We have been in CA for over month now!

If you walk down the street this is the view
The water trampoline - graham and Jillian a neighbor
isaiah loving the watermelon
Eli loving the watermenlon - july 4th
Maggie and graham
Allenni with her face painted by a neighbor

My how time flies! I cannot believe we have been in CA for over a month. What a whirlwind it has been! We found a house after 2 weeks of being here. A little small for us but feasible. After being moved in a week, the landlord asked us to move and if we didn't our rent would go up $600 month! ugh! In the end after we found another house that was actually bigger and closer to Bethel church, he said we couldn't leave. We couldn't afford breaking the lease, so we stayed where we were. Our house is right on the lake and the wildlife, sunrises and sunsets and views are incredible. We are learning to live "closer" together. We finally got our boxes, hardly any furniture( and that is another whole story) and I wonder why I even brought half of this stuff.

We had to rent a storage unit to hold the stuff we don't need immediately. Going from a 8000 sq. ft. to a 2500sq. foot house is quite a transition. We are missing quite a few things and have lots of broken, crushed boxes and things. We finally got our vehicles after an ordeal so that helped out tremendously.

Our puppies were the easiest thing to get here and they are missing their space as well but they like the weather and the nice soft grass. Poor little Millie, our old Dachshund, jumped into the lake the other day after Duane took out out the inflatable boat and sort of sunk into it because it wasn't blown up enough. Duane had to rescue her! she thought her daddy was in trouble! Millie does not like water and always would stay a way from our pool. It was sort of sweet. The kids are loving fishing off our deck.

Allenni is quite the little fisher woman. We didnt have poles yet since they were in our furniture, so duane cut some poles and I got some line and hooks at walmart and made the kids some poles. you wouldn't believe how many they have caught! Now that the real poles are here, Bass have been the fish to catch.

Duane started his orientation for work last week and we have missed him.

Bethel Church has been refreshing for us though Sundays are tiring. We live about 19 miles from Church. We haven't really made new friends to hang out with but we have great neighbors.

It is a great gated community but we have POA police- who ride around to see if you are breaking any community laws. That has been interesting. Graham has proudly had his picture taken by the POA for jumping into the lake off of a small bridge with a group of boys. Allenni, Andrew, Eli and Graham have been screamed at for having cookie, lemonade/ice cream stands by a lady who must not like kids or different skin colors. :-) (Yes, that is our first experience with that surprisingly) (CA or the Community has no laws against kids selling little things. I checked)

Our street has lots of kids and the community pool has given Ben and Nathaniel lots of people to talk to.

Maggie moved back to AL this week. She is going to be our house keeper for our house we set up as a vacation rental. She and Johnny have set a wedding date for Dec. 31. 2011.

There is so much more going on but it would take a long time to write it all.

Check out our vacation rental "Open Heaven" for your next vacation or youth retreat.

the link is http://www.vrbo.com/358591