have i told you lately.....

have i told you lately that i love the officer? have i told you lately how blessed i am to have him in my life? have i told you lately that he is awesome? have i told you lately how thankful i am to God that He set him aside for me? have i told you lately how well God knows me and He gives me things i need through the officer? things i don't even know i need at the time?

well i do love the officer. i am blessed to have him in my life. he is completely awesome. i cannot even begin to fathom all the way God takes care of me.

the first thing is....

i told you about my family reunion last week. i completely forgot to tell you a little back story to it. this is all God's timing and absolutely no doing of our own.

through some confusion, all to my credit, i thought the family reunion was the last weekend in july. that's what we had planned. no problem because it fell on the officer's set of days off so we not have to use any vacation time. (did you know he works 8 days on, 6 days off, 10 hour shifts - fantastic!)

about a week before the family reunion we realized it was actually a week earlier and on the officer's set of days on. i just thought, "well i'll go by myself. i have plenty of family members who would help me set up the tent and help out. no problem." of course i would have loved for the officer to go with us, but i wasn't going to cancel the trip. the officer said, "i'll just take all the days off." yeah!!! however, we realized that week of the family reunion the officer would have to train a new motor officer. he would not be able to go. boo. he was really looking forward to training the new motor officer, but he was disappointed he would not be able to go camping. when he got to work and started training the new motor officer, the new motor officer told him that he would not be at work from July 15-18 because he had planned a family vacation many months ago. this fell on the exact dates of our family reunion. so you know the end, the officer was able to go! see God not only takes care of our needs, but He takes care of our wants and desires even before we know we want them sometimes.

the last thing is....

as you know we are a single income, homeschool family. there are sacrifices that are made to be a single income family, but it's not anything we would change. a couple of weeks ago my air conditioner in my car started going out. we took it to the mechanic and they could not duplicate the problem to diagnosis it. we got the car back. one day when the officer was driving it around, the a/c went out again. he drove it straight to the mechanics and they told us we would need a new compressor. $800 thank you very much. OY! i also need new rear struts, new tires, and a wheel alignment. although we do financially plan for these things, it's still just not a lot of fun. however, this car is paid off and we plan on keeping it for a lot longer. it's been a great car.

the officer told me, he thought he could do all the repairs, saving us hundreds of dollars in labor costs. all right. he started saturday night. have i mentioned it's been a balmy 98 degrees here? here's some pictures.

i have no idea what this is or what it does. that's why the officer takes care of these things.

he replaced the air compressor saturday night.

do-hickeys all lined up so he doesn't lose them.

you have to take out the backseat in order to get to the rear struts.

the rear struts

God knew just what we would need. he knew back when the officer was younger that having a knowledge and know-how about cars would benefit him and his family later on.

we are still in the midst of fixing the car. we don't know if the a/c will work (we are just going off the diagnosis of the mechanic so hopefully that's actually what was wrong with it); however, i love/appreciate/am thankful for the officer that he gets out there and tries to do these things. these are the ways he says he loves our family. these are the way he cares about his family. these are the ways he takes care of our family. these are the way God tells me He loves me. these are the ways God tells me He cares about my family. these are the ways God takes care of my family.