Grandma's new home

We got home last night after spending a week in Eugene helping get Grandma moved into a nice apartment at Solvang Retirement Living. She seemed to be adjusting to the change remarkably well, and I think she will truly be happy there, and may even wonder after awhile why she didn't move there a lot sooner. Here are some pics for you to see what it's like:

The dining hall is set up like a restaurant, and she can go down to eat anytime of the day from 7 AM to 6 PM. Good food. We ate there 3 times. They take people shopping two days of the week, and two days are set aside for doctor visits. If they have an appt on one of those days, they will take them there and then pick them up when they're through. They go on trips to different places of interest at least once a month, have entertainment come in, have Bible studies and church services, etc. They encourage the residents to keep active by awarding them "Solvang Dollars" every time they attend an excercise session (chair excercises) or walk around the building. When they have accumulated 7 solvang dollars, they can trade it in for a guest meal ticket so they can treat their guests to lunch or dinner with them in the dining room when they come.

While we were there, several people came to meet Grandma, and one lady in particular was very helpful and had her go to two or three meals with her. I think she will continue to be a friend for Grandma. She attends the church where Grandma goes, but they didn't know each other before.

Of course Grandma is hoping for frequent visits from her kids and grandkids. There is a guest apartment there (I didn't see it) where people can stay for $50 a night, which includes all meals.

At this point, I'm glad we made the decision and moved her there. I'm praying for good times and good friends for her there to fill her days and help her begin to live again with joy.

Be It Ever So Humble...

Well, we’re in our apartment! We moved in on Tuesday (with help from Andy, Kim and little Donny, who had to be confined to a playpen since he was determined to be outside).

We still have a lot to do, but keep working on it and are finding places for the things we brought here, knowing it’s a much smaller place than we’ve been in (and also knowing that as soon as Jim has a job and our house sale in JC is finalized, we'll be looking for a house and moving again!) I’m having to be creative to find slots for everything – especially in the kitchen.

But the place that some of the things are going to is back to the storage unit we have here in Vancouver! So now we have ‘stuff’ in 3 places: The shop back in our Junction City house is still half full of furniture, etc;

The storage unit, which is quite full (some of the ‘stuff’ there belongs to Joann and to Timmy, though);

The apartment.

But we have two bedrooms, and are almost ready for company! If you come, I promise to have the guest room ready for you.

I’ll post some more pics as soon as we get better settled.

No job yet for Jim. I’ve kept him pretty busy this week moving and setting things up, helping to unpack, and settling in, etc.

Thanks for checking in with us, and for your continued prayers for direction to the right job.

Apartment

We found an apartment in Vancouver, and will be moving in on September 15 or 16! It has 2 bedrooms and is about 1/2 the size of our house in Junction City, but is nice for a temporary home until Jim gets a job and we can know where we should buy a house. I'll post some pictures once we get in there.
Stay tuned for more in the continuing store of Jim and Marie!

Family

THIS is the reason we moved!
THE FAMILY-- almost all were together on Saturday for a weiner roast at the Twist lodge (Beth's house). If Danny and Betsy could have been here, our day would have been complete! We missed them.

Grandma Marie with her sweet little Katie

Timmy, Andy, Joann and Katie, grandma Marie with Donny and Jack.

Donny with Uncle Timmy

Jack helped Donny get a drink.

Jack with Auntie Jo

And we finished the day with a leap over the fire! "Beth be nimble, Beth be quick...."

What a fun day we had! I'm sure glad we're here!

Joann got a job at Starbucks and starts on Tuesday, but Jim hasn't gotten a job yet. We're still staying with Kim and Andy in Vancouver, and looking for work, a place to live, a church, a bank, new doctor and dentist, etc. What fun we're having!!

Where???

Where did everything go??

To the shop, of course!

We had planned to be out by Saturday morning, but even though we had help from family and friends, it was 2 PM Sunday before we had everything completely out of the house and were ready to leave. We packed almost everything into the shop at the back of our garage, and loaded both of our cars full. Said good-bye to the house, then headed north.

Probably within a couple of hours our renter/buyers were moving in – very happily. They’ve been living in two camper trailers for the past month.

So the next phase of our life has begun! We started out spending Monday and Tuesday at Beth’s house in Sandy, OR – playing with our grandbabies there, and enjoying Beth and Matt’s hospitality. It was nice to be able to relax after the frenzy of work getting moved. We did go out to pick blueberries (for them and for us) for a couple of hours on Tuesday.

On Wednesday we came to Kim’s house in Vancouver, WA. I made dinner last night after Kim got home from a day at CYT day camp. I also made a yummy blueberry dessert for all of us. We’re going to make this our home base for awhile, so will spend some time today making a space for some of our things in their garage. We’re also going to go look at some apartments today.

Then we’re going to go visit the Cowdens in Seattle and Kathy in Centralia for the week-end. We’ll be back at Kim’s on Monday, and Jim will go drive tractor for his brother for a few days before he comes back and starts job hunting in earnest. The teaching job we mentioned in the last post didn’t happen for Jim. There’s still a possibility of a job at another school… We’ll see what happens. We’re not sure what the Lord has planned for us, but we’re trying to be flexible in the process.

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Moving along

It's time for an update on our status. Jim had his interview at King's Way school in Vancouver on Tuesday. He says it went well. He's hopeful of a job offer, but know they were also interviewing others, and we don't know anything about them. The administrator said they would get back to him by the end of the week. So we wait....

In the meantime, we are seriously packing. Our house is starting to look empty.

Tomorrow a friend is going to come help Jim move a lot of our furniture to the shop. We're storing things there until we get a home.

Tonight the buyers came and we signed papers for the sale of our house. They were celebrating the signing. I was sad. It's all so final.

We're trying to be out by Saturday so they can move in....

We'll go to Beth's for a few days, then Kim's, then...?















Job --- we'll buy a house

no job yet --- we'll rent an apartment

we'll keep you posted. thanks for checking in. And thanks for praying for us.

Another Step

Another step is done… kind of. We started the paperwork today for the sale of our house to the Hitchcocks. They’ll be renting for the first few months, but the sale looks good. We have some details to work out this week, and will do the final paperwork next Wednesday. Then we wait for the government program they're applying for to be processed. They say that will take from 2 to 4 months. We set August 20th for the last possible day we’ll be out, but will try for the 15th and 16th so they can start moving in over the week-end.

Jim has an interview on Tuesday, the 13th at King’s Way school in Vancouver, Washington (not far from Kim’s house). They had an unexpected opening for a 5th grade teacher. We had checked out that school in the spring, and were impressed with it. They had no openings at the time.

In the meantime, we’re packing boxes and taking loads up to the storage unit each time we’re up there. We plan to store most of our things in the shop here until we find a place to move into up there – wherever that may be. If Jim gets the job, of course, we’ll look to buy a house near the school. If he doesn’t have a job yet, we may get an apartment temporarily. But will have to live with Kim or Beth for the time between leaving here and finding a place to live.












Now we have to squeeze some other things into our final days here (besides trying to squeeze all our things into boxes and into the shop). We have friends and family to spend time with and the Scandinavian Festival to attend this Thursday through Sunday. I’m really looking forward to that! I may even work in our church food booth one shift. Jim and I did that last year, and it was fun.