Happy 2007!

We hope you enjoyed your Christmas and New Years! We had a great time in Michigan, though we didn't get any snow... We spent time with family and friends. We finally met our new niece, Jena, who is adorable and such a great baby! We spent three days with Vince, Ann, Ian, and Jena. We painted the kids rooms- airplanes for Ian, and flowers for Jena. Plus, Vince and Ann surprised us with tickets to the RedWings game!

While Christmas was not white, it was very beautiful and relaxing at Mom and Dad Persicke's house. Christmas day was full of good food, and lots of poker with the Persicke family. IT was great to spend time with Counsins, Aunts, and Uncles!!! Scott even won $25! We were able to spend time with the Cuthbertson family after Christmas, and have lunch with Dan and Cathy, and their three kids. Also, our friends from Colorado, Matt and Steve, drove over from western Michigan where they had been visiting their families. Unfortunatly we both came down with the stomach flu after they arrived. Despite risk of getting our "disease", they diligently kept us company as we moaned on the couch! Mom Persicke lovingly nursed us with homemade Chicken Noodle soup, and hot tea.

Unfortunately we had some bad news while we were in Michigan. Jen's Grandmother Doberneck passed away the day before Christmas Eve. While it was a bit of a surprise, it wasn't totally unexpected as she was beginning to come down with pnuemonia before we left for MI. Thankfully we were able to make it back home in time to celebrate her life with the Doberneck family at the funeral. Here is a picture of the Doberneck family...

As the new year begins we are enjoying working around the house, painting, organizing the garage, and catching up on things that have been neglected for the past couple of months. We are hoping to slow down a bit this new year as we settle more into our life in Vacaville. Scott's job is slowing down, and he is getting home earlier than before. We continue to pray for God's direction in his career. Jen's job at Allstate is going well and business is increasing every week.

We miss the snowy Colorado mountains, and our friends there! (Although we know you are all getting tired of the freezing white stuff...) Contrary to Colorado and Michigan belief, it DOES get cold here... it was below 20 degrees the other morning!

We wish you huge blessings this coming year. We love and miss you all. You are in our thoughts and prayers.

Love Scotty and Jen

Merry Christmas!! We've had MANY requests for more pictures of the house, so here you go....
We had our first guests over to our house this weekend... our friends Jon and Jessica Flowers and Scott and Heather Whitlock. PLUS four baby boys.... Jon and Jess have twin boys that are four months, and Scott and Heather have twin boys that are 3 1/2 months... it was a RIOT! We loved having all the babies in the house. We are preparing to go to Michigan this coming Monday, the 18th. We are looking forward to spending time with family and friends. (Not to mention, a break from work!)
Our First Year anniversary is this Sunday! We are planning on going into San Francisco for the day and visiting Union Square where all the big stores with the Christmas lights are.... It should be fun! Work has kept us busy and tired, but we are slowly getting things done in and on the house.... We hope you have a wonderful and MERRY CHRISTMAS as we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ!
Blessings to you all!
Scott and Jen

All the Boys.....

The Whitlocks

The Flowers

Jen and Eli Flowers

Scott and Scott Feeding Carson and Shay Whitlock

Happy Thanksgiving!!! We are in our new house now and we LOVE IT!! We walk through the house (which seems incredibly HUGE compared to the trailer) and we cannot believe it belongs to us! We had a small "thanksgiving" meal Thursday night with Prime Rib. It was our first meal at the new dining room table! We will spend this weekend painting, moving the rest of our belongings in, and hopefully decorating a little for Christmas. We added one last picture of trailer life in for kicks. Scott and our dear friend Alan are making the last "deposit" into the septic system.... Need we say more?

The house picutures are a little sparse right now since there is not much to see as of yet... I guess all of you in driving distance will just have to come see the house for yourself!

HAPPY FALL!! We FINALLY are able to download pictures on our blog again... so here are some updated pictures..... The first one is on my birthday, Oct 2. We went to Mumm Champagne. It was a beautiful early fall day.
Also, meet our neighbors... the turkeys. We counted about 30 of them a couple weeks ago, and now they have dissapeared... my theory is Turkey Season just opened... they must know!
Our trailer.... Home sweet Home..... We have lived there for three months now! Yahooo we are True Trailer Trash and PROUD OF IT! Actually the days in the trailer are swiftly coming to an end..... On Nov 21st we Close on a House that we are buying! SO we have a LOT to be thankful for this Holiday Season! God has blessed us beyond all we could think or imagine with this house.. It is a 3 bd 2 bath 1632 sq ft. We have vaulted ceilings, skylights, a brick fireplace, and LOTS of room!! Everything is move in ready! We are going to add some paint to the walls and we will have my brother, the electrician, put in some recessed lights and a ceiling fan in the bedroom.... We are so very excited. I don't have pictures of the house, but we will soon. So expect another update soon.
Scott is doing well working for Pacific Pulmonary, delivering oxygen.. I am doing well working for Allstate. Now that I am licensed I am able to sell policies on my own. (What a change for both of us from teaching!!!)
God is good and we are thankful this Thanksgiving. We miss many of you SO much!!
Scott and Jen
By the way... our real neighbors, Alan and Chris, are building a new home... that is what all the construction is in the yard behind the turkeys....

A lot can happen in a few weeks! The past few have flown by as Jen has been woring at Allstate, I've been job hunting, and we've been figuring out trailor living. You'd think living in a trailor would come second nature. You just put a bunch of trash outside your trailor, drink a lot of beer, and eat cheetos...so far it's not that easy. We have small. Yes, our fridge is small, our microwave, table, chairs, cupboard space, and everything else is small. You have to be creative on what you keep. Now I know why "trailor pros" have crap outside everywhere. I couldn't find pink flamingoes for the yard so there are Tiki torches to give it that settled in feel. You would think Tiki torch smoke keep the evening free of those flyng critters, but not so much.

We have had bee and wasp attacks for a couple weeks. Yeah 7 wasps sharing you spacious quarters does not bring the good feelings of more the marrier. I freaked out on the initial battle, but returned with a friend to kill them. Why did I not man up and take care of the pests myself. Ignorance. Sure anyone can kill colorado or Michigan waspes...but these are California waspes. Who knows the kunning dangers they are capable of. I find knocking them down with WD40 and the swatting them as their wings are inopperable works oh so well. Just check the shower before you enter!!!

Jen has been learning the workings of Allstate and I am just checking into things and researching. I have not a clear pull to one field. I'm checking into electrical, plumbing (maybe), police, and many mechanical areas. Police and electrical have for sure application processes and openings. I went on a ride-along two nights ago ago and had a mini "COPS" episode. I did all of the following though in no particular order: drove 100 on the freeway, saw some meth people searched, a guy on a bike cuffed and searched at taser, a few gun drawn investigations of neighborhoods, many drive throughs of high drug neighborhoods, a semi leak of 50 gallons of diesel, a dead 72 year old lady...the trash-cluttered house had 30+ rats in cages and 10 tranchula spiders being raised as well. The Oakland police were getting ready to charge a hotel where some murderers were hiding out, but they were not in the room. Earlier that night the stopped someones life with an AK 47 mashine gun. All very interesting, but no suspects to ride with us...I suppose that is when it gets really exciting.

I'm helping Alan (our "landlord" friend) with some roof tearing off and wood dismantling. I'm out of shape fo shizzle and am enjoying doing some physical labor. We have posted some pics of the trailor and our neigboring animals. We hear many chattering squirels, and cars/motorcyles peeling out at the stop sign across the creek.

We have aquired free food at church twice now!! Once at a pot luck (fied chicken leftovers) where I met the police officer who steered me to the ride-along, and the at a church informational meeting (pizza). Maybe we should make the rounds of churches in the area and save money on groceries. I don't think Jen's gonna go for that. That's not a good activity, I suppose. (B.R.)
We are enjoying this Labor day weekend up at "The Ranch" where her parents live. Interesting...there are suspicions of a meth lab in the area. Around 3 to 5 in the morning there is a sweet smell of cooking.

We are continuing to adjust and I'm hopefully narrowing down the direction to move in career wise. Oh We are near a Trader Joes again...besides all the reasons to move, this is at the top in my book. Oh I hiked near the coast and saw 50+ elk. I also go some hot spots on my heals. Let me tell you Clark, a potato chip[ bag works nicely as a barrier in your boot to stop the friction. Give it a try in an emergency. Well hope all is wel where you are. This is Scott signing of from the land of wine and gun control...The Peoples Republic of California.

On Thursday, August 10th we pulled out of Colorado Springs with a 22 foot Penske truck, pulling a trailer with our 4Runner, followed by the Honda on the road. It was very sad to leave our home, but we were excited for the new adventures in a new home. On Sunday, August 6th we had an open house where we were able to say goodbye to all our friends.
If it weren't for our friends Steve, Barb, Taylor, and Julie, we would never have been able to pack and clean the house. Steve and Barb remained all day on Wednesday and we were out of the house by 5:30pm. We stayed at Dennis and Carol Korth's house for our last night in Colorado.
The beginning of the trip was very slow as the heavy Penske truck struggled over the Colorado Rockies. Finally we hit a steady 65 mph. The speed didn't last long as one of the rear tires on the trailer holding the Runner lost its tread. Scott would never have known if I hadn't seen it happen. Thank the Lord I saw it happen! We pulled over 30miles East of Grand Junction, CO. We were on the side of Hwy 70 for 3 1/2 hours before the tire was fixed and we could move on. Since the brake line on the trailer had been damaged we needed to get a new trailer. We carefully pulled the trailer into Grand Junction and switched out for a new trailer in the 105 degree heat. By 7pm (12 hours after we left Colorado Springs) we sat down for dinner. Since we should have been nearly to Vegas by that time we decided to push ahead another 1 1/2 hours to Green River Utah where we stayed the night. The next morning we pushed off once again. Things seemed to be going really well.... and then.... at about 2pm (the same time it happended the day before) we actually blew ANOTHER tire on the trailer. I had noticed the tire wobbling, but we were driving through a narrow and steep canyon and I was unable to warn Scott. I called him immediatly when we got out of the canyon and told him he should pull over at the next pull off. The next pull off wasn't soon enough because the tire blew. This time Scott heard the tire blow (it was LOUD and scary!) We were in Arizona, just before the Nevada boarder, and we had a pretty decent place to pull over on the side of the road. This time we only had to wait a short time before help came. We were back up and running in an hour and a half. By 10pm we landed in Barstow, CA. FINALLY we had reached our destination state!! Saturday morning we headed off again, up through Bakersfield, then up north on Hwy 99 to Jen's parent's house in Calaveras county. By 5:30pm we finally pulled into their driveway, totally exhausted, but happy to be "home". We will be heading down to "move into" our trailer tomorrow... so we will write more then...

Happy Summer! We are enjoying the warm, green and beautiful summer in Colorado Springs. There have been many thunder storms lately which help things cool down a bit in our house with no Air Conditioning. We have been busy painting ALL the brown trim in our house, making it white. This is a HUGE, and semingly never-ending project! Over the 4th of July we went camping at the Rocky Mountain National park area. We explored Grand Lake and the beautiful park.
We just returned from a short trip to California where we explored the options for moving there. After a LOT of prayer and consideration we decided to take advantage of the opportunities presented to us and make the move to California. We will be leaving the Springs on August 10th, and our townhome will go on the market at the end of July. Jen's parents are letting us use their 5th wheel trailer for a while until the house sells. Our friends in Vacaville, have graciously allowed us to use a piece of their property to put our trailer. (Vacaville is 30-40min west of Sacramento)
We are excited about this new adventure and we are actually looking forward to trailer life, as we know we will have a great story to tell our kids. Jen will be working as an office manager for her brother, Bill in his new Allstate office. Scott is still following up with two different Honda dealerships, as they may have openings in the next few weeks for technician positions. We are greatly encouraged by the people we have met in the Vacaville area, and we are excited about possibly being part of a great church there as well.
It is a HUGE move for us, but we know that in the long run it will be well worth it. We desire to be closer to one side of the family, and it has been an extreemely hard decision to decide between moving to Michigan or California. We know that we will have more opportunities to travel to Michigan when we live in California, and we look forward to spending more time with both sides of the family then we would if we stayed in Colorado. The hardest part is leaving Colorado and all the great friends we have made! We will miss it greatly here!
Sorry there aren't many pictures this time...

Aloha! We just returned from two weeks in Maui. (Scott still thinks it is 2005) It was very relaxing, and a lot of fun! We stayed with our friends Ryan and Stephanie and their nearly three year old, Jonah. (Picture of the boys- Ryan, Scott, and Jonah above left) We also had five nights in a condo right on the beach which was a little bit like a second honeymoon (at least a longer and extended honeymoon!) We enjoyed the warm, tropical climate as we played on the beaches, snorkeled, parasailed, and just relaxed. We also got to spend some time with our friends Jon and Elissa from Colorado Springs that were in Maui at the same time. We went snorkeling with them, and had dinner with Elissa's family.(Picture above )We rented a "ghetto" older model convertable mustang for part of the time we were there which broke down and was replaced with a slightly better convertable mustang plus two more free rental days! We had the opportunity to drive around the entire island. We explored the south/ east side with Steph and Ryan while we drove the "Road to Hana" and camped for two nights near the "Seven Sacred Pools". We hiked past many pools and through a bamboo forest to an amazing 400 foot waterfall where we were refreshed by the cool water falling down the shear cliff.

This is the picture of our campsite to the left. The right is Scott with his snorkel gear outside our condo.

You might be wondering what the "Breakfast Platters" picture is. Scott made sure this was a part of our blog. McDonalds Serves Spam in Hawaii. Hawaiians LOVE spam... so does Scott. He was stoaked to try spam in Maui.

Parasailing was a blast! As they reeled us back into the boat, they dipped our feet into the ocean.

This picture was taken at the "Seven Sacred Pools" Scott and Ryan jumped off the cliffs at the top waterfall... it made Steph and I a bit nervous, but they had a blast. The picture at the bottom is the view from our condo! Two weeks in Maui was a much needed vacation and break for us both! Mahalo Ryan, Steph, and Jonah!! Aloha Maui!!