Brayden on "why are you moving to Colorado?"

Brayden's thoughts as we arrived in Colorado. (He's being interview by Jess :-)

Gracie and Davis' take on marriage

This is old but I just found in on our Flip Video Cam. They think this is how you get married :-)

First Snowball Fights!!!

Last week there was a huge snowstorm in the east....I was super jealous of all of you posting on Facebook with your gorgeous snow pictures. I even posted on Twitter (@BrandiM if you care) that I was praying for snow here!

Well, for the past 2 days it's been snowing!!! I LOVE it! The huge snowflakes falling are just gorgeous. In fact, I'm a bit distracted right now just looking out my kitchen window at the snow falling in my backyard.

Today, we went outside for our first snowman making party! um, we aren't very good at snowmen apparently! Soooooo....it turned into a snowball fight :-) Well, for Gracie it turned into a crying fest :-) She LOVED the snowball making...but not ANYONE throwing it at her.

It was SUCH a fun day! Though...I must say that I think this mom needs snowpants because I was soaked!! If I'm gonna be a fun "snow mom" I think I might need the equipment :-)

A Day at the Zoo

We decided to spend a lazy Saturday morning at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo where we have season passes :-) It's not Sea World, but it is pretty neat! It's located on the side of the mountain and mostly covered in snow.

The giraffes are the big hit for my kiddos!

Davis isn't sure if he likes them or not

Bray has no fear!





The 3 kiddos :-)
Davis going in for a hug...I told them that Nana, Grandad and Grandma and Grandpa wanted more pictures!
She WILL pose by herself...just not hugging with D
Just us girls
Posing on the statues is always fun
A great day in great weather! Now...for naptime for these kiddos!

Catch Up With Me

I don't have a long time to blog...gotta get back to writing.

Oh yeah...did I tell you I was co-writing a book? I'm LOVING the process. Almost done...just 3 chapters left! I'll post more about it when I'm done. I think Rag Doll deserves its own post all together :-)

Let's see....people have been asking me how I'm doing....

Colorado- I LOVE IT!!!!!

I love the weather! While it's cold here, the sun is almost always shining. You wouldn't believe the difference this makes! If it's 30 degrees and sunny I am totally fine! We don't have a ton of snow but I LOVE it when it comes. I'm ready for more :-) The kids haven't gotten to do a ton of sledding or snow man making yet! Often, even when I wake up to a beautiful snowy yard, it's melted by the time schools out!

I love my house! Um, Christie is right...basements ROCK :-) I love the amount of space we have and the way we laid it out (thanks Jess!). It's homey and roomy at the same time.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the view. I will never get tired of these mountains, often I am stopped in my tracks. When I turn the corner and see the view I am left breathless.

I love the close proximity of everything! I don't have to leave a 4 mile radius! Work, Target, Walgreens, Chick Fil A, both boys schools, church, the Y and the Giordanos are all within this radius. We have left a few times to get to the Mudd's :-) (they live about 25 min away)

I love our new church! Leaving Westwood was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I am so thankful that we have found a sweet church home. The worship is amazing and the teaching is on fire. We have met a few people so far but are still getting connected. One of the pastors adopted 2 sweeties from Swaziland and I've gotten together with her (Laura, the wife) a few times. She even brought us dinner the first week we moved in and then AGAIN when I was sick!

I feel very relaxed right now.... with the boys being in school half days, my life is very scheduled. We get up, bring the boys to school and then often Gracie and I will go out for bfast or just head home to do laundry. Afternoons are spent doing lunch, naps and homework. Life feels very laid back for me right now.

Spiritually, the Lord is doing a work in my heart. I think getting me away from everything has allowed me to focus on Him more. I believe He is doing surgery on my heart. It's a good, deep, heart work where He is seeking and gaining access to parts of me that I didn't even know about! He is literally taking me apart and revealing things I hadn't even known I'd believed about myself...areas I hadn't even known were wounded and bringing HIS sweet healing and truth. I just started reading "Hinds Feet on High Places" again and it's just how I feel. He's calling me higher and deeper with Him...a scary, painful process that I know will be beautiful.

I'm sorry that for most of you I've been horrible at keeping up with you. I haven't read blogs in ages and even FB time has been limited. Also, with the lack of a long drive, I find myself talking on the phone less! Greg'll be gone most of this month (he gets to go to S. Africa, Swaziland and Uganda!!!) so I'll prolly have LOTS more computer time :-)

Love you guys...and thanks for caring about me

The Boys First day of school

First of all, sorry I haven't been blogging! Apparently I lost my domain name and had to start over. Now, you can find me at www.BrandiLea.com and I promise to blog more....(I'm supposed to blog and post more pics now that I live far away!)

The boys started school here in Colorado! Thankfully, we live in one of the best school districts in America!!! Both boys are doing half day school. Bray is in kindergarten while Davis is in Pre-K. Both of them love their classes and Gracie likes staying home with me in the mornings!

Our Big News (kind of anti-climatic at this point)

I’ve mentioned my bloggers block in a few of my most recent posts. I find it so hard to blog at all when I can’t share everything! It almost feels as if I’m not being real with you guys. Well, the gag order is up. (just teasing, it wasn’t a gag order ;-)

The past few months the Lord has had us on an interesting journey in our willingness to follow Him anywhere. Actually, it’s felt more like a roller coaster ride than a journey of any kind! Since May, we have been willing to move to Naples, Florida – Soroti, Uganda and Colorado Springs, Colorado. All after living my entire life here in idyllic Orlando, Florida. It’s almost too much to write in one blog post but the long story short is that Greg got a call in the early spring asking if we’d be interested in moving to South Florida. The truth is, we hadn’t really considered seriously ever moving anywhere else. Of course, I had always joked that we’d move to Africa one day….but other than that, we were very settled in our little world. Greg’s job was going great, ministry at the church for me was incredibly fulfilling. We have great friends here and almost all of our family. Why ever leave?

And yet, something made us seriously consider this offer. In the process, we spent time in prayer surrendering our wills and desires and everything we had here that looked perfect. In the end, we felt the Lord was not calling us to this job….but for the first time, we felt like maybe He WAS calling us somewhere. But where?

After my trip to Uganda in April, I was ready to pack it all away and move my family to Africa. Surprisingly, Greg was thinking the same thing! We had said “yes, Lord we are willing to go anywhere” and now it seemed as if we had a plan. In fact, our big trip to Colorado Springs in July was all about our plan to MOVE TO UGANDA!!!

I was thrilled! Sad to leave my family, friends and church but thrilled to be moving to the land that I loved!!! We began to make preparations and plans. The plan was to live in Uganda 8 months every year and in Colorado Springs (the HopeChest home office) for 4 months each year.

On what seems like a separate plane all together, while Greg was in Uganda in September I decided to take a cross-country road trip to visit Colorado Springs. I figured that introducing the kids to the other kids in Colorado would make at least THAT part of the move easier on them. As you may remember, I spent the week with Sara and the kiddos. Sara is Vince’s wife (who works at HopeChest). I had an amazing week. I felt more at home in Colorado Springs than I ever thought possible. Sara and I realized how compatible our families are (as their daughter Hannah puts it…The McElhenys and Giordanos are gonna be inseparable!) and I finally rested knowing that at least for those 4 months we would have friends!

Within 2 days of me coming home to Orlando, I got a few disturbing phone calls and emails. 3 friends independently called or contacted me and asked if we could talk seriously. They said they’d been praying seriously for a number of months…..was I sure I was supposed to be going to Uganda? I kind of freaked out. Tears immediately flooding to my eyes. They each said that every time they prayed about us moving to Uganda right now they had a deep and foreboding sense of fear. One of them asked specifically, “Brandi, do you feel called to move to Uganda right now?” I sank to the floor right there in my bathroom and had to croak out ‘no’. I hadn’t even realized it until then! I had certainly heard God say ‘GO” but I hadn’t even stopped to ask where!!!

At this point….I freaked out completely. I cried for 2 days straight. Greg was in Uganda right then buying us vehicles and finding us a house. How could I pull the plug now? And if we didn’t go to Uganda then where???? I thought of Colorado Springs…but there was no job for Greg there. I could probably do what I’d already started doing—weekend parties and community launches……but what would Greg do?!

I was surprisingly ok with something like that but had no clue how it could even happen! I realized how God had prepared me for this possibility. I had grown to LOVE Colorado Springs in that week I had spent with Sara and I LOVED my new volunteer job. Getting to travel the country and speak on orphan care combined many of my most favorite things and passions. I especially loved the opportunity to speak about orphans. It’s like I feel God’s pleasure when doing this. I can’t explain It so that it makes sense. I often begin not even knowing what I’m going to share and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit just takes over and I’m sharing and crying and passionate about orphans and how God uses us!

Wait…but right now Greg was in Uganda with a big plan to move us there….and how the heck would I share this with him?

I flipped out…crying…a LOT. I shared with a few of my friends, each of whom had no concern whatsoever. Yes, they empathized with me. But, they had faith where I had none. They said to me, “God is speaking to Greg even now. Don’t you worry. If He can work it out in YOUR heart to be ok with not moving to Africa then He can move in Greg.” I pretty much had no faith and didn’t believe them….sad to say, huh?

Greg flies home from Uganda on Tuesday and calls me from the airport. “I just talked to Bob” (HopeChest COO and our friend). I didn’t want to think too much of it and asked if it were just catching up now that he was in country. He said, “yes, and about a bunch of other stuff that we may need to talk about.” I commented that I thought we should talk a lot too. Quickly we both explained that BOTH of us were thinking that maybe God was telling us that we should not be moving to Uganda.. ONLY God could have done this.

Apparently at the same time that the Lord was moving in me here in the states, He was speaking the same things to Greg while he was in Uganda. What I didn’t realize was how God was working at the HopeChest offices too!

Bob had called Greg to talk about a possible job coming to Colorado full time instead of moving to Uganda.

I began to see that God had slowly put together pieces to bring us to this place.

Over the next few months, the rest of the pieces started to fall into place….

So, my big blog (that is actually probably pretty un-climatic to most who read this blog and already know most of this) news is this:

WE ARE MOVING TO COLORADO SPRINGS!!!!!!!!

On December 30^th, I pull out and on January 2^nd Greg comes behind me with the furniture J

We have already found renters for our place and found a home to rent in Colorado Springs….PS It has an extra bedroom and a whole basement (that’ll make Christie happy, right? J for anyone who wants to come visit!

Greg will be working full time at HopeChest in charge of Field Operations in Uganda, Swaziland, India!!! Doesn’t that sound amazing? He will get to travel to all of those countries each year too!

I’ll continue to be a volunteer for this awesome organization J I’m now the volunteer coordinator and get to help others get plugged in from across the country! I’ll also get to continue to do orphan advocacy and will be traveling 2 weekends a month around the country to help launch community sponsorship and to do fundraisers!!

We’d appreciate your prayers for the next month. We are thrilled with what the Lord is doing and has done to bring us to this place, but leaving our friends and family is excruciatingly difficult. I’ve cried every Sunday just thinking of how few I will have left before moving (especially since I’m out of town the next 3 weekends!).

Praising Him for His plans….which confound me sometimes but I’m so thankful for what He’s doing and how He’s leading---

Brandi

Beach Days

The nice thing about living in Florida is that you can put your Christmas tree up one day and head to the beach the next! Yep, still gorgeous beach days in November!!!

This week, we headed to the beach with Jess and her kiddos. It's so nice to be together. Our kids adore each other and were GREAT together. Jess and I got the nice long ride to the beach together and then were able to sit and talk while the kids played in the ocean and sand. Except for a weird drunk guy trying to take me away ... saying "thanks for last night" ...OH MY!.... it was great!

Love these days....LOVE this company!

GingerBread Homes

Yes, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet....but I am in the Christmas spirit! Already put up my tree actually. and you know what? If I could figure out how to do it without total mockery, I'd leave it up all year!

Grandma Carm sent the kids a Gingerbread House Kit! They loved it and did a LOT better than last year :-) We had Josh (Jessica's little guy) over too and he thoroughly enjoyed the morning of candy eating. All in all, great experience...though I did look over a few times to see Gracie sucking on the icing packet. Let's just say, you might not want to eat our gingerbread house.