The Parks. July 4th 2021 - Sept 4, 2021

 So we finally got the bathroom upstairs fully renovated last May. We have had a visitor that stayed with us (Rogelyn) for a couple of months. She was my brother Francis' sister in law, she was coming from Bermuda, also pregnant, single mom. In any case, we were glad to have our upstairs room done. 

In June I heard from Joy Park, she was an old room mate in Vancouver, BC, a Korean International Student. While she was staying with me, she joined the church. Her elder missionary, then Elder Going, came back after mission to visit and they ended up together. Now with 6 kids later, coming to visit us in NC. They are taking their family on church history site road trip. Apparently they have been contemplating on where to move and upon coming to NC and attending our church on the first Sunday of July, James was really touched during the sacrament and felt the prompting that they should move to NC. 

Our kids really had a blast together. They have 4 boys  (16,12,10,8) and 2 girls (14,2). We also took them to Wilmington at the beach. All our first time there, it was really crowded, the parking near the shore was really expensive luckily they found a free spot. 

After they left our house, I connected them with Brother Buchanan, a member of our ward who is a retired air craft mechanic. James is an aircraft mechanic. They have gotten in touch with each other. There were two members in our stake that bought a company at the air port and they hired James to work for them. The Buchanan's have been really helpful in this process. I can't believe the Parks visited us in July and 2 months later, their house in Idaho was put on sale and now they have moved to NC. What a faith and trust in the Lord they have to uproot their family and move because they felt the spirit. 

Tax Season

Tax season has started for me. I start back with Intuit. This is my 2nd tax season and I am very excited to be coming in with some experience and knowledge of what to expect. We are still having church at home. We really enjoy the kids playing hymns on the piano as part of our Sunday service. Elias is growing really tall. Audrey is almost close to my height. Pretty soon I will be the shortest. We didn't really get much snow this winter, I mean it snowed but stayed only for few hours basically.  The tax deadline has been extended to May again this year so that helps spread out my load for tax work. Kids have been very responsible for their own schooling for the most part, and have also been a great team player. It's always very hectic for me during tax season, I am glad for now they are virtual school and am glad we could go away skiing for a bit. 

 

Downhill Skiing

 

We decided to take the kids downhill skiing. We didn’t know if they would survive the cold or whether they would enjoy it. To our surprise, the kids absolutely loved downhill skiing and can’t wat to do more of it. We started with the easier mountain which was Appalachian Mountain. Then we did Beech Mountain the same weekend. We came back in February to ski at Sugar Mountain. Sugar mountain was nice but we didn’t like how we have to park at the bottom of the mountain and get shuttle bus up the hill where the bus was so jammed pack and this way we were not able to pack as much lunch or extra gloves or any “just in case items”. Worse of all, they did not sell tickets on line. This was supposed to be a one day trip so we left at 5sh from home, got in line at 9 am and line was so long that we didn’t get our tickets and our skis ready to go until almost noon and they refused for us to buy afternoon session so we ended up paying for a full day ski pass. Not sure I want to go back to sugar mountain again.