My Daughter, Kiley, the Giver of Advice

Kiley may only be 11 years old, but there's a lot of wisdom in those 11 years. She sure knows me well. She knows I'm constantly pushing the limits on how much I can get done in as little time as possible. So it didn't surprise me the other day when she begged me to listen to her. It was 10 minutes until 8:00pm and with probably only 10 minutes of decent sunlight left and maybe another 20 minutes after that of fading sunlight, I decided I was going to try to hurry and mow the front yard. If you've seen our front yard, you would know that this is a much longer project than 30 minutes, our front yard is one giant area of grass! As I'm rushing to change into my "lawn work clothes" and grabbing my ipod, Kiley says, "Mom, please don't! You don't have enough time and you need to slow down and relax this evening." She stopped me dead in my tracks. She was right and was thinking more logically than me! I would have never finished it in the daylight and what was the hurry? I could easily do it the next evening when I could start on it earlier. Perhaps I should listen to this wise young lady more often!

Celebrating 15 Years of Marriage

It's hard to believe, but just a few days ago, John and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary! It's amazing how the years have passed so quickly. Even more amazing is that we started dating 4 years before we even got married. I have spent more of my life with John than I lived before I met him. I feel so blessed that God chose John to be my husband. As far as marriages go, I feel like I hit the jackpot! We almost never fight and we tend to always be thinking about the same things without even saying a word out loud. It's like we have that "twin thing" going on.
God's Hand has always been on this marriage. I'm amazed all He has done for us and through us. We have been blessed with 2 beautiful daughters that we praise God for daily. Our prayers are that God will provide K and M with Godly husbands and that they'll have a strong marriage like ours. God's given us the ability to buy, then sell, then buy another beautiful home. The last 15 years haven't all been easy, we've had our share of medical scares, surgeries and difficult recoveries, the loss of loved ones and other hard times, but we count those all as building blocks to get where we are today and be the people God wants us to be for Him, for our children and for each other. We look forward to another 15 years and beyond as we continue to grow old together with God as the center of our family.

My New Website

Mooralley Custom Room Designs is up and running and we finally have our website up! It took a lot of work, many hours of wanting to scream at the computer, but the new website is just what Janet and I wanted. We get to show off our work and hopefully bring in some new business. We have our next job this Friday at my parent's house. It will be a relatively small job compared to our last job! I will post those pictures once it's complete. For now, please check out our new website at: www.muralyourroom.com.

My Summer Job

By the end of this week I will be half way through my part time, 6 week summer job. I am teaching chapel to 4 year-olds through 6th graders at a summer day camp. The greatest part about this job is that I'm working for Estina Schrock again! She was my babysitter when I was little and I also attended her day camp as a tween when she first started it 27 years ago. Then, in my mid teens, I worked for the day camp as a teen helper. After all these years, she thought of me when her regular chapel director had to go on maternity leave. I have really enjoyed teaching again and best of all, there is absolutely no curriculum, so I have the opportunity to be creative, write my own curriculum and run chapel how I want to do it rather than being told how to do. So far the kids have been great and my daughters have been great helpers! I don't know what I would do without their help. I only teach a total of 3 hours a week broken up over 3 mornings. Does it get much better than this?

The gift of Father's Day

Unlike Mother's Day, John didn't have to work on Father's Day. I guess it's better that he didn't have to work on his day if I had to pick from the two. We went to church and I made him one of his favorite meals, chicken tacos made in the crock pot. We enjoyed a nice family day together and John spent much of the day setting up and playing with his new computer.

The funny thing about Father's Day is that I received a very special gift that day when I called my dad to wish him a Happy Father's Day. Now the ironic part, he said he received a special gift from me during church that morning (my parents live in Wrightwood, therefore we go to different churches). He said their pastor spoke on standing up for what's right, even when it's not popular. You see, I recently did that very thing. Last year I stood up for what was right and it came at some cost (the loss of a couple of friends and some other issues), but what I lost was absolutely nothing compared to all I GAINED. My father went on to say that his pastor talked about how when you stand up for what is right in the eyes of the Lord, you will be richly rewarded. He said that all through the sermon he thought about what I had done and the outcome of it all. He said it brought him such pride that he raised a daughter that was bold enough to stand up for what was right. Those words from my father meant so much to me that I was practically speechless. I felt as though, once again, the Lord confirmed to me that I was a faithful servant who is richly blessed.

So, it seems, Father's Day was a special day for both John and me!

Mooralley Custom Room Designs

Janet and I have tossed around the idea of starting our own mural/painting/room design business for awhile now, but we finally got it off the ground and completed our first job. We created a baby nursery for a sweet little boy named Elliot, who is the nephew of our dear friends, Derek and Christiana Rice. His family was moving into a
new home so we had a completely blank canvas to start with. We painted the room, did a full wall mural, a partial wall mural, painted a Bible verse, built a custom changing station in the closet and much more. We went with a sailboat theme and named one boat after Elliot and paid a tribute to Elliot's uncle's first cd on the other boat. The results were simply adorable! Sabrina, Elliot's mother, teared up when she saw the finished room. Now we're working on marketing our business and praying that more jobs come our way. Anyone need a custom room?

Last Day of School

I know people always say this and I'm just as guilty, but wow, this school year went really fast! June 11th marked the last day of school and the start of summer. However, this is the first time I know of that the weather was cool and sprinkling on the last day of school. None the less, it was time for all the school projects from the entire year to come home, class parties and wild children running around. As we've done since Kiley finished kindergarten in 2004, we took our annual "last day of school picture" with the Coombs boys and any other children that we invite in each year. This is the 6th year we've taken this picture and it's always fun to look back and compare the picture to years past.

We are starting our summer off with a camping trip with the O'Malleys in Carpinteria and the girls will bring summer to a close the second week of August at Forest Home's Adventure Mountain summer camp. I'm sure there will be many beach trips and fun activities in between and so we welcome the start of summer with open arms.