New Updates...

So this weekend Ande and I went to my cousin's wedding. My baby cousin. Who really shouldn't be old enough to be getting married. But he IS, and he DID. You see, I forever think of him as this silly little boy who used to follow his older brother and sister (and me) around, begging to play with us. Of course, being kids, we pretty much ignored him, or would only let him play so we could torture him...LOL

Anyway, Stan and Lindsay were married this weekend, and it was a beautiful wedding. There was a little bit of awkwardness when we were seated at the same table as my mom (who's in denial) & my stepdad (who won't speak to me). I tried to make the best of it, but I was pretty relieved that Ande and I had to leave fairly early in the evening to pick up the kids.

One great update came from that night, though - my Aunt Kathy was there. I previously blogged about her here, here, and here. She is still pretty thin (she lost about 30lbs while she was sick), but she was smiling and said she feels pretty good. She told me she spent 46 days in the hospital, 21 of which she was in a coma. Her pulmonologist told her that he had not thought she would survive. At that point, I told her that there had been many, many people praying for her, and she made the remark, "It must have worked!" It would be great if you would continue to pray for her salvation, and for me to have more opportunities to talk to her about it.

Everybody seems to have recovered from the "funk" that took out Puckey, The Jib, and Ande last week. I am SO thankful that I got away with only a mild sore throat...

Ande's job has another change, starting today. His route (the car dealerships he regularly visits) has been changed. It's a little sad, because he had made a few new friends on his route, but it's also very good in that he will now be within about 5 minutes of home ALL DAY EVERY DAY! Each dealership he has now is located within about a 5 mile radius of our house. Closer location equals less miles to drive equals less gas to buy! It also means he can come home for lunch, so that will save on "lunch money".

The kids are getting ready for camp...Bubber leaves on Saturday, and Bug and Nans leave 2 weeks after that. I'm praying that they have a great time, and wonderful fellowship with Godly men and women who will help them build a better relationship with Christ.

Speaking of building a better relationship with Christ...a friend of mine from church, Susan, has asked me to do a Bible study with her. We decided on Tuesday evenings, as that's one of the few nights I don't have other obligations. If any of you local readers are interested in checking it out, we're going to meet at church (don't have a time ironed out yet, but I'm sure it will be reasonable). It's a Beth Moore study on Daniel. The book is $15, and I believe we will have a DVD series that will go along with the study. Anyway, if you are interested, leave me a comment or send me an email to let me know!! We haven't officially started yet, so there's still time to get involved!

Another cool thing relating to building a relationship with Christ - a guy who works for one of the dealerships that was on Ande's old route was in a triathlon this weekend. Ande has been sharing his faith with Trevor, and Trevor has been pretty receptive. So, as a way of showing how much Ande (and the rest of our family) support him, we went on Sunday morning to encourage Trevor and some of his co-workers and family who participated in the race. Trevor was absolutely bowled over that we would come down to support him, so I'm really glad that we went.

I was amazed at some of the people I saw who were in the race. There were some people who were pretty old (I heard the oldest participant was 73), and one kid JUST met the age requirement (13). Some people were extremely fit, while others looked quite out of shape. I have to give everyone who was involved credit. I got winded carrying The Jib back to the car when we were leaving, I can't imagine doing the swimming, biking, and running...

Also, thanks to all of you for the compliments on my hair!!! I'm thrilled with it, and your comments have only made me feel that much more happy about it! For Cindy, I go to CC & Co. in Fenton, and have Bridget Shea cut my hair. I've known her since I was 11 (wow, that's 22 years!), and she is definitely my stylist of choice. She's also a Christian, which is an added bonus...

This is how we roll...

Yep, that's right. We are officialy REDNECKS the proud owners of a new mini-motorhome. This 1978 beauty has all of the amenities - bathroom, refrigerator, stove, sink... It is very economical, too. It gets 3 gallons/mile. HA HA!! We haven't actually figured out what kind of mileage it gets. I'm sure it's NOT good, though.

Ande and I bought this gem from a guy he used to do a Bible Study with. We picked it up last weekend, and have (as you can see) already started the "remodel". As you can see by the pictures, the decor is a little, uh, lacking. I think you'd call it "Nascar Chic" (I call it U~G~L~Y)

View from the front / View from the rear

After a little cleanup/removal of curtains & cushions

I have already picked out the fabric for the cushions (I'll post pics of that later), and we went looking last night to find the most suitable ceiling/wall material. I think we've pretty much settled on 1/4" birch plywood (which we will probably stain). We've got some linoleum in our garage that I think we're going to use for the floor. I'm excited about it, because I can already visualize what it COULD look like. Fortunately I know how to sew, and Ande is pretty good with woodworking, so between the two of us it should turn out pretty nice. We will be leaving the exterior alone, keeping with the "Early American White Trash" look.

It's got a tiny bathroom, as you can see. As it is, you can shave, shower, and sit on the potty all at the same time! Ande is trying to talk me into making the bathroom bigger, so that it actually has a shower that doesn't have a toilet in the middle of it...

Make sure to light a match when you're done....

I seriously have to wonder what on earth the previous owners were thinking - we found bright green, pink, and purple paint throughout the camper (although the people we bought it from painted over everything with white paint). And do you think anyone could TAPE OFF THE STUFF YOU WOULDN'T WANT PAINT ON? Apparently not.

What is with the floor tile stuck on the front of this perfectly nice stainless steel stove/oven?

You might be wondering why we would buy a motorhome - well, we're really hoping to help Ande's amp business grow by traveling to different amp shows whenever we can, and rather than buying a trailer to hitch to the back of his car or my van to haul his amps, it really made more sense to us to buy a motorhome, so that we can also eat/sleep in it, and have plenty of room for the amps as well.

I'll be posting more pictures as we go through to process of renovating the camper.

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