SORRY!!!

I know you are all waiting for more pictures and I am failing miserably. The roof has started going up this week and I will get pictures up now that I'm on break!!! Be looking forward to them soon!

And guess what??? We get have Thanksgiving in our own "home" this year :)

More pictures of the pouring the foundation! It's such an exciting day for us!!!

Pictures leading up to the foundation!!!!

The foundation was poured today!!!! These are photos leading up to the pouring. I'm going to post more pictures of the pouring right after this :)

Updated Photos of the House!!!!

New Pictures as of Friday October 2nd

Pictures from today!

Things are still moving along!

Updated Pictures!

These are pictures that I took today of the progress of our house!

PICTURES

I have been promising pictures for all of you for way too long. Here are a couple of slightly outdated photos of the house as it is slowly progressing...enjoy!

Starting the house!

Hello everyone!

It once again has been too long since my last update. We have finally started work on rebuilding our house. We have our basement dug and are waiting to receive the rest of our permits. I'm going to try to remember to post a picture of the progress of the house on the blog tomorrow for everyone to see.

While we are very excited about this recent development, it is still very stressful dealing with the city and going through the process. Your continued prayers would be much appreciated by me and my family during these next 15 months.

I hope all of you are well and enjoying the last weeks of summer...well the last weeks for me since I am going to be starting my senior year of college! Almost done and out in the real world...yikes! Good thing I have God on my side.

In him,
Alyssa Gino

God Gives Us Peace

Hi this is Joelle. I wanted to share something on my heart. Sunday we were studying in Matt. 5 and talking about The Beatitudes. Something hit me as we were talking about them. Someone in class said that we never focus on "Blessed are" but more on the attitudes. I started really started thinking about it. We are blessed when we go through trials and it stirs us up. One of the hardest things that I struggled with after our house burnt to the ground was after we moved in our rental. I walked around a home I didn't recognize. I felt so empty. Nothing was familiar. I was thankful don't get me wrong, but I hurt inside. One day I woke up crying, tears just rolling down, and I couldn't stop them. I had no control over my life and no idea what was ahead of us. I felt so misplaced. I never could stop crying that day. My heart broke for Kendra when I picked her up from school that day and she said Mommy are you going to always cry now. So that night Mike came home early from his mountain bike ride and found me in bed and Kendra roaming the house. The next morning I wasn't any better. I knew I couldn't do this on my own. So I cried out to God and asked him to help me trust in him and to give me peace with whatever was to be. I didn't want to try to make since of this anymore because it really didn't matter. Everyone tried to give me reasons why this happened and it was making me crazy. So I gave it COMPLETELY to God and he gave me peace and I was able to have joy in it. I really don't think I really understood the true peace and joy that God gives until that day. I'm so BLESSED to have a closer relationship with my God who grants us such peace and joy that we could ever get on our own. I think it is impossible. I want to leave you with this....

Worry compromises your joy,
cramps your peace,
and confines your freedom.
June Hunt

Finally An Update!

I'm sorry that it has been so long since I last updated. I know that those of you still checking for updates despite my lack of them are still curious to know what is going on with the plans for the new house.

We are waiting for the go to turn over our soil to begin the process to start building. We are also waiting for the approval to build a second story house from the city and neighbors, which I believe will be happening this week. So far we have had very little complaints about the second story so it should be approved without any trouble at all. Right now we're trying to get the price per square foot of the house down from the estimated quote so that building the new house is more of a reality since the original quote given was too high for us. We have been so blessed by God because he has provided us with a family who is doing their best to help us rebuild our house for a price we can afford.

If you would like to see what our new house is going to look like you can go to jamesglover.com and look for it in the plan room.

Meanwhile Ryan and I have settled in to the rental house. I was allowed to paint my room so it now looks more like me. Perhaps I'll take photos of it and post them on here in case anyone is curious. I'm so blessed to have been living in an apartment on campus during the fires because it has allowed me to make this room in such a strange and unfamiliar house much more comfortable.

I hope all of you are well! God has blessed us all so much, and I hope that each and every one of you feel how much God has blessed you as well! He carries us through all our struggles, and I have no doubt that he will take care of us all because he has provided for my family in our time of need more than I could have ever thought.

God bless you all!

In Him,
Alyssa Gino