Romans 12:1-2

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Albuquerque Flashback

In April, 2003, Hubby and M flew from Kentucky to Albuquerque to find a home for us.  They chose well in a new neighborhood on the west side - Ventana Hills.  Our goal was to be some place new in order to meet new people and invite them to church.  You can see in the second picture that we didn't even have across the street neighbors yet.  The backyard pictures are to show what we did first thing - Hubby put in sprinklers!  We were doing this on our first weekend there - and we even invited people we met for the first time at Rio Vista Church to come help.  Of course, anyone willing to come into the mess inside and out were obviously going to be great friends!  And the Hendrixsons were - from day one to Jen being one of the last ones in our house to clean when we moved - a large part of Albuquerque memories are of them.



All that sod had to go in too!  We hauled it in the blue van (because we didn't have a truck) and that's where the "sod knife" came from.  Hubby used one of the knives from our kitchen set to cut the grass.  The knife is in our kitchen drawer right now and has been used on sod at every house we've lived since!

Right outside the back door Hubby and the boys built a deck (that's where he first let them use power tools!).  We left the part on the side dirt/sand for the boys to play in.  The swing you see int he picture went on the deck along with the grill and eventually a better patio table was there too.  We had many snacks and played many games there.  From the swing looking north you could see the Sango De Christo Mts.

We spent a lot of time outside at this home in both the front and back, walking in the neighborhood (Hubby taking Jazzy out in the undeveloped area to chase rabbits), and at the nearby parks.  Another great reason in choosing this spot was that it was down the street from the new elementary school.  I was even part of the neighborhood meeting that chose the school mascot  - the Roadrunners!



How is it possible that so much fun and playing went into two short years?  We had a small plastic square table at the end of the kitchen counter.  It was perfect because when you were at it you were in the kitchen, dining room and living room - we had a "Great Room"- the fireplace was at the center.  Although M, didn't actually have formal preschool, I made sure he went to school with a good foundation.  Well, except knowing what a needle and thread was and thinking ice cream was a nutritious snack (those were two things he missed on a kindergarten testing situation)!


In this picture you can get a better glimpse of the table the boys used constantly and can almost see the beginning of the fireplace (to the right of what was our bedroom door).  It was in front of this fireplace where we would act out Bible stories.  One of M's favorites to do was Samuel.  He would lay down and I would call his name.  After doing this a few times he would say "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening."

Weren't the boys lovely bandits?  (Nice transition from Samuel, hu?  Their pretending ran the gamut!) They have cowboy hats from Grandy.  Oh, M & L were the best of friends!  They spent countless hours pretending and playing together.  I hope they remember that and forge a friendship one day as adults. (The pictures of the boys are actually from May 2004 - almost a year after coming to ABQ and a few months before M started Kindergarten. L was 3.)



More ABQ flashbacks to come.  We were finally digital!