Happy Father's Day!

I hope everyone is enjoying time with their Dads or reflecting on good memories they had with them or enjoying the presence and love of their Heavenly Father.  While this is normally a day of rest in the Gregory family it will be very busy as we prepare to leave for our marriage conference in Dallas tomorrow. I'll neeed to take all the kids to the YMCA for showers, go to the laundromat, and stock up on food for the kids so the Perrella's won't have to worry about that while they take care of them this week.  Tim's only request for Father's day is that he gets one-on-one time with each of the kids, so I wanto to do all I can to facilitate that!   We have been very busy the past few weeks with looking at homes and cars and such.  We found a house that we're interested in for several reasons, but I tend to think it will not be the one we end up in.  What's interesting about it though is that I think it has helped us narrow our focus a little.  It would be easy to buy a ready to live in home, but Tim has always wanted to build a house to transfer his carpentry skills on to the kids.  However, it doesn’t make much sense to build when you can get existing homes so cheap.  So we’re thinking this would be a good compromise – get something cheap and renovate it with the kids so they learn how to take care of and do repairs on their own homes when they grow up.  We both believe that skills transfer is a pretty big deal.  It's kind of  funny that my last blog was lamenting getting back into the rat race and now we're looking at not only getting back into the rat race but adding on a renovation project.  As we've been praying about it, though, I believe the Lord has been changing my heart.  Tim went on a spiritual retreat to a local monastery on Thursday & Friday of this week, and that was one of the things he felt the Lord confirming in his heart - to go ahead and buy a home instead of rent.  Another thing that keeps getting confirmed as we minister to a local church here is that we are definitely where He wants us right now.  There is nothing like being used by the Lord where He has opened doors. 
On a completely different subject, Ferman finally finished the repairs on our car on Wednesday and it looks fabulous!  While the kids loved the SAT radio, backup camera, auto slide doors and rear door, and just all the room in the rental, they transitioned well back to our little Mazda5.  They have been doing great, I must say.   I leave you with a picture I took of Nathan, Nicole, and Nicholas just sitting on the couch yesterday afternoon reading - aren't they just precious?!!