Since it’s been a month since my last update I figured it was time for another one! Most of you already know but, we’ve moved! It is a pretty cool story I’ve told lots of people but I thought I would share it on here because God is so good!

Let me start at the very beginning. For years, we had been talking with my parents about the idea of multi-generational living. It just made sense. They’d love to have a vacation home somewhere warm, we would be able to help care for them when they eventually needed it and we all really do love living together.  But, the timing wasn’t quite right yet. 

In May of 2022 my parents came to live with us after a water leak in their house. I absolutely see this as God prepping us for what was coming next. My parents home was not livable and was completely torn apart and would result in a year of remodeling. Slowly the attachment to their house was removed the longer they lived with us and the idea of selling their house and getting something together now made more sense. 

In August Dirk had his initial ALS diagnosis. The ideal of now living permanently with my parents was becoming a necessity, but not for the original reasons of us helping them, but because we now needed their help. And so we began looking for homes together and found a house we loved and made an offer. We then listed our house to sell. Our house had an offer the first weekend. But then, that offer fell through. The new house inspection didn’t go how we hoped and ultimately we decided to back out of buying that home and took our house off the market. 

At that time I didn’t know why God had it work out the way it did. It seemed like it was meant to be at first and then it all fell apart. All I knew was He had a plan, I just didn’t know what it might be. 

We kept talking with my parents about what things we wanted in a combined home together and kept looking at new listings all the time with the plan that in the Spring we would both list our homes for sale and hopefully find something we loved. 

On January 22nd Dirk and I decided to go look at some new builds with the thought maybe we could customize a home that would work for our unique situation. None of the homes we looked at were quite right. I decided to open up to the random real estate agent showing us these new builds about our unique situation and he asked me to come back to his office. He showed me a multi-generational home with an attached apartment that was from another builder that looked perfect. We drove over to that builders site and walked through one of the homes. It was perfect. But, it was in a new development with a tiny yard and neighbors on all sides which we (and my parents) hated. 

We decided to ask my parents to go look at the house and maybe we could have it built elsewhere. On January 29th we all went back together and saw a larger sized corner lot with an unobstructed view of Mount Rainier and decided that we wanted to build there.

On January 30th we got a call that someone had pulled our expired listing from when we tried to sell our house in August. They wanted to see our house.  And February 12th that family came to see our house and made us an offer we accepted. 

The day our house closed the builder called that our new foundation was complete. Another little reminder that God is good and His plan and timing is perfect.  Like I said, God is good, all the time. Six months ago I didn’t know why He let our house sale and new home purchase fall through, except that His ways are always better than ours. And sure enough, He knew better.  We have moved in with Dirks parents and are enjoying some precious time with them until our new home is complete in August. 

A few updates on Dirk:

He is still working at the moment and we are thankful for an amazing employer (another God story there!) who is willing to work with him and his diagnosis. The plan is for him to stop working once it’s too difficult to do his everyday tasks due to his hands mobility and we anticipate that happening in the next few months.  He can still do everything himself (besides maybe open a tough jar) but it is just much slower or he has to adapt how he is doing things slightly all around. He walks slower, moves slower…etc. Speech is becoming more difficult. I understand him and can translate pretty well but Adeline is starting to not understand him more regularly. He is starting to use an app on his phone to type out things that will speak for him when people cant understand him or it’s a noisy room. Usually people don’t understand when he’s changing the subject and it’s out of context. Or it someone who doesn’t know him or see him frequently. He can no longer order at a drive through window or something like that either.

Prayers:

• Continued prayer that his progression would slow more!! And/or that the disease might jump to other areas of his body than his lungs.
• That his lungs would stay healthy an he wouldn’t aspirate food or drinks.
• Prayers that he can avoid sickness.
• Prayers that he wont have any falls or injuries.
• Praise for the Lords provision in our home selling and finding a new place to live.
• Prayers my parents home would sell at the right time for the right price.
• Prayers for Rebecca as she goes into wedding season, for stamina and a clear mind.

And of course as always, a few recent photos: