So, I’ll keep working on it, but I figured something not looking right is better than nothing at all.

View the photos. Watch the Slideshow. Order prints from Snapfish.

All the photos are here one-by-one or as a slideshow.

People keep asking where we got such a good deal and the answer is Site59. It only does last minute travel packages for this weekend and next weekend. Also, you have to get at least 2 of these 3: a flight, hotel, or car. But, if that fits your requirements, you can get some screamin’ deals.

Here’s a couple other tricks I have:

• Cheap Rental Cars: Try finding a coupon code on MouseSavers.
• Quick Flight Checks: Kayak.com, searches all the airline’s websites plus most of the other big travel sites and displays them all together.
• Cheap Hotel Rooms: Book via priceline, but find out how much to bid on Bidding for Travel.

More photos here.

The first week after we moved into our house we sought out a new church. Our old church was a founding member of a church planting network called Acts 29. I checked out their website and found Providence Church. We’ve never looked back.

One of the first thing that attracted us there was the preaching. It holds the Bible and Jesus in high regard that delivers hard truth with love. The pastor is younger than us, but wise and grounded.

The next thing that attracted us what that God is blessing it. It’s a new church, just founded in May of 2005, but it’s already running 2 services with close to 500 people. Reminds me of what Henry Blackaby says in Experiencing God, “Find where God is moving and get in on it.” God is moving here.

Finally was issues of theology. It was kind of funny, our view of God had changed substancially in Seattle and we had this idea of what “Texas churches” are like. We kept waiting for the theologically shoe to drop — the issue we would have to struggle to agree with. But it never came.

Providence is sort of an anti-Bible-Belt church. Many of the sermons are centered on setting us free from rules, and trusting in the soverign hand of God. If you want to know more, check out their website, download some sermons, or just stop by.

So we officially joined last week. We’re excited that God has provided above and beyond our expectations for a new church.

Abbey is 7 months old now. She can’t get enough enough of all the solid foods she’s eating, and just loves to sit up. She’s just getting so big. But this week she topped it off with starting to say, “Da-Da-Da-Da.” Those words just melt my heart.

She’s just such a sweet and easy baby. We’re even more thankful for that this week because Holly and Grady have been sick. It’s been tough, but I think we’re about through it.

Besides sickness, the other tough (but wonderful) thing that happened this week was that Grady moved out of his crib. Wednesday at nap time we here a big thud upstairs, following by a wailing cry. Grady had finally gotten motivated enough to climb out of his crib, and hit his face on the way down.

He was fine, but we knew it was time to move him to his “big boy bed.” We immediately took down the crib (so he wouldn’t be tempted to climb back in), and got him settled in a twin bed we already had in his room.

It was a tough transition for him, a scary new environment to sleep in — all while his sickness was making it hard for him to sleep anyway. But last night, he did great! He slept all the way through the night.

We’re so proud of both Grady and Abbey. We couldn’t have asked for better kids. It is such a blessing to be their parents… even on tough weeks.

We had a great time with family. While visting Holly’s parents on the ranch, Jamie killed his first deer and turkey. Ask him to tell you the turkey story, it’s worth a laugh. All the pictures are here.

Grady was Tigger, Austin was a monkey, and Abbey was a pumkin. Everyone had a great time and we even got to meet our new neighbors. Check out all the photos.

Update: We have video, too! Andy took some great shots and put them together for us all. Download it here. (6MB)

A few things we’re thankful for…

• The closing went off without a hitch.
• Our stuff is here in Dallas and waiting to be delivered. (This was in doubt for a while.)
• We have had so much help from family and friends through this whole process.

We’ll start moving in Friday night. We can’t wait to sleep in our own house.

We’re still shopping for a car since we sold our Jeep Liberty in Seattle. Jamie went to an auction in Dallas, and inspite of there being 10’s of thousands of cars there, we didn’t find the right one.

We’ll keep looking and we’re not in a huge hurry. God has so faithfully provided for us every step along the way that we know He’ll come through here.

Holly’s feeling much better. Thanks for your prayers.

Holly and the kids had a relatively uneventful trip, except for one thing: Turns out there’s a Grady Wallace on the DHS Terrorist Watch List. It took a little convincing, but they decided that our not-yet-2-year-old was not the guy they were seeking. I think it’s kind of funny, seeing that every toddler spreads their own kind of terror. But it will also be a serious hassle as he grows up.

Jamie and his dad set out from the Seattle area around 4 pm on Thursday for the long drive to Dallas. Here’s how we got there…

Starting Out — Day 1: 678 miles — We were so determined to get going we didn’t stop until we got out of the state. Dinner was in Ceour ‘D Alene, ID. (Yes, I had to look up the spelling) In total we drove about 11 hours and reached Bozeman, MT about 4 am local time. Why did we push so hard? One word: Yellowstone. We figured out on the way out of town that we had enough time to make a slight detour through Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park (they’re right next to each other).

God’s Country — Day 2: 395 miles — We got up after a few hours sleep, and headed into Yellowstone. It was gorgeous. We stopped a few times along the way to take pictures, and I’ll post them here soon. We drove on into Grand Teton, and saw the sun set behind the mountains. Breathtaking. We only wished we had a week to spend there instead of a day. After dinner in Jackson, Wyoming we made it to Rock Springs, WY.

The Plains — Day 3: 783 miles — After a good night’s sleep in southwest Wyoming, we made some good time on Saturday. We headed due east on Interstate 80. In Cheyenne, we headed south on I-25 to Denver, then east on I-70 towards Kansas. We had every intention of staying on 70, until Salina but decided to change our plans. We figured out that if we picked up Hwy 287 in Limon, CO we could follow it all the way to Fort Worth. More importantly, we figured out we could spend the night in Texas. So, we headed across the plains of Colorado, Oklahoma, and the Texas Panhandle and came to a stop in Amarillo.

Getting There — Day 4: 349 miles — The last day was pretty boring. We woke up from a great night’s sleep in the Amarillo Hampton Inn and meandered to Frisco. Our goal was to make it there in time for the 3:30 Astros game, but we missed by an hour or so.

All in all it was a pretty uneventful trip. Nothing broke, we didn’t hit anything, just 2200 miles of driving. We are thankful to be here and safe. We close on the house on Wednesday, then move in this weekend.

Please pray for Holly as she is sick. She’s in Houston and needs to get to Dallas to sign on the house by Wednesday, so she needs to get better.

The House - It’s pretty much a done deal at this point. We got 4 inspections done in one day on Friday, which is unheardof. I give credit to God, and our amazing Real Estate agent. They found several things wrong with the house, but no deal killers. Even better, we used those things to negotiate some more money off the cost of the house. The only outstanding thing is to find out if the insurance compant has any problem with the roof. We should know that tomorrow.

The Move - Packing is going well. Holly’s felling a little under the weather, but we getting help from friends to pick up the slack. Even better, Jamie’s parent’s show up on Saturday to help with all the last minute things. The rough timeline from here is as follows…

• Saturday, October 8 - Jamie’s Parents Fly In, Going away party (email us if you didn’t get an invitation and you want to come)
• Tuesday, October 11 - U-Pack crate shows up for us to start loading up all our worldly possessions.
• Wednesday, October 12 - My last day working in Bothell. Community group meets at our house for final loading/cleaning “party”
• Thursday, October 13 - Load beds onto crate. Jamie and his Dad start driving to Frisco. Holly, kids, and Jamie’s Mom fly to Houston.
• Saturday, October 15 - Jamie and his Dad arrive Frisco.
• Sunday, October 16 - Jamie’s Dad flies home to Houston.
• Wednesday, October 19 - Holly and kids come up from Houston. Close on House!
• Friday, October 21 - Stuff Arrives.
• Saturday, October 22 - Move into new House.

Here’s hoping nothing goes wrong…

If you want to see the listing, email us and we’ll send you the link. Our offer will go in the next couple of hours. All prayers welcome.

Update: They accepted our offer, with no counter! Inspections on Friday.

It’s God’s provision in even these small areas that’s starting to reveal my incredible lack of faith.

You see I find that even though I know God has called us to Texas, I have almost no faith that He’s going to go before us to prepare a way for us. Let me contrast this with the story of Joshua.

I have been studying biblical book of Joshua lately, and I am very convinced that God is very interested in geography. Who you will minister to, who will be an influence on your life, and who your kids will play with are all primarily influenced by where you live. For this reason God very often calls people to live in specific place. The promised land for the people of Israel is a prime example of this.

What does this have to do with house hunting?

We feel called to move home. For a long time we have wanted to move home to Texas, but it has only been in the last couple of months that we have felt called to do so. Similarly, Joshua was called to lead the people into the promised land.

With God’s call comes God’s provision. In the story of Joshua, God continually provides for Joshua in supernatural ways. In Jericho, God makes all the obstacles fall down to give Joshua victory. Then, even when Joshua makes an alliance he shouldn’t have made, God comes through and supernaturally delivers them.

See, God calls Joshua into Israel. He tells him to be stong and courageous and God will give him the whole nation. God calls me to one house, and I don’t have faith that He will step in and give it to us. I didn’t even have faith that God would give us an easy flight. I had a plan all built up in my head for how our ideal flight would go, but God (via a couple a great American Airlines gate agents) gave us much better flights than I imagined.

I know that God is showing us His goodness in little things like plane flights so that we can trust Him for big things like a house and a church. God is good, and He is calling us to Texas to show us His goodness. Now, if I can only learn to trust Him more than my plans.

More to come…

It will be a mini-family reunion, I guess. I think it will be fun. Now, if we can only find the right house…

First, the details. We should be all moved out from our home in Seattle by the middle of October. I know, it’s fast. You will just have to imagine the logistics we are juggling to pull this all off. We hope to be moved into a new home in the Dallas area by October 22. We’ll take a house hunting trip in late Septemeber. Please pray it is fruitful, and that we find just the right house that will be a blessing to us and those around us.

Jamie will keep his same job. Same boss, same role, same everything, except he’ll be doing it from Texas. It was Jamie’s bosses agreeing to this that turned it into a reality.

All of that said, it was not an easy decision. We love it hear in Seattle. We have great friends, a great church, great weather, and beautiful scenery. If it was up to us, we would have moved everyone we know to Seattle.

However, that wasn’t practical. The reality was we were spending thousands of dollars a year to fly home to see family, house prices in Seattle are outrageous, and Texas is home — always has been, always will be. We want our kids to grow up knowing their family and seeing them more that once or twice a year.

So your prayers are coveted as we make this transition. The website will stay here and you can always use it to stay in touch.