Country Livin'

Well, we've been off the grid for a while now, so hang onto your seat for the quick ketchup!

We got back from our cruise and had a whole week to get ready to move. We had a BLAST on our cruise, Avery didn't even realize we were gone. Time flew, and before we knew it the moving truck was outside and we were saying goodbye to San Miguel. We're blessed to have the Rusco's renting our house from us (especially in this crummy real estate market). Neat, but still strange seeing their family pics in our old house :)

Avery got her first 'shiner' during the moving process, a little fall against a planter and bada-bing, the next morning it's purple, by Sunday it's black. Ouch!

So the first week at church here and we show up with a 14 month old sportin' a black eye. So much for first impressions. That's OK, the next week she busted her lip, so last week the church had us meet with a social worker (not really, but wouldn't blame them if they had).

So here's the latest. We're living in Auberry, which is about 25 miles east of Fresno, in the foothills. If you've ever gone to Sierra Summit to ski/snowboard, you've driven right past our place. Life on a dirt road takes some getting used to. First, there's, well, DIRT everywhere. Every nook and cranny. That will last until it rains, then we'll have mud everywhere. Oh well, praise God. We're above the smog and fog, below the snow. It's a great house that belongs to Ashley's folks -- they live in a new house on the other 5 acres (about 300 yards away), there are plenty of projects around to keep me busy. It's been a blessing. Work is also going well, I have about the same distance drive that I had to SLO, and work with a great group of people.

Everybody asks how Rudy is adjusting (not once has someone asked how Avery was doing BEFORE asking about Rudy!). He's good, a city boy at heart. We had quite a scare one afternoon when he turned up "missing" while we scoured the property and surroundings for the little guy. He showed up about 20 minutes later, when I decided to look in Trish's car (he jumped in the car when she showed up, nobody noticed). Uh!

Church life is a lot different, we're attending the Well, at a "satellite" campus hosted at an elementary school. There's live worship music, then they pipe in the speaker on the big screen. Different, but the preaching is solid. There are a number of satellite campuses, the ideology being that it's better to have multiple small church locations instead of one mega-gargantualic-sized church. It's nice, and different, and there are a LOT of folks in our "stage" of life - young kids at home ... Contrary to popular belief about Fresno, not everybody is barefoot and pregnant (some are wearing shoes).

I must say that living so close to Hayley and Steve has been a blessing. Avery thinks so as well. Some think I'm crazy to move this far for free babysitting (though we do miss our PRBC sitters!), but it is a nice benefit.

We'll try to keep you a little better up-to-date from here on out now that we're semi-settled. We miss you all, and we know that you miss Rudy and my meat slicer. Ha ha.