our lower level and everything seems to be going well so far, except the few arguments between kids.

They also brought their 2 dogs, including a great dane!  Yeah, he's huge....pretty much a small horse!

Nathan is back on the road in Chicago, driving home on weekends when he can.  He's trying to find work around home so he can move back asap.  Everyone misses him and he can't stand to be away.

July 13th--Chickens come!!  I went to the post office at 5:45am to pick up our box of chicks!  We wanted 60 chickens, half layers and half broilers.  Jonathan and Becky also wanted some.  I had a couple more friends order and few as well which they came and go so now we have about 120 chickens between the two of us.  They are living in our garage in a box for now but as soon as their chicken tractor is ready, out they will go!  It's been super fun for the kids to watch the chicks but the kittens have even been more fun!  Yes, kittens!!

So I went to my friends house after picking up the chicks at the post office to look at her kittens and maybe bring two home to entertain the kids for awhile.  Well, I came home with SIX!  Yeah...6 kitties on my lap on the way home...yikes!  They have been great for the kids and almost enough for each kid to have one but when Nathan came home this last weekend, he said enough is enough and they need to go back to their original home.  Just too many crazy things around here as it is!

Dipping the chickens beak in water so they drink something right away.

Ariella rocking as she watches her kittens :)

Another exciting thing is that we got an offer on our house!!  Originally they had low-balled us, to which we countered at a price that our realor felt comfortable with, but still lower than what we hoped for.  The buyer denied it and came back with a counter only 5k higher than the first one.  We said no way.  A day later they came back and upped it another 5k, to which we still said no because we still would be losing way too much money to justify moving.  We thought and prayed a lot and just resolved to stay put.  I told our realtor to take it off the market.  We would stay here.  He told the buyer we were no longer interested in selling.  They called back and offered 15k more than their previous offer....now we were getting somewhere!  But we also had to decide if we really wanted to sell.

Of course we don't *really* want to sell, but if Nathan ever wants to come home and get a "normal" job, we wanted to have a financial freedom to do so....so the house hadda go.  We signed the rest of the papers today and closing will be Sept 4th!!  But please don't ask where we are going, as we have NO idea!  The Lord will have to show us that before Sept 4 :)  We could rent, buy, be back on the road??...no clue.  Guess you will just have to wait and see! :)