Pictures of our New House

Hello everyone! I know that I had originally thought I would have the pictures of our new house up on the blog by this past Sunday. Forgive me, those of you who I promised that to.
These are the long-awaited pictures of our new house. We are renting, but were allowed to paint whatever we wanted, which ended up being everything. :-)

Note: Many of the pictures look as if the paint colors we picked are really bright. The colors really aren't that bright.


Dining Room/Kitchen:

Before

Sorry about the mess. This was when we had just moved in, so we were still trying to sort through everything. Yes, this is a picture of just the kitchen.

After

Living Room:

Before

After

Main Bathroom/Ari and My Bathroom:

Front Room (In other words, this is the room you see when you come through the front door. Don't be confused with the door you saw in the kitchen...that's the door leading to the garage.)

Before

After

Hallway from the living room into the bathroom (first left), my parent's bedroom (last right), my dad's office, and our bedroom (last left). If I was really computer savvy, I would have arrows pointing to which door led to which room, but I'm not....so hopefully, you understood what I just said. :-)

Wow, the camera really messed up the color of the red paint. It looks more like magenta...

My parent's bedroom and bathroom:

This is their bathroom. The shower is right behind the camera.

My Dad's Office:

I would show pictures of this room, but it's not quite done yet. There's still a lot of stuff to go through before it's presentable. My dad is actually working at an office, not out of the home right now.


Ari and My Bedroom:

You can't see the whole bedroom because of the width of the camera lens, but this is the main view.

Also, I need your help. Ari and I are still trying to decide how we want our window treatment, so if you could vote on which one you like the best, it would be much appreciated! Thanks!

#1: Traditional Flow


#2: One Drape Intertwined

#3: Both Drapes Intertwined

May Update

Recently, we have been hiking up mountains, exploring waterfalls, and learning more about our beloved state. Since I haven't posted an update in quite a while, I'll try to get you all up-to-date on the happenings in May. Warning: This will be a rather long post full of pictures. :)

Our Hike up Little Si:
For me, this was my first hike up a mountain in Washington. Ari, Charity, and my mom had already hiked Little Si while I was at a conference with friends.

I carried Charity on my back on the way down.

I thought this was a cool picture of the view looking up.

One thing that we have discovered from hiking up a couple mountains has been the ginormous size of snails in Washington. Yes, this one is trying to eat a flower.

This one was about 4 inches long.


Yay! We reached the top!

This was just one of the gorgeous views from the top.

Rainbow:
When my mom was bringing the dog outside a couple weeks ago, she saw a beautiful rainbow in the sky. I have only seen a full rainbow a couple times in my life, so this was really amazing! Not only was it a full rainbow, but there was a very faint double rainbow above it. Unfortunately, it doesn't show in the pictures because it was so faint.

This was the brightest part in the rainbow.

Update on Charity:
I thought I would give a brief update on Charity, along with some pictures. She is doing wonderfully and is such a smart little girl! She can now say shoes, outside, and cheese. Pretty random words, but it's still really cute! Her favorite foods are watermelon, pizza, bananas, and of course, ice cream. Definitely a Johnson....

A couple weeks ago, Charity started to get spots on her stomach and had a very high fever, sometimes reaching to 103 degrees. My mom looked it up online and found that she had Roseola. Thankfully, it wasn't serious and just went away in a week or so.

This is a picture of Charity when she had Roseola.

Even though it may look like it, Boo (the dog) is not jumping at the camera...he's actually standing on the couch. My mom was taking pictures of Charity, when Boo jumped on the couch and stood right in front of the camera. Such a camera hog...

Charity loves to play with our cellphone, pretending to talk. It's so cute to hear her blabber to herself, mimicking what she sees us do.

Charity feeds herself at breakfast now. She does a great job, but makes a bit of a mess in the process.

This is her, "I just woke up" look.

Sometimes, the paparazzi is just too much.

Isn't she so cute?!

Lesson on Pride from Charles Spurgeon

Last night for devotions, my family read the evening segment of Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening devotions for June 3. It was a very challenging read on the subject of pride, so I thought I should share it with all of you. Even if we don't think that we struggle with pride, each one of us deals with it to some degree. We must continually throw our prideful selves at the foot of the cross and look unto our Master, seeing the One who made the heavens and the earth, the sun and moon, the stars and the planets. See Him who brought Himself so low, so that we might be brought up with Him, in the newness of life! How can pride ever survive in our hearts?


"He humbled Himself." -Philippians 2:8

Jesus is the great teacher of lowliness of heart. We need daily to learn of Him. See the Master taking a towel and washing His disciples' feet! Follower of Christ, will you not humble yourself? See Him as the Servant of servants, and surely you cannot be proud! Is not this sentence the compendium of His biography, "He humbled Himself"? Was He not on earth always stripping off first one robe of honor and then another, until, naked, He was fastened to the cross, and there did He not empty out His inmost self, pouring out His lifeblood, giving up for all of us, until they laid Him penniless in a borrowed grave? How low our dear Redeemer was brought! How then can we be proud? Stand at the foot of the cross, and count the purple drops by which you have been cleansed; see the thorn-crown; mark His scourged shoulders, still gushing with encrimsoned rills; see hands and feet given up to the rough iron, and His whole self to mockery and scorn; see the bitterness, and the pangs, and the throes of inward grief, showing themselves in His outward frame; hear the thrilling shriek, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" And if you do not lie prostrate on the ground before that cross, you have never seen it: if you are not humbled in the presence of Jesus, you do not know Him. You were so lost that nothing could save you but the sacrifice of God's only begotten. Think of that, and as Jesus stooped for you, bow yourself in lowliness at His feet. A sense of Christ's amazing love to us has a tendency to humble us more than even a consciousness of our own guilt. May the Lord bring us in contemplation to Calvary, then our position will no longer be that of the pompous man of pride, but we will take the humble place of one who loves much because much has been forgiven him. Pride cannot live beneath the cross. Let us sit there and learn our lesson, and then rise and carry it into practice.


Discussion questions:

• Do you struggle with pride?
• Have you sought to nail pride to the cross or have you allowed it to grow until you no longer see the pride that has corrupted your sight?
  
• What are some ways to deal with this vice?