A new house in the future???

January 27, 2008

Dear Tiana, Don, and Austin,

We had a fantastic surprise early this morning around 1 am. Don called from Iraq and talked to us for awhile. He was in a place where he could use a satellite phone and gave us a call. I’m afraid I was a little groggy and not responsible for any silly thing I might have said, such as “watch out for the rocks on your driveway.” But I was awake enough to get the idea that Don is doing well by dodging the bullets fired his way and he said he has returned fire a few times. He is still patrolling with the Iraqis and filling sandbags and he really likes all his Christmas gifts, including the Bongo Drums and camera. He will be bringing home lots of pictures. He and Tiana have it scheduled perfectly – they will be here in April, just in time for Tiana’s homecoming talk. Don would like us all to pray for his friend Lewis whose wife is having some problems with the baby. She is due in a few weeks and they have pulled Lewis out of the field so he can help his wife. Don asked us to include her in our prayers.

I had a business trip to Utah this week and it was so much fun. Bryce let me beat him in most of the racquetball games we played. Marcia let me take the family to dinner one night so she didn’t have to cook. Sam let me read to him, fix him breakfast one morning, play chase, color, play with his train set, watch a movie together, sword fight with cardboard tubes, build towers with Heroscape pieces, and practice his English. And the whole family let me have a nice quiet evening at home alone while they had things to do. The best line of the trip was when Sam wanted to join Bryce and me playing racquetball. He said, “I want to go play with the Dad’s. I’m a big boy and I don’t want to stay here with the girls (pointing to Marcia and the baby).” Even the business aspect of the trip was good.

Mom and I are on a quest to find a new house to move to. We think with prices low it would be a good time to get into something smaller and more updated with built in equity and rent out our current home. I want equity and mom wants a view of the mountains so we spent the afternoon looking around and had some fun. It is a bitter sweet view of our current home. There are some things that are spectacular and other things that are a dog and everything costs money.