And the Results are.....

The results from our survey.....the Saenz Family has never toured the White House. :o)
We got to swim with sharks at Disney World, we decorated the Dr Pepper Float for the Rose Bowl Parade and we saw a new born dophin at Sea World on a behind the scenes tour! Thanks for voting, stay tuned for next week's survey question.

A Lady in Waiting Day 1

We put out house on the market today, (YEA!) and as we were admiring our super huge sign, we noticed that the bushes needed a trim. Steve volunteered, but I had to deny his claim, because of his severe allergy to bees. It's almost comical though, me standing to one side with the Epi-pen and Steve, giant sheers in his hands, snipping a one foot portion, running from the bees, and then running back to the bush for another assalt. I explained to the inquiring kids why it was a bad idea for daddy to cut the bushes when Nathan told me matter of factly, 'if Daddy dies, we'll just get another one!' No problem....we'll just get another one.... :o) Needless to say, I'll be cutting those bushes tomorrow.

God is All

I just got back from the training at our church and I am so tired that all I want to do is cry. Now I know how babies feel. I never understood why they cried.....lol and now I know... As a personal Sarah Saenz policy I don't ever keep track of how many hours I work, but curosity got a strong hold on me and after refusing to let go, I just HAD to count. My little sister used to say, 'my arm made me do it.' I worked 35.5 hours this week at church and then come home to paint/clean/pack until about 11-12:00 every night and then wake up early and start all over again. Nobody made me work that much, but I am so driven.... I am tired, exhausted, and too wound up to sleep at night, so I sit. I think of the Israelites and their adventure to the Holy Lands. I am sure their feet hurt and they were just as exhausted and tired as I am. While I have my soft bed to toss and turn in, they had sand. After an eternity of wandering around, they crossed the Jordan with Joshua as their fearless leader. As they crossed the river, the high waters gathered at one side to allow God's people to cross safely. Reluctantly, they crossed, children most likely close to their parents sides, pondering on the "what if's" of their strange journey. Once safely across, one member of each tribe gathered a rock from the empty riverbed to place on dry land as a reminder of what God has done for them. We may not have rocks from the river bed, but our house has given us 12 reasons to be thankful.
1. We are thankful that we even got the house. Because Steve's income is so small we only qualified for a $50,000 loan. We tried everywhere, but no bank or institution was willing to give us much more. Finally, we went to God, and God gave us Angel who gave us the gift of a loan big enough to buy the house.
2. What, what? After our agent reassured us we were good, we were given 3 days to come up with $1,000. No dice for us! God gave us Steve's cousin who loaned us the money and was super patient with us as we paid him back.
3. We are thankful for our Sunday school class moved us out of the apartment and into our home, and helped us to clean the apartment.
4. After a few months living on cold cement, Sam and Angela Brown put carpet into our new home.....and we still can't thank them enough.
5. We are thankful for my pal Jenny who made our house a home by hanging up our pictures and decorating our house for us.
6. We are thankful for Kathy Suel who brought us meat and food from her garden when our cupboards were bare.
7. We are thankful for all of our old youth who came over weekly for a hot meal and warm hearts....and the Sarah Saenz laundry service.
8. We are thankful for the lessons we've been able to teach Nathan about God through all of the ways our house has blessed us.
9. We are thankful for being able to teach others about God by welcoming them into our home and giving them things they need.
10. We are thankful for Mr Burleson who fixed our air conditioning.
11. We are thankful for all of the great memories we've had in this house, for Kalea learning to walk here and for all of her teeth she cut on our windowsill. We are thankful for the nights Nathan has spent on our couch learning how to read and for the million games of hide-and-go seek we've played.
12. We are thankful that we will be able to pass this house on to another family who will be blessed with a big house for a small price. Perhaps they will be like us, unable to afford a different house, but so thankful and so very blessed by this brick house in the ghetto.

I'm sore.....heartdeep

This was actually the name of someone else's blog, but I thought I'd steal it. It's in no way a bad sore, it's more like a, "I've just been hiking on a beautiful mountain" sore. We are so blessed that Steve finally has a job, we are excited about the adventure that lies before us, and most of all, we are thrilled that God is giving us direction and reveling to us a small portion of His plan for our lives. The heartache comes with what we are giving up in order to follow through with that plan. I was sitting in church this morning after an awesome sermon (as always) and I felt called to share with Steve the desires of my heart, the very essence of what I've been praying, (1) that we would follow our calling for God, and not our own desires, (2) that if we HAD to move that we would sell our house super fast, and (3) that we would find a church home in our new location. Steve and I have been praying the first two together for what seems like forever, but number three is the prayer that got snagged upon my heart and dangled there precariously. When I shared it with him, it felt like my heart broke in two and I was left open and exposed. It's one thing to write it, but saying it out loud made it real. We would both rather give up anything and everything in BCS than lose our church family. You guys have become everything to us, our friends, our family, our neighbors, our world. We still laugh about our first day there because the fit was so perfect that everyone in the Sunday school class we were visiting assumed that we'd been there forever, and it seemed like we had. We got a million months worth of diapers for Kalea, food and friendly visitors after she was born, help when Steve was in the hospital, and the church ultimately became our life raft when my heart started acting up. We are so blessed by most everything about Central that when I am inside the walls and surrounded by such great a love and kindness, I am now prone to spontanious tears. Tears of joy from all of the love we have received (and given), tears of sadness of what I am leaving behind, and tears of hope in what God will provide for us in Mansfield. I just felt so called to tell you this, to share this with you, so that if you see me in tears, it's not a bad thing, God is good and He's blessed our family in so many ways through all of you. Thank you....

Whirl Wind or Weekend?

This has totally been one of those weekends that has been a complete whirlwind. We went through the house and made a 3 page list of everything that needs to be done by Monday, July 30th (the day we hope to have our house on the market) and got to work. We've painted and cleaned and had our first successful garage sale. My hotmail has been down for 4 days now, but we managed to get by on no friend to friend advertisment. It was almost comical, me half awake, still in my PJs, trying to bargin in spanish while our kids started their own 'Kid Nation' in the house. There were a lot of 'que?!s' and fun ackward hand motions while random screams would sporatically erupt from the baby monitor that only sometimes works....perhaps we should have sold that too.....:o)
My father-in-law randomly showed up this afternoon during the garage sale....awww the joy of surprises.....and stayed most of the day.....
The very best part about today though, was that some of our old youth (I used to be a Youth Minister in my past life) showed up after my father-in-law left and visited with us for a while. We had a show at the Venue so our youth came and played a small set before our band went on. I don't like playing in our hometown very much, but I have to say that we had the best crowd we've ever played for in Bryan. They sang, they danced and they had a great time. It was awesome.
Our poor babysitter fell through so our kids had to tag along and for the first time ever, Nathan was really able to see what we do. After we played, he came up to me and said breathlessly, "mom, your band really is good!!" He wrote it in chalk on the Venue's table to make it official.

Raining inside and out

Today the rain began to pour down dramatically outside. My class was busy looking for animals among our "African Safari" outside when the clouds and rain came rolling in. We were immersed in what the giant African spider would say to us when we bumped into him in the long, long grass when one of my more wiggly and involved kids shouted "Ms SaRaH, it's raining on me!!" The other kids quickly joined in the chorus yelling that they too were getting wet. Extracating myself from all of the tangled arms and legs of the children, I parted the waters to see literal (boy I wish I had spell check) water pouring down the large window and into my classroom. It was very exciting.
Exciting seems to be the very theme of this week. Thanks to all of your awesome prayers, we managed to finally find peace on Monday, get a good nights sleep, and then start all over again on the crazy bus, driving furiously foward and without headlights or a rest stop insight, except now we know the location, the final destination for our saga. Steve got the call on Tuesday. We are on the bus to Mansfield where Steve will be teaching 4th grade. It is super exciting and I am soooo thankful he has a job. I am also thankful for all of you who prayed for us and stuck by us as I crawled back and forth from under the bed to under the computer desk to finally blogging about it, to back under the bed. It is much akin to swimming though, where you take a breath, enjoy the view from your island of thankfulness, but then realizing that you have yet to swim the rest of the way. As excited as I am, I have some very specific things that we need some prayer on. I both know and trust in not only the power of God, but the strength of friendship and prayer in numbers. If you guys can hang in there with me and please, please, please pray for these things, I would appreciate it SO VERY MUCH......
1. We are putting our house on the market on not this Monday but the Monday after next. From that point we have 28 days to sell our house and get to Mansfield. Please, please, please pray that our house will sell super, super quickly. God can create the earth in 7 days, I have no doubt that He has the power to get our house sold.
2. Please pray for the entire process of painting, packing, moving and unpacking. Nathan and I don't do well with change.
Thanks so very much guys!!!!! I am so happy that Steve has a job and that we have you praying for us!!!

Saenz Family Secret....

Here is our Saenz family secret.....Kalea learned how to count to 10 through playing family games of hide-and-go-seek several times a week. Our favorite way to play is when the hider jumps out and scares the seeker. It is so much more fun because you have no clue where the hider is going come flying out from. We don't do this for Kalea for obvious reasons, but Nathan LOVES it.
Today we played and Steve wedged himself behind our file cabinet in the office. It would have been ok if it weren't for the shelf with all of the office stuff on it. Somehow it all came down on Steve and he got stuck. Nathan was laughing so hard that he fell over. Being the good, loving wife I am, I grabbed the camera and took a picture.

Barbinaska

Unless you have a child in the youth group, you probably have no idea what "barbinaska" is. If you get a chance, ask one (a youth that is) or me to explain barbinaska in all it's glory.
I just got back from Baylor (yea!). I packed my I-Pod and prepared for a weekend with my closest pals all packed up in that tiny box. I was ready for boring lectures and a night of people snoring. At Methodist children's conferences, it's a day with a bunch of ladies who are preaching last years lessons and internet ideas that have been recycled over and over and over again. There are the plain-jane, semi warm boxed lunches of ham sandwiches, old mayo, a stale cookie and dry pickle. This conference, however, was amazing. The future teachers and assistants I went with were amazing and fun (and a little lost at times :o) ) The speakers were amazing and for the first time ever, I really and truely feel fully equipt to teach music. I have so many new ideas and theories that I cannot wait to try out. I am just exploding with the joy of teaching, because this will be the first year that I will really and truely feel comfortable and prepared in what I will be doing in both Day School and AWANAs Cubbies.
This is also the first time ever that I have left Kalea overnight to do something that's not band related. It felt so great to crawl out of my tired mommy skin and just be a real person for two days. I love my babies so much and missed them terribly, but it sure was great to have a good long break. Steve couldn't handle having the kids for much longer, so he ended up meeting me at Bayor after the conferene. We used our zoo passes to go to the Cameron Park Zoo for a quick run through before it closed. Nathan was so sweet and allowed me to hold his hand the entire time. Kalea was acting like a two year old, but that was ok too, because she won't be two forever and someday I'll miss it...ok not so much the screaming and kicking and trying to be in control of EVERYTING, but the rest of it.
Steve got a promising e-mail after an interview he just had. Pray hard ladies, because he may have a job by next week. :o)

Top Ten

Top ten reasons why I am thankful:
10. Free lunch and breakfast at the school by my house keeps my kids bellies full and going there has become the highlight of their summer days. What kid wouldn't want to eat random food like donuts and cheese pizza for breakfast?!
9. All of my pals who keep all of me in forward momentem.
8. My job and the fact that it is so family friendly. It also allows me to serve God in such an awesome and fun way.
7. Our church/Pastor Chris' wisdom and all of the people who have become our extended family.
6. Our house. It may only look like a red brick building in the ghetto, but it reminds me everyday of how much God loves us and answers our prayers.
5. My band and the endless joy we get from playing shows and telling kids about God.
4. Nathan's medicine that keeps him breathing.
3. Our car that works and has air conditioning and a CD player.
2. My family and their joy, health, love, silliness, and values.
1. The Scripture.
What are you thankful for?

If at first you don't succeed, parachuting is not for you

Ok, so I haven't blogged in FOREVER, and the reason why is because I have been hiding under my bed....no really. When things get bad, that's where I go. I curl up in the safety of "let's pretend things are good" and sit quietly until things get better.
I just paid the bills and we are a few hundred dollars short, oddly enough I am thankful. I am thankful that we bought the kids medicine BEFORE I attempted to pay the car note, and I am thankful we had money to pay for what we did. As most all of you know, Steve has no job as of August. He has spent a million nights filling out applications, a million nights praying, and a million hours on the road interviewing and getting let down. We prayed that we could stay here, but as of July, all of the principals in Bryan stopped hiring and took off for their month long vacations only to return in August with their jobs still intact. While Nathan is busy making lists of things he wants for his August birthday, we are making mental lists of things we will give up to stay in our house after the money stops coming in. The feeling that lies in the bottom of my stomach is of so much hope in God accompanied by the constant ache and bother of the unknown. My body is on Code Orange, ready and alert; unwilling and unable to rest until something, anything happens. My heart hurts from the strain and yet I am unable to give up this burden and trust that God will take care of us and this situation. I am drowning in my own weakness; Bible in one hand, children and husband in the other. If only I can just hide under my bed until it's all over with.