Our new house!!!

We finally got the keys to our house this afternoon!!!

Holly and I are so excited about getting our new house and can't wait to move in and get settled. It is a great place to settle in and raise a family - a nice house in a nice, quiet neighborhood. We are very thankful that God gave us the patience to wait until we finally found the right house for us.

The big moving day is Saturday the 21st. Can't wait! :)

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Yes, we are still alive....

Seeing as how it's been nearly a couple months since our last post, I guess it is time to give an update on what is going on in our lives, so here goes....

We are all settled into our little (648-square-foot) one-bedroom apartment in Orangevale. The search for a house continues, and we currently have an offer on a short sale house in Orangevale that we are very excited about! My photos are here, and the MLS listing is here in case you want to check it out. As excited as we are about this house, we have learned from past experiences putting offers on houses, the market is very competitive, and we certainly have a long way to go before we will get those keys to our "new" house. Please keep us in your prayers as we seek God's will in our housing situation, and thanks for all those prayers already lifted up!

About a week and a half ago, our family went to Oregon to celebrate my granddaddy's 75th birthday. It was a lot of fun, and it was great to get the whole Lerman family together again! While we were there, Holly and I went to a really cool car show in old town Florence (yep, you guessed it, I have pictures!!). My mom just posted about the trip on her blog, and you can check out her write-up and photos here.

Last Friday evening, our church held a "music blast" night to kick-off the CD release of our own singer Mary Alviso (visit her web site here). Bill Walsh and some of the members of his band and other musicians from our church played first, and then the band Sam and I are a part of (Scarlet Chord) played numerous songs. We had a lot of fun praising God, and Mary sold quite a few CDs, making the night a big success. Photos here.

And now for a praise report...Sam just found out today he got an engineering job at ADM Associates in Rancho Cordova!!!!!! I understand it is a temporary, part-time job, but that is an excellent start, and I know he must be very excited to finally find a job in his field and right in his own back yard!

We'll try to keep our blog more up to date. We are heading to the 3-day walk in San Francisco a week from tomorrow. As Holly wrote in a previous post, we are working on the lunch crew feeding the walkers as they pass through our station! It is going to be a blast, and we are looking forward to it! Now if you'll excuse me, my wife is almost finished cooking us an amazing spaghetti dinner, so I will sign off for now. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers, and you are in ours! God bless.

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House Update

As most, if not all, of you know, Holly and I were in the process of buying a house in Orangevale. After much prayer, considering the price of the house, and considering the cost of the likely repairs/upgrades it would need in the next several years, we decided to back out of the deal and keep looking. We feel that the house God has in store for us to buy is still out there, and that we need to be more patient and keep looking.

This process of cancelling the contract also left us with an opportunity to change realtors. Without going into detail or being rude, suffice it to say that our previous realtor was not the right one for us, and was not a very good one in general in our opinion. We were not treated right and felt like we could not trust him. Thus, we are feeling relief that when we re-start the process of looking at homes (hopefully this weekend), we have the priveledge of doing so with a different realtor, someone who comes with a good recommendation from a trusted source this time.

Our house hunting thus far has been a true learning experience for Holly and me. We are learning exactly what needs and desires we have when it comes to a house and a neighborhood in which we want to live and raise our future kids. But more importantly, we are learning to be more patient and to seek and trust God's guidance more as we wait for Him to show us what He has in store for us. We are also learning to prioritize our activities more, and we have made it very clear to our new realtor that we will be putting our wedding planning first and looking at houses when something that we really want to see comes along. As much as we would like to be constantly searching for a house, we need to not stretch ourselves so thin and to get our priorities in order. Cancelling our contract with the house also means that we will almost certainly not own a home by August 1st, so we are now looking for an apartment to move into together when we are married. We are still excited to find out what our house will be and can't wait to find it and buy it, and are awaiting God's word and timing to put everything in place!

(I posted another blog entry this evening in addition to this one, so be sure to scroll down below this post or click here to see the blog entry about Spirit West Coast also!)

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