YIPPPEEEE!!! The House is SOLD! We close on Sept 10th and we are so happy. God is so good. We told Him that we wanted to have a signed contract by Aug 10th and guess what? We had the signed contract in our hands Friday, Aug 10th! And the buyers are Christians and will be great neighbors for the wonderful neighbors here. Everybody’s happy!

Initially, when we were trying to decide what to do about when the house sells, this is what I said to John. “Since God seems to like to be dramatic and cause everything to come together at the last minute, why don’t we fake him out (ok, stop laughing at me) and give Him a date.” I thought I was being so smart, but if I had been really smart, I would have moved the date up! Hey, live and learn. Date or no date, drama or no drama…God is simply incredible! What an awesome Father.

Isn’t it amazing? We put a sign in the yard on July 7th, no advertising other than our flyers/info sheets and word of mouth, no open-houses. We had 3 offers, and 34 days later we have a signed contract! Not only that, this is supposed to be a slow market. It’s just amazing!

We have also gotten rid of almost all of our furniture with a simple email. We plan to have a garage sale once we come back from learning how to operate Cannibal. So look for a post soon about a garage sale.

Today is the first day of John’s official unemployment. So we’re really doing this! We are in the process of selling our worldly goods…lots of them are gone already (still time to come by and claim your items). There’s nothing quite like receiving your last paycheck to make reality set in—let the dwindling of the home equity and life savings begin!!! Wahoo!

We had a moment the other day while looking at pictures of Cannibal when we freaked out a little, but it didn’t last long. We are so excited. The hardest part (as far as we know) is transitioning from living landlocked to living onboard. Once we complete the transition, it should be smooth sailing (how do you write that cartoon/three stooges “nya nya nya” sound?).

Travis and Garrett are at camp and when they return, their rooms will be pretty bare. We have sold Garrett and Kimi’s dressers, so their clothes are either hanging in the closet or in a cardboard box. If they don’t get home soon, they will be sleeping on the floor.

We still have one adorable 9yr old miniature schnauzer that needs a home. She prefers being the only pet and living indoors as much as possible. She doesn’t eat much, doesn’t shed, doesn’t chew anything but her toys. What a marvelous animal. Doesn’t anyone out there NEED a loving companion?

Hopefully our next post will be to announce the sale of our house. If that doesn’t happen, we will announce our move to the boat. Stay tuned.

The survey has been done and Cannibal passed her “test” with flying colors. The surveyor was VERY impressed with her, saying that she was the best built boat of that age he had ever seen!

We are so excited and can’t wait to move on board. We are planning on moving on within the next two weeks, whether the house has sold or not. We are having the bottom painted while she is out of water.

Everything in the house is for sale! Give us a call and come by to “shop”! We are ready to clear out everything we aren’t taking with us.

It’s been a long, busy summer. I knew it would take a while to get everything wrapped up on shore, but I never figured we would be here this late!!

Hello, and happy Friday 13th. This is a great day to buy a boat. We received confirmation today from our fine bankers that we are approved for funding to purchase Cannibal. The money is pending a satisfactory survey for valuation purposes. We are really pumped. The boat’s owners (C.A. and Betty) will be back in town from their travels next week and we will try to get the survey done before the end of the month. Then we should be able to go ahead with the purchase. Yippeeeee!

We also have been told by a friend that she has a family member that has a vacant house in the Pensacola area and that we can stay there for free. That is just such a God thing! You just can’t make this stuff up! If all is as it seems, we will be able to stay in the house there while we are getting things squared away with the boat. How awesome is that!

In addition, another friend has loaned me all of the study materials necessary for passing the tests to renew my License. Can it get any better? I submit that it cannot. Well, we could get a knock on the door from someone who wants to buy our house. However, we know that will happen in God’s timing; so I believe that today isn’t the day for that (although … the day isn’t over yet). In the meantime we are content to marvel at God’s goodness.

YAHOOOOO! After much painting and fixing up and painting and painting. We are finally finished painting! We put a “For Sale” in the yard today. We are asking $167,500 for our house. It is the best deal in NW Oklahoma City. We believe that it will sell very quickly. If you know anyone who might be interested, drop us a line. It won’t last long at this price.

Good news! I spoke with the Coast Guard today and received approval to take the tests to renew my license. We hadn’t anticipated any problems but the approval has taken almost a month so we were anxious to hear back from them. Now I need to begin in earnest studying for the tests. Yes that’s plural. Since my license had expired more than a year ago, I must take ALL of the original tests over. Yikes! It will consist of about 8 or 9 different tests taken morning and afternoon for four days.  I’m not sure yet when I’ll be scheduling them. I’ve got some studying to do.

The good thing is that this is a significant step for our ministry. Once my license is renewed, I’ll be qualified to act as captain of the ship we eventually get for Seven Seas Ministries. It’s very exciting to think about that day getting closer. In the mean time, the studying and license renewal will also help ensure that I am ready to captain our family sailboat on our upcoming voyage.