Pictures of the devastation

Before:

After:

UNREAL!

Here is some news coverage of Melissa's garage burning. It's the green and white structure that starts about 24 seconds into the footage.

I spoke with her this morning, and she's hanging in there but she's pretty depressed. The claim adjuster from the insurance company is coming out today to make their assessment and she's hoping to get a preliminary check so they have some funds to rent an apartment. She said they went to the mall and got a few items, so Jesse is back at work and they are staying with Jesse's brother until they find a place to live for the short term. Please continue to pray for them as they deal with this.

More prayers!

please pray for melissa and jesse, who just lost their house in the southern california wildfires. they got a call early this morning to evacuate, so they grabbed their dogs and headed for safety. while watching the news, she saw their detached garage was engulfed in flames, and when the camera panned, she said her entire house was destroyed. they lost everything, absolutely everything! i spoke with her briefly this afternoon, and as you can imagine she's in shock and not really sure what's going to happen. thankfully, they do have insurance. miss and jesse just got married in september. she's been living in san diego for a almost 2 years and just moved into this beautiful house in escondido at the beginning of this year. being a newlywed is hard enough and now they're dealing with this enormous loss. please pray for them!

A New Life

Gramma went to be with Jesus on friday. both jessica and christy wrote very sweet posts, as they have been blessed with a gift of writing. please enjoy their thoughts as i did. here's a fun picture of jessica and i with our beloved pauline. we love you gramma, you will be missed!

We need your prayers!

i just love this picture of my grand parents. it was taken almost a year ago, on christmas eve, when my grandma's health problems began. please pray for my grandma. she's been ill for sometime (description on jess' blog) and this morning she suffered another terrible blow. we're not exactly sure what it is but the doctor said it resembled a brain aneurysm. she was doing a little better by the end of the day but she may never recover. we do know that she is in a lot of pain from a head ache that she's been battling for almost a week now. it's been a very emotional and exhausting day for our entire family. we love you gramma!

I don't know how...

anyone could watch this and NOT think there's a God. this is a really sweet story about a 5-year-old boy and his amazing story. it's about 10 minutes long, but SOOOOOOOOOOO worth it! break out the tissues! Part One Part Two

Punkin' Patch

so, i'm watching bree again (i know...i said i would never do it again) and on saturday we went to spooner farms in orting with my folks. we had a great time! we went through the kiddy hay maze, the corn maze, looked at the animals (okay, most of them were fake, but there were a few goats and ponies), and picked out our pumpkins. bree found one that 'was just my size.' she was such a gem all day and i was so impressed at her boldness through the corn maze. i would have thought a 4 year old would have been scared to go through it but she picked out the routes...very fun! here are a few cute pix from the day.

Mullets...why?

seriously, people. it's NOT 1982 anymore. so there i was enjoying my twist cone from the dairy barn and just minding my own business, waiting for the hypnotist show to begin at the puyallup fair. i look to my right and what do i see? THIS! Wow...that's all i can say. of course i snapped a picture ~ duh!