Hello New Truck and...

Warning: this post is long and rather wordy. But keep reading; it's really good at the end.

There are days when God just absolutely blows my mind. Today is one of them, and we are praising Him for His great blessings! TWO of them!

First let me give you more detail on the truck selling/buying. Randy has been looking for pickups off and on for about 6 months on autotrader.com. He started out looking for a 4 wheel drive, 4 door Toyota Tacoma or Nissan Frontier. After looking for several months, we decided that a 4 wheel drive truck just wasn't going to happen in our price range without a ridiculous amount of miles. So he started looking at 2 wheel drive pickups. And then just extended cabs instead of 4 door. Still, everything was really expensive. We finally found several options in Oklahoma City, so when this one guy from Memphis decided to buy our truck (the first guy who was interested....and bought it in a week - praise the Lord), we offered to meet him down there. We've been wanting to get away for a weekend anyhow, so we took the opportunity.

Saturday morning we dropped Wyatt off at Grandma & Grandpa's way too early for their taste (thanks, though!) and headed to OKC with 6 possibilities to look at. We arrived with an hour to look before we needed to meet our potential buyer.

Truck #1 - bald tires, enough front body damage that we questioned if the air conditioning would work, not very clean inside. Later we test drove it and found that in fact the air conditioning did not work (did I mention it was 150 degrees on Saturday?). They still wanted too much money.

Truck #2 - oil everywhere underneath, really bald tires, baling wire holding a hose in place. Still wanted too much money.

Truck #3 - Sold

Truck #4 - Someone was pulling out of the parking lot to test drive it as we were pulling in. We called back later in the day and it was sold.

In an hour the Lord made it extremely clear that these four pickups were not for us.

We met the buyer from Memphis, sold the truck (yay!), and rented a car for the day. Then we went to check out two more pickups at the last dealer. Ever watch the History Channel show "Pawn Stars"? Picture the main bald guy in a ghetto dealership. I laughed the entire time, thankful that my husband has some law enforcement training. The pickups we wanted to look at were literally parked 4 deep. Before he started moving trucks for us to test drive two, we talked money. If he couldn't come down to what we want, there was no point in attempting to move the maze. He couldn't come down and we couldn't go up. Living within our means.

By 2:30 Saturday we were free to start the fun part of our weekend, but that's another post. We left OKC in a rented tin can (one-way rentals are really expensive, by the way), thanking the Lord for making things very clear to us, for leading us, and for the fun, much-needed weekend away. We left OKC ready to buy a car and deal with the pickup issue later. We left OKC ready to seriously compromise on a pickup because what we want is really really hard to find, and we were resigned to settle. We resigned peacefully, knowing God would lead, but we certainly weren't expecting much.

Today Randy came home from work, ready to eat dinner and go look at a pickup. He had seen it downtown today - a 4 wheel drive, extended cab Toyota Tacoma with the right amount of miles AND a price we could possibly pay. Seriously?!?! Is the title clear? Are there major mechanical issues? When the guy told us his bottom dollar, our mouths about dropped open. It was less than what we had discussed at dinner. And actually with sales tax, it was exactly what we had discussed at dinner.

Randy test drove it....and drove it home.

We're both a bit in shock tonight. It's almost exactly what we really wanted but never thought we'd get. It's a truck that he actually really likes (read: we won't be selling this in a year because he just really can't stand it). And it's exactly what we gave up on several weeks ago. Randy thanked the Lord well when we prayed with Wyatt before bed tonight, "Thank you, Lord, for being so faithful to us even when we're not."

AND...on another very exciting note!

That precious little one we were going to learn more about today is a very healthy baby boy! And very clearly one - the sono tech didn't even have to tell us what we were looking at! We're excited for Wyatt to be just 19 months older than his best friend and playmate.

Goodbye Big Truck

Another vehicle sold. When I met Randy he had the silver Toyota Tacoma that everyone in town recognized. That's how my older brother knew who I had started dating. It had a 4" lift and 33" tires and a big bumper. He took it to Moab, UT every year to go four-wheeling. We went once after we got married. It broke for the first time. But the morning before it broke was truly fun! At that point he either needed to put a lot more money into it or sell it.

We sold it, and bought a Toyota FJ80 with a straight axle (and yes, I actually know what that is now). It got a 2.5" lift and some big tires. But it never got rock sliders and sadly, never climbed a rock. The closest it got was a day trip across some Kansas fields that Google called roads.

As often happens when you have small children, we need to buy a new car (the Ford Focus just will not comfortably fit two car seats and no, we are not buying a mini van...yet). The Toyota was a gas sucker and big tank, so we posted it on ih8mud.com (a Toyota forum and the name is very fitting). Just over a week later, the FJ 80 is at home....in Memphis. It's new owner sent a picture today.

He took it out on fire roads in the Ozarks on the way home. We're hopeful that this soccer mom vehicle turned off-road wannabe will now fully fulfill its potential and climb some big rocks. And maybe one day when our kids are a little older we can once again have a rock climber.

In the meantime, my husband's attitude and willing heart about this is amazing. I'm truly sad to see him give up the hobby for now, but he reminds me what this is all about.

A very precious boy who turns 15 months old today, who LOVES truck books (first words in the last month and a half - "ca!" (translation: car) and something like "guk!" or "chuk!" (translation: everything is a TRUCK!!)

And another little person....who we will learn more about this afternoon - in ONE HOUR!! And about raising them to love Jesus first and about living within our means joyfully. Wow, I love that man!!!

Playing in the Shop

When Daddy is home, Wyatt is with him. If Daddy is in the shop and Wyatt is inside, Wyatt is standing by the back door trying his best to open it so he can join Daddy. Saturday Wyatt tested out one of Daddy's projects-in-progress (which I can't wait to have installed!!)

Happy 4th of July....

on the 13th of July.

We had fun with family and friends last weekend. It didn't start out so fun since our air conditioner fan motor broke Friday afternoon. After a fairly cool but super loud night (auto races at the Fairgrounds and a town full of fireworks), a wonderful HVAC friend from our church came at 7:45 am (not too early at our house!) to fix it. Praise the Lord for ac!

Randy's brother and his family came from Phoenix and his sister and her husband came from Kansas City for a quick trip and we spent Saturday with them. The whole family came for a tour of the house, then we visited the Regehr grandparents and spent the afternoon wandering around the family farm gardens (gorgeous this time of year!) and eating warm, just-picked blackberries.

Sunday we had a small group party complete with homemade ice cream and fireworks.

I tried getting a shot of the three little ones, but none of them stayed still for long and this is the best I got.

Wyatt also really enjoyed the swing...just look at that face! My social bird loves his friends!!

Tomorrow we're off for Wyatt's first trip to the zoo. It's Randy's birthday and that's what he wants to do for the day. Wyatt can now sort of roar like a lion, so I'm curious to see what his reaction will be.

New Things

Hope you all had a great 4th of July! We had a wonderful time with family and friends, but those pics will come later.

We had a few new things this weekend. We said goodbye to our old carpet - yay! Goodbye old turquoise blue carpet that was in our house a LOT longer than we wanted you!

And said hello to our new carpet! YAY!

Wyatt really likes playing on the new carpet and laying his head on it. It is much softer!

And today Wyatt had his first swim lesson. Daddy was off for his 4th of July holiday, so he got to come along. We shot this pic after the lesson was over, and Wyatt's face exactly describes his feeling about the pool and getting wet. I will say that the pool was a little extra cold after three days of torrential rain. And he was super tired, but hopefully at the end of our lessons, his face won't be quite so sad.

Fun Times with Carpet and Corn

Our carpet has arrived! YAY! However, it won't be installed until Monday. So until then Wyatt has an obstacle course in his family room. Tunnels and bridges...oh the fun!

He also tasted his first corn on the cob last night - Gaeddert's, no less. Yum. He liked the corn I cut off for him, but the cobs were so much more fun. He would have chewed on them all night if we had let him.

And we finally got sort of a good shot of his face when he shows his muscles. This is serious business. He has to set down whatever he's carrying and put his all, face and arms, into it. Oooo, what a strong boy he is!

A Date?!?

We got a date Sunday! All. by. ourselves. Our last date was a month ago, but it was a shopping trip we planned and then realized it would be a date if we added dinner. This one was an actual planned date. Ahhhh.... And we even got pictures of us. Just us (well, and a baby bump).

We went to Botanica, which was in full bloom. And the paths were shaded enough that we didn't absolutely cook.

A bit of baby bump.

We did run a few errands while in the "big city," and on our way we made a spontaneous (gasp) stop at the Keeper of the Plains. Neither of us had been there before, so we hiked over the bridge and around the monster statue for a bit. And grabbed a cute pic on the way.