…took it upon himself to attempt to fix my car yesterday.

It was one of those sweet and adorable “kids moments” that you immediately realize that you’ll never forget.

As we were wrapping up our trip to the Wilderness Lodge yesterday and getting ready to go our separate ways, Jason decided that he needed to repair my car.

He walked inside his house…retrieved his “tool box”…put on his work hat…and walked to the wrecked side of my car and got to work.

Seriously. hilarious.

And. seriously. precious.

Lori snapped a picture of it and you can see him do his thing here.

Sorry…just sayin.

My poor little Toaster.

I backed into a parked utility trailer this morning and smashed the rear end of my little xb.

I was not. happy. at. all.

Stuff like this makes me crazy.

Wait…I’m already crazy.

So…stuff like this makes me even crazier than I already am.

It was totally my fault. I wasn’t careful enough and was rushing around. Thankfully, it wasn’t someone’s car in my way…or worse.

I’ve got a body shop lined up to work on it starting Monday…they’ll have it for three days and fix it up as good as new.

Thankfully, we only have a $100 deductible. So it won’t be as painful as it could have been.

That’s how my day started out. But it did get better…

After attempting to play bumper cars with my Toaster, I went home to deal with our insurance company.

After I made my claim with State Farm, I headed for Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, where my parents, Lori and Kris and all of our kids were waiting.

We had lunch there and let the kids play for a while.

As you can see from Isaac and Anna Grace’s faces, they had a fabulous time.

And so did the rest of us.

Yesterday after church, Doug took the boys home so that I could get a chance to help out at the new building. I stayed for about three hours, painting and making a mess. (I’m a sloppy painter.)

It was a blast.

There’s something that’s really fun and bonding about working on a project with someone else. I love the chance to work alongside others and talk and talk and talk. You can learn a lot about a person as you tackle a common task together.

It was also incredibly encouraging to see…again…how the people in our church family are so joyful and eager in their service. We’ve got some crazy dedicated servants. Some have spent hours and hours up there…many of those hours sans air conditioning…serving for no other reason than the fact that they love the Lord and love His people. They bless my heart beyond all that they could ever know or imagine.

The work continues this week…and, Lord willing, we will have a Certificate of Occupancy by Friday. If we do indeed get the C.O., we’re looking at a first service there on August 10th…one week from Sunday. Things can happen to delay that of course, but either way, we’re getting really close.

I can hardly wait.

So we’re starting…again…to look for property in the Mount Dora area…home to our church.

We’ve looked off and on for over three years now, but in a wonky market, well…you know.

We thought that we had a place last year…we even secured the loan approval that would allow us to keep this house and purchase the other, but we didn’t get a peace about it and the property sold.

Good thing…said property’s value took a nose dive soon after.

This is probably the dumbest time ever to think about selling a house. Just really. really. dumb. But we’re seriously thinking about doing it. God’s plans are not contingent upon the condition of the real estate market. If He wants us to move, He’s gonna get it sold. Besides, we sold our last house in a soft market…by ourselves…in two weeks. He told us that it was time…and it was.

So I’ve been driving the streets of Mount Dora and Eustis.

And collecting lots of those sale brochures.

This morning, I drove up to help paint at the new church building. On the way home, I collected four sale papers from four different prospects.

Well…three prospects.

The first three houses that I looked at are in lovely and established neighborhoods…prices ranging from 169K (!) to 289K. My how the market has changed. The 169K one was across the street from one that I looked at…and loved…three years ago and was priced, at that time, in the mid 300s. Insert sound of a fighter jet doing a dive bomb here.

The other brochure that I collected is from a house in Chesterhill…for those of you in the know.

I picked up the sale paper on that house…returned to the car…looked at it and…

hahahahhahahahhahahahhaha….

When we got home, I spread out the sale papers on the table. Isaac came over…immediately picked up the one of the Chesterhill “executive pool home” and said, “hey Mom, is this our new house?”

Bless his heart. He thinks that we have money.

“Um…no honey, we won’t be living there”.

(I know, I know. Chesterhill is expensive. I was just hoping that those home values would take a dive bomb too. I love, love, love the hills in there…all I can think about is how much fun it would be to run in there. Either the owner of the house that I looked at was growing his own wacky weed in the backyard and consuming it when he priced the house or the market has not touched upscale neighborhoods so much. All done with Chesterhill now.)

Fun with real estate. Don’t you love it?