It's so bizarre in Colorado because there was no snow at our house when we left, but there was lots of snow in the mountains when we got there. It was probably in the 40's or 50's that day which made it a good day for a hike with the kids.
This is Luke, Tiffany, and their son Noah. Luke is the one in the school with me. He's from Florida and has never lived anywhere with snow before. He was very fascinated by it the first few months and bought a bunch of gloves because he thought the whole concept of the glove was pretty cool :) I guess I've never thought about it...
Sara's sister, Kari, her husband, Tyler, and their son, Tegan, came to visit us the last half of the week. We headed to the zoo the first day because it was so nice out.
Kari, Tyler, and I all got up early Friday morning to go skiing/snowboarding at Copper Mountain. A huge snow storm hit overnight and was still going strong on our way up there. It usually takes about 2 1/2 hours to drive up there, but because of the weather we only got about half way after 3 hours and decided to head back home. That was a bummer. When we got home, they offered to watch our kids so Sara and I could go out. We graciously accepted since our last date was sometime during the Christmas break. We went hiking in an area close to the Garden of the Gods. It was snowy, but still beautiful and serene. I made Sara climb to the highest point against her will, but I think she still had fun :) We then drove to a small town deeper in mountains and ate at a mexican restaurant there. Then we headed back to the Springs and watched a movie at the discount theatre. It turned out to be good day... well for us anyways, I don't know about Tyler and Kari :)
On Saturday, we decided to make another attempt at Copper Mountain. We made it this time. It was a full, fun day of mountain skiing and snowboarding (I do the skiing, they do the snowboarding). There's more pictures from spring break in the photo album link to the upper left.
School started back up on Monday. It was good to be back. I finally got a call from my accountant on Monday as well. I was looking forward to and dreading the thought of that conversation at the same since I wasn't exactly sure what to expect since we made more than usual with the business sale last year. Before we sold the business, he estimated that we'd owe about $16,000 not including any other income from that year. So, since I usually owe money to the government every year, we assumed our total amount owed would be somewhere between $16,000 and $20,000. We put some money aside for this purpose, but we are quickly running out of money to live on while we're here. Long story short, he said we picked a good year to sell the business because a new tax law went into effect that barely taxed the business sale at all. We ended up oweing about $1000 total! That means we can still afford to eat this summer :) (I'm not joking, it was really getting that tight). So, once again, our God proves to be faithful. We knew He would provide, but we didn't know how.
On Saturday, we decided to make another attempt at Copper Mountain. We made it this time. It was a full, fun day of mountain skiing and snowboarding (I do the skiing, they do the snowboarding). There's more pictures from spring break in the photo album link to the upper left.
School started back up on Monday. It was good to be back. I finally got a call from my accountant on Monday as well. I was looking forward to and dreading the thought of that conversation at the same since I wasn't exactly sure what to expect since we made more than usual with the business sale last year. Before we sold the business, he estimated that we'd owe about $16,000 not including any other income from that year. So, since I usually owe money to the government every year, we assumed our total amount owed would be somewhere between $16,000 and $20,000. We put some money aside for this purpose, but we are quickly running out of money to live on while we're here. Long story short, he said we picked a good year to sell the business because a new tax law went into effect that barely taxed the business sale at all. We ended up oweing about $1000 total! That means we can still afford to eat this summer :) (I'm not joking, it was really getting that tight). So, once again, our God proves to be faithful. We knew He would provide, but we didn't know how.We've also seen some job opportunities popping up lately. I got a call from a pastor in Michigan interested in hiring me. It seemed like a fairly good fit, but I don't really want to move to Michigan. Since we've gotten a taste of warmer weather in Colorado, it's hard to head back up north. I talked to a church in Lousiana yesterday that was recommended to me by the president of our school. It's difficult to say if that will go anywhere or not. It's a huge church and a position of a lot of responsibility. I'll touch base with them again next week. Last night I got another call from the school's registrar asking me if I'd be interested in a position in Sioux Falls, SD. Even though I kind of had my mind set on not heading back up north, I was interested to hear about the Sioux Falls position since I have family there and it feels like a second home to me. It turns out that they have two positions open: a worship pastor, and a children's pastor. They're hoping to find a husband and wife to fill these positions. How fitting is that!? I talked to the lead pastor this morning and it still sounds like a pretty good fit for Sara and me. We'll see what happens I guess. We'll find out more in a couple weeks since the pastor is flying out to meet us after Easter.
God continues to amaze us with His blessings and faithfulness as we continually put our trust in Him. It's getting to the point where we don't even have stress or anxiety about the future unknowns because we know He's taking care of us and already has the plan figured out. We're just doing our best to follow the plan.
