Flooring and other projects

Adam and I have been working on flooring in the living room today. I just have to say that I love working with my husband in this way. We make such a good team. It's fun to do something constructive (sorry, for the pun) together that we both enjoy. If I could find our digital camera, I'd show you our progress. We're about 4 feet into our 14 foot (by 30 feet) room.

This is project time. We are working on the floors as time allows. We thankfully don't have to rent the tools we need since Adam's work just received the nailer we needed as a mis-shipped item and decided to keep it as a rental. God is so awesome. We can work on the floors as needed, not try to kill ourselves and totally ignore the kids just to save a few bucks on renting the tools.

When the weather is nice, we plan on working on building a retaining wall in the front yard abutting the ditch. Both neighbors have one so ours will just join the two. It will make the yard much cleaner and neater and also get us out of the house this spring/summer!

Oh, and Natasha's shocking new discovery

I was continuing a maternal tradition in our family by washing Natasha's hair in the kitchen sink the other day. She was streched out and relaxed on the counter with a towell under her neck as I massaged her scalp and we chatted. (This is definitely a girl tradition!)

She suddenly looked up and said, "Mom! You have hair in your nose!!"

(laughing) I said, "uh, yeah. Most people do."

(thoughtfully) "Is that to keep the boogers in?"

The worst blogger ever?

No comments on that please! Our blog is our homepage, so I cringe whenever I get on the internet and see the date of my last post. Yi-yi-yi!

Well, here's life with us:
Nat and Elias are on antibiotics, which means I'm loathing every diaper change. They're both feeling 400% better than a week ago, so I'm really just thankful that the "pink medicine" worked. Elias spent four whole days lying on my bed not eating or talking with a 101-102 degree fever which then turned into bronchitis. Natasha just had her per anum antibiotic run to help with her allergic rhinitis. Her skin looks fabulous--just in time for Easter pictures too.

Adam and I are working on the flooring in our living room today. We're putting down unfinished 4" rustic hickory. I've also been getting things together for a garage sale and thinking ahead to when we'll be headed down to Oregon (hopefully for a few months) before going to Bolivia. You can be praying for God's direction as we prepare to leave Juneau (timing, finances, getting our house ready to sell and selling it.) Just how does a person go from one home to the next? The logistics baffle me at this point in time. Meanwhile, I am just going to continue to work on the painting, flooring, yardwork etc and also try to get the laundry and dishes done at the same time.

Sugar high

Adam and Natasha had been eating a snack together the other day. I went in to see them in the play room and Natasha was jumping up and down singing and came right up to me and was talking to me about three inches from my face moving constantly.
I said, "Did Daddy feed you a lot of simple sugars?" (while giving Daddy the LOOK)
Natasha, "No, I did it myself!"

Do YOU know where Bolivia is?

It's not in Eastern Europe (that's Bulgaria).

It's not exit 30 off of I-5 (that's where someone once thought Haiti was, but I digress...)

It's in the very middle of South America.
It's land-locked and the poorest country on the continent.
It's where only one in ten churches have a trained pastor.
It's where churches have been exploding in number and people are hungry for some solid Bible teaching.
...and...it's where the Wehrley clan is headed.
We've been appointed as missionaries with Avant Ministries. Adam has been accepted to be the New Testament Professor at Hebron Theological Seminary in Santa Cruz.
We are VERY excited because:
1. We LOVE Avant. Short-cycle, native-run church planting is what they're all about.
2. Adam LOVES to teach especially the New Testament, especially Greek! Yeah, now he just has to learn Spanish so he can teach Greek. ;-)
3. I LOVE Spanish! Ole' Habla espanol? Mi hija, Natasha, dice 'Mama, yo quiero hablar espanol como mis amigas de Peru.' Yo tambien, Natasha, Yo tambien!
4. We've been talking about missions since before we got married and now we're going...well, as soon as we raise our monthly support that is. SO, please pray for that. We are kicking off our support raising efforts this next week. We will probably be coming to a city near you at some point and would love to hook up with as many churches, friends, and just plain people as possible.

appliance coup

In a matter of thirty minutes last night, four major (i.e. expensive) machines/appliances had malfunctions. Adam was working on his papers for his Greek class. I was doing laundry when the dryer started to smell like fire.

"It smells like a good fire," Adam quipped.
Sorry, there is no such thing as a "good fire" in your dryer.

I decided to give the lint trap a good, thorough cleaning with the vacuum. (Side trip to the bedroom to put a movie on for the kids...the volume is stuck on 40 and won't budge. After restarting all AV units, the volume worked again and we didn't have to have Little People blaring through the house.)

I turn on the vacuum and it begins to smoke and smell like burned rubber. Yum...there goes the "good fire" smell!

Turns out the belt broke. No big deal. I fix that and then clean out the dryer vent. I decide to make sure the outlet outside is not plugged with lint. I go around the house to find Adam's car with it's lights on....very dim, but on. It won't start, of course.

Well, the tv resolved itself, I fixed the vacuum belt and Adam jumped his car easily this morning. The dryer is kaput, and Adam wouldn't let me near the computer last night! He kept resaving his paper every time I walked by.

An update on Natasha's health

For those of you who know of our continual battle with Natasha's allergies and skin, she has been doing well lately. Her hands haven't looked this great in ages. Her attitude is exceptional. Now you can pray for my energy level! She is a spit-fire, crazy, do-anything-for-a-laugh kind of kid. Man, she keeps me busy...and in stitches. Good thing too, because her brother has been going through a cruelly slow teething process that has just about killed us all....perhaps I exaggerate...hmmm.