Easter 2010

In Your surrender as You laid down Your life

You took up a sinner's cross and Your life rescued mine

I'm found in the arms of love

For Your love it has saved my soul

I'll run to Your arms of love, Your light's going to lead me home

The lyrics above are from "King of All Days," an incredible song that we sang at Keystone Church yesterday morning.  Our Easter service was powerful and reminded us, again, of how amazing God's sacrifice was...He loves us so much that He sent His Son to rescue us from our sin and from ourselves.  Amazing!  (Check out Brandon's awesome Easter message here.) 
 

After church, we headed to my Uncle Kym & Aunt Bernie's home for a delicious Easter dinner with our family.  After dinner, we took Kym and Bernie, my Uncle Jon, & my grandparents to our new house.  The auction company recently gave us the key code so that we can get in anytime.  It was so much fun to walk through it again! 

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Kym & Bernie's playing games and Ping Pong as well as Skyping with Poppa Tim & Grandma Susie.  They were missing Isaac, and we were all remembering that last Easter we flew to Steamboat to surprise them with our news that we were adopting a baby! 

Last week, my friend Jenny & I took our boys to the Grapevine Botanical Garden to take some pictures of the boys in their Easter outfits.  Isaac was far more interested in the tulips than looking at the camera, but I still think these pictures are adorable! 

SOLD...to bidder 425!

Dave & I are so excited about our new home! It has all happened so fast that we're still finding it hard to believe that we actually are moving!  While we were in Florida, we found out that our house sold!  We are closing on our current home on Thursday, April 29 and will be moving on Friday, April 30 and Saturday, May 1.  (Yes, we will be having a "moving party"--help us move and we promise to provide great food!)

Our new home is in a neighborhood only about 3 miles from our current home.  We first saw this home in January when we were out looking at houses with our realtor.  We absolutely loved it (especially Dave!) because it had absolutely every feature we were looking for in a home, it was in the area that we wanted to still live, and it was on a large corner lot.  It had been on the market since October of 2009.  The bank which owned it had repainted the whole house & replaced all the carpet in December.  We kept our eye on it, but we also kept looking at other homes and waited for ours to sell. 

In February, we noticed a small note on realtor.com saying that this house was going to auction in March.  To be honest, we weren't quite sure what to think.  A (very) small part of us thought that we might have a chance at winning it, but we were sure there would be many bidders and that it would probably go for a higher price than we were willing to pay.

 Now, I have seen footage on the Today show of home foreclosure auctions...there always seems to be hundreds & hundreds of people, TV crews everywhere, an auctioneer talking so fast you can't even understand him...and when somebody wins a bid, they jump in the air and cheer!  So, that was pretty much what we I was expecting.  For some reason, Dave had a more realistic idea of what this auction would be like.

The auction was held on the evening of Tuesday, March 16 at a hotel ballroom in Las Colinas. When we arrived an hour early to pre-register, we thought the auction might have been cancelled since the lobby & hallways seemed nearly empty.  (Where were the TV crews, I wondered?)  Since we got pre-registered so quickly, we had nearly an hour before the auction started, so we went on a walk.  By the time we returned, there were a few more people, but not nearly the hundreds I had envisioned.  My parents met us, and the four of us went into the ballroom where the auction was to be held. The auctioneer explained that only six houses would be up for bid that evening, which was why the crowd was so small. 

This house was the second one up for bid, and I think I held my breath for the entire time (which was probably only 45 seconds!).  There were 2 other people bidding on it, & they were both investors.  The bids were going up by $10,000 increments.  One of the investors bid at the $10,000 increment that was near our stopping point; we weren't willing to go another $10,000 higher.  One of the men who worked for the auction company quickly came over to us & asked Dave if he wanted to go up another $10,000, and Dave said no.  Then he asked if Dave would go up $5,000, and again Dave said no.  He finally said how much Dave was willing to go up, and Dave said only $1000.   Because it was such an odd amount (considering that the bids had all been going up by $10,000), the auctioneer stopped and said (to the auction company worker near us), "Did you make up that number, or did he?"  Everyone in the crowd (except for us!) laughed.  Then the auctioneer said to the investor who had made the bid previous to ours,  "You're not really going to let him take it from you for $1,000, are you?"  When the auctioneer said that, I really thought the investor would go higher, but he didn't...so the auctioneer pounded his fist on the podium and yelled, "Sold to bidder 425!"  My eyes filled with tears and Dave & I stared at each other in disbelief!  We couldn't believe it!  Dave's face was so ashen white that I thought he was going to faint.  The amazing thing is that we won the bid at the EXACT amount--to the dollar--that we had decided upon before the auction.

We knew that the bank had the right to accept, reject, or counter our offer.  We were pretty sure that they would most likely counter it, since we had won it at such a low price....but we didn't think they would counter more than $5,000.  Needless to say, we were shocked when we received an e-mail on Wednesday saying that the bank had contered at $25,000 more than our offer!  Yikes! 

Dave & I talked about what to do, we prayed, our families prayed, Dave & I talked some more, and some more, and some more...Dave was convinced that we should not go up any higher.  I begged, pleaded, cried, and tried my best to convince Dave that, yes, we should go up a little higher...I didn't want to lose this house at all.  Dave explained that he wasn't comfortable going any higher due to the higher utilities & property taxes we would have at this house, & I finally agreed that he was right.  He called the auction company back to explain that we wouldn't budge on our offer. 

 

And...I am so glad he refused to go higher, because on Friday we got a call that the bank accepted our initial offer!  I don't think I've ever heard Dave yell so loud!  Since then, we have driven by, walked around, and peeked in the windows of our new home at least half a dozen times.  We couldn't be more excited about this new house!  More than anything, though, we are once again in AWE of God's provision for our family!  This is definitely a story that is going in our miracle book!   

Our Trip to Florida!

We had a great week with my (Bethany) family in Fort Myers Beach on our first Bergstrom family vacation…well, at least the first one since both Dave & Isaac have joined our family! We left early in the morning on Saturday, March 7.  Isaac did great on his first airplane ride!  He was fascinated with looking out the window.

We stayed at Gull Wing, and our condo had a gorgeous view of the ocean. We enjoyed a lot of time walking up and down the beach, and one evening we even saw dolphins swimming near the shore!

We had so much watching Isaac's reactions to the beach & the water!  This was his first experience in the water (besides his baths!), and he couldn't have been more adorable!  We dipped Isaac's toes in the ocean and took him swimming several times in the pool. Isaac didn’t seem to mind being in the water at all and even smiled a few times, which made us so happy since we hope that he loves the water as much as we do!

We usually cooked dinner in the condo and all ate together. It was so fun to sit around the table laughing together and telling stories. And, in typical Bergstrom tradition, we spent a lot of time playing Scrabble and Ticket to Ride.  One morning, Dave & I rented a tandem bike and rode over 20 miles to Bonita Springs, which is south of Fort Myers. It was a lot of fun to see all the different types of houses & condos along the Gulf. 

Though the locals kept saying that this was the coldest winter in 30 years, it didn't keep us from enjoying sun!  We're so grateful that we all got to enjoy such a wonderful week together! 

Isaac: 5 Months

Highlights of this month:

--Isaac's first airplane ride, first trip to the beach, & first family vacation....we had a great time with my family in Florida last week! 

Isaac's New Accomplishments:

--Eating rice cereal!  He is doing so much better at eating from a spoon.  Last night, we started sweet potatoes...and it seems like he's going to love them as much as his mom does!  ;) 

--Rolling over!  I think I scared poor Isaac the first time he rolled over because I was so excited!  He has mostly rolled from his back to his stomach, but one time in Florida he surprised us and rolled from his stomach to his back!

--Grasping and passing objects---Isaac is learning to use his hands in order to grasp and hold onto different objects.  He has also started transferring an object from one hand to the other!  (He has also started yanking my necklaces, too!)

Happy 5 Months, Isaac!  We love you so, so much!!

First Day at the Beach!

Isaac's smile says it all....we're having a great time!

Do not let them slip from your heart....

This spring, I have been working through a fantastic Bible study, "The Titus 2 Woman," with a large group of women at our church each Tuesday morning.  It has challenged me in a number of ways....such as better loving my husband and truly living well--no matter what my circumstance.  This week's chapter is on loving your children.  I spent some extra time on these verses yesterday:

Deuteronomy 11: 2-4 & 7 : "Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God: His majesty, His mighty hand, His outstretched arm; the signs He performed and the things He did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how He overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the Lord brought lasting ruin on them. But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the Lord has done."

This passage from Deuteronomy reminds me of one of my very favorite Old Testament passages:

Deuteronomy 4:9: "Only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them."

Reading these Scriptures reminded me again of all the great things God has done for us...

from the HUGE things....

--bringing Isaac home

--God's incredible direction during our adoption journey

to the seemingly small....

--receiving several free cans of formula last week

--a Starbucks mocha dropped off at my front door by a friend during a stressful day

Our incredible pastor's wife (and my friend) Susan Thomas has shared how she & Brandon keep a "miracle book"--a place to record all the great things God has done.  In tough times, she says that she & Brandon love to read through it and remember the miracles God has done for them in the past. 


As I go about the day to day busyness of life, it is so easy for me to forget the things that He has done for us....and when I don't remember, it becomes easy to worry.  In times when I am afraid (How & when will we adopt our next baby?) or anxious (Should we have counter-offered higher or lower on the house?), I am comforted when I pause and remember the incredible things God has done for me & our family in the past....if He has done such incredible things for us before, of course He will take care of us now and in the future. 

So if we are warned to watch ourselves so these great things do not slip from our hearts, we need to intentionally remind ourselves of the miracles God has done for us.  Remembering the miracles of the past gives us strength and confidence that God--our mighty God--will care for us in the future. 

So, how about you?  What would you write in your miracle book?  And what great thing can't you wait to tell your children about?

YUM!

Isaac had his first taste of "food" a few weeks ago on February 16.  As you can see in this picture, he was much more interested in the red spoon than the food itself!  Dave videotaped his first few bites, and it's pretty hilarious to see how his eyes cross as the spoon comes near his mouth since he was focusing so hard on it!  Our first few attempts at rice were very messy....but a lot of fun!  I think that Dave & I enjoy feeding him so much because Isaac makes such silly expressions!

Now that Isaac is a few weeks into eating rice cereal, he is doing much better with eating off the spoon and actually swallowing the rice! I am sure every parent feels this way....but I am more and more convinced on a daily basis that my baby is growing up too fast!

Grandma Missy is a pro at getting Isaac to eat his rice. Somehow, she manages to get Isaac to eat nearly every bite of it each time!