Happy News

A few things to share:

First, the car Shannon looked at on Tuesday evening ended up being the one we decided to buy. It was the same make and model as we had but 5 years newer. The engine is not the same but we knew that to get the engine we wanted we might have had to go two hours away to find one. We would not have had time to do that until at least next weekend and the car needed replacing now. Anyway, we now have a 5 year newer car with very little rust and only 82,000 miles on it-that's nearly 200,000 less than the one that got wrecked.

Second, Shannon just received approval today from his boss to go to Tanzania in September. They had told him no and Shannon spoke with them again on Tuesday. Today the supervisor came to him and told him okay. He needs to give up our week long vacation is August, which we had planned to do anyway and come back from Tanzania one day earlier than he had planned. That is a workable situation. The $1000 we had saved so far to go towards the trip we spent on the car but we are hoping the other driver's insurance company comes through with all or part of that money eventually. We know God is good and that if he could change the minds of Shannon's supervisors, he can certainly provide the funds for the trip.

We are at the "Sonshine Christian music festival" this weekend. It had been decided earlier this would be our family vacation this year as Shannon won't have vacation time for a trip to the Black Hills as we originally planned. It works. We are hanging out with family friends there and it seems we all end up scattered for most of the time but we are having fun. We come home to sleep at night as we both worked this morning and I work tomorrow morning but spend the afternoons and evenings there. I have discovered how much I really like Toby Mac. They are a mixed race band which is great for us with our mixed family. He puts a lot of emphasis on diversity and family(he is a dadddy to 5) and man can those band members dance! What a fun group they are and their music appeals to us as well as our kids.