Wonderful Week

Well, I survived last week without having Matt home. It was the LONGEST week I can ever remember, but God was good and got me through it in one piece! :-) He got home on Friday around supper time and the kids were so happy to see him, as was I! He had a great week at camp, yet exhausting at the same time. Those of you who have worked at a summer camp for any length of time know how exhausting it is not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually too. This camp he was at has a lot of kids come from foster homes, group homes, and really rough backgrounds, with a few church kids mixed in. There were many, many counseling issues Matt faced, and he spent hours every day talking with kids and staff alike! But God really worked in lives, and 14 teens received Christ as their Saviour! Praise the Lord. I now see how it was probably best that we did not go with Matt because I think he would not have had all that extra time to be available to the kids if his family was there. So, I know that God had His perfect plan in me staying home, as hard as it was.

This week, Matt took a break from "helping others" so to speak, and focused on the house and we had a lot of family time - every day! It was great having him home all day every day! He didn't have to get up early and leave to go visit or study or something. He was just home with us and I loved it. I know that God has called him to be a pastor, which means me and the kids having to "share" him with many, many other people, but it is really nice to have him all to ourselves sometimes.

So, Matt has worked VERY hard on the kitchen/dining room this week. We are taking the home renos one room/section at a time for several reasons - budget and time. Since the kitchen is the "heart of the home" we decided to start there. It is a very nice sized kitchen with lots of counter and cabinet space. And it was in really good condition, just pretty ugly. So we picked out all the stuff we wanted to do and Matt got right on it.

Since totally replacing the cabinets was WAY out of budget, we decided to just paint them and replace the hardware. It is a much cheaper option and gives the kitchen a totally new and refreshed look. We are replacing the counter tops since they don't match the new colors, and have a lot of dings and nicks and scratches on them. We had our contractor (who is a good friend of ours that Matt has known for a long time) order them and he will put them in when he can. We also are going to pick out a new back splash and replace that. We are just trying to find the most inexpensive way to do that.

Anyways, as I said before, Matt worked very hard and I am so proud of him and very pleased with the finished product. I will put a few pics on here, but if you are our friend on Facebook, I put a bunch on there too.

Now, if any of you know me well, you know I love two colors very much - yellow and red. Almost all of my kitchen utensils and appliances are red, so we decided to paint the dining room and kitchen to match. I must say that I absolutely love it! I know some people are afraid of darker, bolder colors, but I definitely am not. I hate white walls everywhere. A little white is nice, but you gotta have some punch in there somewhere!

In the next couple weeks we now plan to move on to the living room. We are going to paint the walls and pull up the carpet and replace it with laminate flooring. With having young children roaming all around who are not the neatest, it is much easier to clean laminate than carpet. So that is next on the list. Then, on to the bedrooms! Don't worry - I will keep the pictures coming!

Well, that is all for now. Hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Until next time...