Its not easy being green!

I thought you all might get a kick out of seeing John's new uniform! Here he is all proud of his new duds with the exception of the small band above his name labeling him a trainee.

Look at the stud in his pose and cheesey grin!

He actually begins 'real work' on FTO status (on the job training) here on Sunday, so goodbye are the 8-4 hours of classwork and here we go with the 12 hour shifts again! John has been excited to get on the job because the last week of classes were very boring and basically geared toward the recruits who have never worked in law enforcement before. Today's class was pretty interesting though. They went over the internet access, programs offered and specialty positions.

The only residual effect we got from Ike was just some short bursts of rain storms lasting a total of maybe 10 minutes each and some mild wind. In Tri-cities it would have been considered a normal day with the exception of the rain. It is just kinda funny that it comes and goes so quickly! I have a feeling tonight we will be dumped on with rain as it passes by us. It has been raining for over an hour now, which is fairly uncommon for it to rain this much at one time.

Here is a picture to proove I am actually a Floridian! I guess the extra expense for this plate per year goes to ministries that support moms who are either giving up their babies for adoption or who chose to have their babies and offer support to them much like the TCPC. A worthy cause!

It seems like the loan process on the house is proceeding like planned. We got paperwork from the title and escrow company to sign, so now we just wait for the final financing details to come through on their loan and I guess we sign..... Until we sign there is still no word on a closing date yet.

New addition

I just wanted to show you the newest addition to the family....... As many of you know, we had to sell the little car before we left so this meant replacing it once we got here....... John wrestled with this one for a while because he didn't want a 'red car' but I guess after much prayer God wanted him to have a New York Giants RED car. Here she is! I guess he is going to make it more manly by getting a Corrections bureau liscense plate. I guess the extra funds collected for these plates go to widows of corrections officers who were killed in the line. Since we can't get a NY Giants plate in FLorida and they do not require front plates here in FL, he is going to try to get a NY Giants decorative plate for the front.

She is a 99 Ford Escort with less than 100,000 miles so hopefully she will last him quite a while. No motorcycles or Jeeps on the horizon just yet but if John has his way, maybe God will love him enough to allow him to purchase one in the more distant future.

Here are some pics of the unwelcomed additions to our family. This was a huge bug on my screen. He wasn't scared of me at all which is rather weird.

We are actually quite fond of these little guys. They are very quick but sometimes they let me hold them...... The smaller ones that don't know any better are sometimes more friendly!

Here is an amazing sunset taken from my front yard.

WE took a drive out to a place called Pine Island to see what was out there..... It sounded like a resort type of place since it was an island but all there was out there were a lot of Palm tree farms. We did get to smell some Ocean air at this pier which was kinda neat. The water was really nasty/brown due to the flooding that was occuring in some areas.

We have been very blessed so far to be safe from all the hurricane paths. Today they did tell John to be on alert for next week though and get his bags ready. I guess hurricane Ike is on his way into the coast and they know it is going to hit Florida but not sure which coast line. It is still pretty far off and they are not expecting him to make landfall till Wednesday next week, however, if it comes anywhere near us they will be calling John into work. He will stay at the jail till after the storm passes. This way they do not have to worry about people making it in to work AND if the power goes out and people start doing stupid things, he will be sent out on the street to do crowd or traffic control. They get paid all the time they are there which means lots of OT but I am not too sure how I feel about being left to myself during a hurricane? Hmmmm!

I wish I could have gotten pictures of him getting sworn in but none of the families were invited to attend. I guess it used to be a big deal where you bring in the family and such but due to the fact that they have been hiring so many people, it is no longer an individual thing........ he was sworn in with about 25 other officers at 7:30 in the morning. He came home that day with all new equipment, boots, class A uniform, ect. He was kinda stoked about it all!

This is all for now. I will keep you updated on the hurricane stuff as it gets closer!
HUGS ALL!

More great news!

This will be short sweet and to the point since I know I am kind of a blog hog and write quite often! However, I miss you all and am so excited to share all the neat things God keeps doing! We found out today that John passed his test for certification so he will get sworn in within the next week! I will take pictures since it is a pretty big deal here! WAY COOL & AWESOME BLESSINGS here in Florida which makes the heat & humidity bearable! God has come through beyond our wildest expectations!
On a lighter note....... John got sprayed with Pepper spray in the morning and then later that day had to qualify shooting! I thought this was rather humorous since they wanted to blind him before seeing if he could shoot straight but I guess after a good shower, he had no trouble qualifying! This is in itself another awesome praise that we are so THANKFUL for! Anyone from Tri-cities want to come and join us yet?
Love to all you back home that are enjoying the beautiful signs of fall and 70 degree temps!

EXCITING NEWS!!!

THE HOUSE IS SOLD! YIPEE! We signed papers and faxed them in today!
I have shared with some of you that we were in negotiations on Saturday regarding the house in Wa state. Some folks had come to see it quite a few times and were very interested in it. They were approved for a conventional loan & I guess they went this route so that the financing would go through as soon as possible. After lots of prayer to make sure our hearts were in the right place (it is always hard to sacrifice your price on a home you worked so hard to make pretty!), several offer/counter-offers we came to an agreement on a price that God had wanted us to sell it for! They are hoping for their loan to be fully funded and be in the house in 2 weeks so we are praying that all this happens for them! Only one more house payment and another month paying bills on the house and then we will be without all those extra expenses! God is so good and has been providing all the funds necessary to make those payments thus far so the house selling this soon was just an amazing blessing that we will be able to not be totally tapped out for funds! He is a merciful God isn't he!

Today, John got to experience being tazed. Everyone had to experience it but he was volunteered for a "special example" The instructor clipped one prong to his shoulder and the other to his boot. I guess it was quite effective and definitely something John will never forget as the electro-shock reverberated throughout his body! There wasn't an explanation given to him WHY they did this in particular since you can't really manage to do this to an assailant but maybe they just were having a bit of 'fun' at someones expense?

Tomorrow he will be qualifying to shoot. Praise God that his finger is doing much better so that shooting will not be as painful as it would have been if he was still swollen and sore! We will hopefully find out tomorrow what John's score was on the test! Until then...... Thank you for all your prayers!

Confession time..... & Thank you!

I know this is terribly late and way overdue but I just wanted to throw out a BIG THANK YOU out to all of you who came to our going away gathering and put together care packages & activities for the kids.
I must confess, however, due to a miscommunication about what stays with us in the vehicle and what gets shoved back in the nether-regions of the truck and trailor all of those precious bordum busters got placed in the truck and we were unable to get to them during our journey! There were many times I was bummed about that but now I am kinda glad that it happened this way.
As time ticks away and the kids begin to miss their home, family & friends from the Tri-cities, those sweet loving genstures have become a neat reminder that they are loved and that someone cares enough about them to wish them well!

Since school started quite a bit earlier here than it did in the Tri-cities we have already begun our studies. Unfortunately there is a bit of work that we did not finish from last year so we are trying to get caught up on this right now. When we found out we were moving, while homeschooling did not completely stop it slowed down quite a bit. Now that there are not tons of folks to do playdates with I guess this will help me to buckle down and get stuff done more often! Homeschooling laws here are not more strict as far as WHO is capeable of homeschooling but it is more intense as far as record keeping. This is one thing I do not enjoy but I have to keep a portfolio of all their school work and report into a Homeschool liason from the district a couple times of year. No pressure! UGH! There is a lady in our church who has 6 kids and has homeschooled them all in the state of Florida so I really need to get together with her and pick her brain. There is an option of doing umbrella schools or charter schools as well so I need to my homework and pray about what option is going to work out for our family! Sounds a bit too much like California to me which makes me a bit nervous but as with everything else in our lives...... God will cover us where we are lacking!

NOISE!

I am not sure if the camera's small mic will pick it up, but here is a typical day in Florida. It usually rains, thunders & lightenings at least once a day. On this day in particular there was a constant rumble of thunder due to the consistent lightning strikes. I got a couple strikes on film but I was fascinated with the constant rumble. I had to film through the screen so sorry for the poor reflection. Maybe if you turn up your sound real loud you might here it too?

Here is a picture of a turtle I almost ran over sitting in a puddle on the roadway. I figured someone else might mistake him for pavement as well so after snapping his pic I moved him to a safe place since he was so little....... as you can tell he is a bit shy!

SO far all the other animals have been hiding real well which is a bummer. I really want a pic of an armadillo & racoon to share but I may have to wait till the weather is a bit better?

I tried getting a short video of the noisey neighbors! Whatever they are, birds, crickets, some other bug I would care not to meet? They live in this tree and while you may not be able to hear them in the video I can hear their constant buzzing from inside my house! They tend to get a little quieter once I started taking an interest filming. GRRRR! John says that once I get used to the buzzing I will miss it if it ever goes away? I suppose he is right as it is the sounds of the country!

For those of you wondering about how John did on his test, well we are not sure quite yet. All of the guys that went up together to take it, came out from taking the test with the same dread...... Each felt as if they couldn't have prepared any better than they did but that they might not have passed. We shared this on Wed. night at church as our prayer request. A lot of the sermon talked about how it is not anything that we do in our own strength that bears fruit but only what the Lord does through us. I figured it would be neat if God reveals himself through John passing that it is not in John's strength/wisdom, but that the Lord did it through him.

John got to go to the core facility today and tour the place. He met some other folks that lateralled over from state facilities and are taking some of the same intro courses. Tomorrow he has a training called verbal judo that teaches you how to communicate effectively/professionally wiht the inmates. I guess this is a training John has always wanted to attend and here everyone gets it before they start working! Next week he will have to be sprayed & tazed so as you might of guessed, he is real excited about this! :o) He is having fun and just praying that God will expedite his test results so he can stop waiting with anticipation...... Tis all for now! I hear you all in Tri-cities are experiencing and early fall. I am jelous! TTFN!

The next thing

As of Friday John has 'officially' passed the academy. YIPEE! Now he just has to pass the exam to become certified on Wednesday the 27th. On Monday and Tuesday this next week he has to report to the academy to study from 8-4. Some of the other guys he has been in class with for the last 2 weeks will also be there so they are going to use this time to quiz each other. After the exam, John will then have to go through another qualifying certification with Lee county. He will have to qualify shooting and some other areas before being able to work in the jail. I guess you do not get your test results from the exam back right away so after Wednesday, until they find out he has passed he will be qualifying in those other areas. He is doing rather well on the practice exams so please pray for his nerves not to get the better of him! We are also praying about replacing his small car and are shopping around and praying so if you could pray for God to direct our paths that would be awesome!

John had to go to the Doctor this week for an infection in his right index finger. Of course this is on his writing hand so after he was qualifying with shooting last week it really began to bug him. I am thinking it may have happened initially when we first moved in because he kept jamming/smushing his fingers like crazy. By Wednesday this week, it was throbbing and quite swollen and since Satan REALLY doesn't want us to experience our first Wednesday night at our new church, we had to get him to the urget care. They said it wasn't severe enough to lance it just yet and sent him home with some pain killers & antibiotics. By today, the swelling still wasn't going down abd it had begun turning white, so he went in and got it drained. Hopefully, God will allow it to heal fast enough so that when it comes time for him to qualify (shooting) it will be strong enough to do so? I think John is just glad that it isn't a bite or something more severe! He was getting taunted by the instructors at the academy "Welcome to Florida, something bit you!"

Some have asked if we are experiencing any of the flooding that is going on down here and PRAISE GOD we are not! There is a lot of standing water in the gullies, drainage ditches, undeveloped land and other lower lying areas, but they are pretty far from where we are at. Thereare some big puddles in parking lots around town but I guess this is pretty normal for Florida in the rainy season.

We checked on renters insurance since we had not had time before Fay, to get that taken care of. I was amazed at how much of an expense this was, Just to cover our property and NOT even the house it was $1100 per year. The lady said I guessed really high on our personal property value but it would still be pretty spendy. I remember paying $30 a month for renters insurance in Tri-cities and I am not certain, but I think we only pay $60 per month for homeopwners. We do not live in a high risk location though, but still this was rather surprising to me. I can't imagine what homeowners insurance rates goes for around here but I guess if you are going to live in a hurricane zone there is a high price to pay. All homeowners/renters insurance is covered by the state of Florida's own company. Sounds kind of unusual to me since this means you can't really shop around for the best rate, but I can only assume that private comapanies have pulled out since it is pretty high risk! In order to get our car plates switched we have to get Florida car insurance as well so this too is on my to do list.

With all the new things that are more expensive down here one thing that we do get a break on is gas. I know it is going down all around the nation right now but BEFORE we started seeing decreases we were paying $3.65. Now we pay around $3.55. Sales tax is only 6% but the cost of food is a bit more! I have my spreadsheet put together to do some price comparisons but I have a feeling that the outcome will be that I will have to increase my food budget by at least $100-$200 until I get used to the area and figure out how normal families on a budget make ends meet.

Ever since we got here our dog has been fascinated with the lizards and frogs that are everywhere. Last night she finally caught and ate one (we didn't know this till after talking with John's daughter Sarah today). I guess these lizards and frogs have a toxin in their skin that is poisonous to other creatures and can make dogs act liek they are kinda drunk. After she ate it she became nauseated, vomited and became very lathargic. I had to carry her from outside to her bed as she wouldn't/couldn't walk to come inside. After about an hour & a half of being very lathargic and scaring me into thinking she was dying...... I asked her if she had to go outside and she jumped to her feet and was anxious to chase more lizards. UGH! Maybe she will learn? Until then we are trying to break her of this interest!

I guess that Florida is in a drought........ I am not sure if this has been lifted now that there are so many places that are flooding, but you hear Floridians talk about it and it is quite a real thing. This absolutely boggles my mind coming from a location where drought was a pretty visual/realistic thing. A place where you rarely get real rain fall & have to dig for many more than just a couple feet to hit water. I remeber when Peg and Dan moved into their new home before they had put in their yard...... the boys were getting idle so Peggy sent them out to dig a hole in the front yard. Since they were pretty bored they dug quite the hole. I think when it was all said & done, their hole was about 8 feet deep........ If my kids did that here they would drown in their new pool!

Drought is unusual concept to accept here when standing water is fairly normal in undeveloped/untouched land. If you dig down just a foot deep you may make yourself a quaint little pond, and a location where it rains A LOT on a daily basis....... This is just not a drought to me? Kinda crazy! Hope all is well in your neck of the woods! Love to all!