#40Yearsin40ishDays  1993 and that means our last move for the next 24 years and counting! Hooray! We finally grew up, bought a house and settled down.

Scott began to teach himself about computers. He tore them apart and put them back together. He read books. He discovered the rudimentary beginnings of the World Wide Web with room chats and the library. He loved the fax “scream”. He threw himself into this new hobby and even had a little business on the side.

He tried to persuade everyone to have a computer. He finally talked my mom, his step mom and his step dad into getting computers. His parents never did fall in love with computers but his mom often talked about how Scott would build “computers” out of boxes and Christmas lights when he was a boy. Scott talks about being encouraged by his maternal grandfather in this new found electrical hobby, building things with kits. He remembers hooking up a “panic button” in a house their family lived in. It was for emergencies. His fascination with electricity and electronics eventually gave him the career he has enjoyed for many years.

This year Abbey was recommended by her music teacher to audition for the All City Honor Choir and was accepted. What fun we had listening to their concerts! We were very proud of our talented singer/pianist daughter. We loved passing on our musical heritage to the next generation. We have always loved giving and receiving the joy of music, and having our children know that joy was and is priceless.

Adam ventured into football this year but his main squeeze was still music. I was glad because I couldn’t bear the painful grunting and crunching as all us parents followed the action up and down the field.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#Waco #EuropeanUnion #BeanieBabies

#40Yearsin40ishDays  1992 brought another move. Can you believe it?! When we look back, neither can we. By then, I was an expert at packing up houses and organizing moving crews. The school the kids had to go was a long bus ride away. It wasn’t even part of our community. The boundaries were crazy as there were schools much closer to us.

Abbey called this the pink house. (It was pink back then.) She took her first year of piano lessons while we lived here. With more trepidation in my own heart than in Adam’s, I’m sure, Adam started junior high and became the new singing sensation in the school choir.

My sister, Tami, was married this year in California.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We did a lot of camping through the years with our New Heights family at Camp Cascade in Donnelly, ID. It was the perfect way to bond together. Our little motorcycle was popular with everyone. Our old camper was like a tank. Scott drove it up the old switchback highway, before the newer, safer one was built. The kids later told us they hunkered down in the camper and didn’t look out the windows because they couldn’t see the ground. It was quite a “thrill” ride every time, even for us in the cab who COULD see the ground.

Once a year we held church at camp. Some people camped for the weekend and some drove up that morning. Such warm memories with ministry partners and lifelong friends …

New Heights now had an annual picnic and baptismal service at Barber Park. This was the year Abbey was baptized. This was an important spiritual milestone and a memory I hold close in my heart.

We capped off this year with Christmas in Kansas. It was fun getting to know Tami’s new husband. My parents managed a motel so it was a pleasant place with plenty of room to gather. #games #pool #feast #family #FlowersbyTeri

#BillClinton #Windows3.1

#40Years40ishDays  1991 brought great stories to tell! The first story begins in February of this year. Scott and Adam had missed dinner and we were late for Bible Study. I was fit to be tied because that’s how I rolled back then. #NoCellPhones  I was about to leave the house with Abbey and go to Bible Study without them when the phone rang. It was a police officer. Scott and Adam had been in a car accident. We jumped in the car to head to the hospital. On the way, I heard on the radio that American troops were on the ground in Kuwait.

Scott and Adam had been at a paintball gun event down by the river. They were hit as they were leaving the event. Eleven year old Adam was totally unharmed. They had to cut Scott out of the car but he only had deep chest bruising. No serious injuries. I often think of this accident and give God praise for his hand of protection. And a big, heavy T-Bird doesn’t hurt either. This picture was taken at the junk yard. You can see the damage and the results of the jaws of life.

The Gulf War affected the work at New Heights as my uncle, the pastor, was in the Army Reserves as a chaplain. His unit was called up and the church struggled with the decision to continue with our plans for an Easter Grand Opening in the school. It was decided to move forward and the grand opening was an exciting, joyful success. Many people came as a result of our telephone and mailer campaign and continuous prayers. We held a beautiful reception and welcomed dignitaries from the Conference. New Heights Christian Fellowship was officially launched!

While my uncle was deployed, the church carried on with strong lay leadership. My aunt filled pulpit on a regular basis and we invited other preachers to fill in as needed. The Conference was a strong support. And God did amazing things.

Scott’s dad and his wife came to Boise often during these years, as he was an executive of the Troutman’s Emporium department store chain. They traveled to all the stores on a regular basis and we were thrilled to be living in a place where we could see them regularly. We were also grateful to be able to once again take advantage of the deep family discount at the stores. It was a proud family business that operated 34 stores and employed 1600 people at its peak.

We enjoyed a visit with Scott’s mom and her husband. Brad brought his new boat and we spent some time on Brown Lea.

During the summer, we made a decision to move into our camper that we parked at my aunt’s house.  We also used her basement for more space.  My aunt was very generous to allow us to do this. We did this to take a couple of months to pay off some bills. We didn’t make good financial decisions back then. We didn’t know how to make good ones. This shadowed us for many years. It’s why I’m so passionate about living a debt-free life.

We moved back into the same house we’d left at the beginning of the summer. We were wearing out our family and friends as moving helpers.

#TBonedintheTBird  #MusicalMovingBoxes  #OperationDesertStorm #SovietUnionBack2Russia  #NatalieColeUnforgettable

#40Yearsin40-ishDays  1990 began with another move. Our landlords were returning from law school back east and wanted to move back into their house. The thought of packing up the house again was very discouraging but pack up I did. We chose a rental in west Boise because we knew the new church plant would be there. The kids changed schools again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After ten years single, Scott’s mother got married in Hawaii.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam was recommended by his music teacher to audition for the Kiwanis Club Boys Choir. And he was chosen to participate … a high honor. He sang in this choir for two years. This was the limit because their voices started to change. It was fun following him around to all their concerts. We were very proud of him.

My uncle and aunt and family arrived in Boise in July and we went right to work to get this new church planted. The parsonage was spiffed up and some remodeling was done. The parsonage became the hub of all church activity that summer and fall. The church offices were there, we held services and potlucks either in the basement or the back yard. It was a BYOC (bring your own chair) deal for a while. We started with a core of about 35 people, including children and pre-teens.

Some quick highlights:

• My uncle shared his vision for the church.
• We had many gatherings, Bible studies, potlucks and camping trips … and we became family.
• We formed a worship team that included myself, my aunt and a gentleman. A wonderful pianist followed shortly thereafter.
• We had classes and activities for the children.
• We chose the name New Heights Christian Fellowship.

Phone Campaign

We held a phone and mailer campaign to let the masses know we were there. A local call center allowed us to use their facility and phones in the time slots where they weren’t being used for business. Everyone took shifts to make the calls to generate leads for the mailers. And back in the office, a team worked to create mailing lists and letters and postcards. There were envelope stuffing parties and lots of fun and fellowship around all the work. Something was mailed each week in the weeks leading up to our grand opening at Summerwind Elementary School.

We had to be very creative and frugal as we thought about how to “do church” in a school. It had to be portable and easy to put up and tear down each week. We built a simple, portable stage.

Some highlights:

• Sunday School on rollers and church on rollers
• We weren’t allowed to use the classrooms so our Sunday School classes were held in the large hallways. We added area rugs and barriers to define spaces.
• We set up and tore down 100 chairs every Sunday
• We had a refreshments team and always served cookies, goodies and coffee/tea
• I set up the church books and trained our new treasurer on QuickBooks

You can barely see the “church on rollers” here. It was two large cabinets on wheels and hinges that opened and closed. All our supplies and equipment were stored in there. We rolled it out of a storeroom each week, set up church. and then we packed up and rolled it back into the storeroom. There was one like this for the children’s area as well. Genius.

 

One exception to the equipment in a box was the sound system. Scott built a mini sound system on rollers. It had a board and tape recorder. He also made a large snake to connect the system to the mics and speakers in the front of the room. The speakers and snake fit in the roller box but we hauled the rolling board back and forth each Sunday in the back of our open trunk. In all kinds of weather.

We worked toward a formal grand opening on Easter Sunday, 1991. New Heights became our life.

This was our first “gadget” Christmas  We all got simple hand-held games that year. Not computer games, not smart phone games, not Nindendo games, no other device except a thing with one game on it. LOL! (Gameboys were out by then but we waited for the price to come down.)

#RIPGrandpaWendt  #OneGermany #GameBoy

#40Yearsin40Days  1989:  Another year of unrest, unsettled, unfamiliar, unknown, our little family spent the next ten months in the Sun Valley area. In the spring, the snow began to melt and we discovered we had a beautiful yard. It even had a small creek in the back yard with a little bridge over it. But no lingering over the yard … it had been a financially difficult year. Our renters in Colorado were not consistent in paying the rent which was supposed to cover our mortgage and the property management fee. And we already knew we could’t afford to stay in that big, beautiful house in Hailey. We eventually had to evict the renters. They stayed as long as the law would allow and finally abandoned the house, leaving a lot of damage, and took our dryer with them. It was quite a blow. We were caught in the real estate bubble of 1989.

After we dealt with that ordeal, back in Idaho we moved to a single wide mobile home in Ketchum. It was much more affordable but it sure was small.

Since we didn’t do the usual Sun Valley things, we decided to do the one thing we did do and that was camping. We bought an old camper mounted on a 1965 Ford flatbed truck. It was something. LOL! Scott drove it like a professional truck driver on those mountain roads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We strapped the motorcycle to the front and away we went for fun in the beauty of Idaho. This Honda SL70 was Scott’s when he was a teenager. It had been passed to a cousin who enjoyed it for many years. And then it was passed back to us to enjoy with our family. We had a lot of fun on that little motorcycle for many years. We enjoyed a lot of camping and picnicking that summer.

That year we made a trip back to Colorado to celebrate my mother’s 50th birthday. All us kids were there plus other family and friends. It was a a fun time together. We gave mOm a mother’s ring. Family was everything to us.

During the time in Sun Valley, we were honored to have visits from friends and family. My aunt and uncle, my brother and family, my cousin and family, Scott’s mom and her new boyfriend, and a dear, lifelong friend. And in between, we visited family down in Boise. These times kept us going.

One night we were driving home down the valley highway. The moon was shining all around and the “mountains” had a pink glow. It was pretty magical. Abbey had been looking at them and said, “These mountains look like breasts.” Scott and I tried not to  laugh, as we had always taught the kids the true names of all the body parts. And the mountains did look like breasts. LOL!

Life in the mobile home park was pretty much uneventful. Adam had a pretty serious bike wreck.

We began to hear about serious drug activity around us. We had enough. Scott found a position at a radio station in Boise and in September we made another move. We told the kids. They were troopers as always. Because of my silly talking, Abbey confused her B’s with V’s. She would say Voise instead of Boise. But she could say baby so we practiced saying “baby boise” over and over and, eventually, she started saying Boise.

We moved to east Boise. I started working for a Re/Max real estate office as their bookkeeper. Adam started in a new school … again … and Abbey started Kindergarten. We found a church nearby to attend but they wouldn’t even let us sing in the choir unless we were members. So we just enjoyed Sunday mornings there. We didn’t want to get too involved anyway because by then we knew that the Free Methodist conference was going to plant a church in Boise and the church planters/pastors were going to be my aunt and uncle! We were thrilled. They would be coming next year and we allowed our hearts to fall in love with what God had planned to do through this new church and what our roles might be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#ExpertPacker  #BabyBoise #NothingIsCertainButDeathAndTaxes #LivingByFaith  #GodIsAlwaysAtWork