Introducing our little Vanilla Bean: Jeshua Carl Johann
 
 

Mi Familia

I can't believe I haven't updated since way back at the beginning of the house and my family trip to Cali. Since than, my very nice new step momma sent me pictures of our gathering with da Johann's. Here's photos of my sister, brother, pops, and I. With some very nice shots of our King and Queens. It's pretty amazing, but we didn't plan that all the Johann men had goat beards, and some were bald. Put we's sure pretty!

Notice how my dashingly handsome brotha can't seem to keep his eyes open during photo shoots? He's so shy ;-)

Blessed Beyond Measure

It's been a long time obviously since we've updated anyone on our life. For those that don't already know, we are on week 19 in Katherine's PREGNANCY... YAHHHOOOOO!!! I'll sure try to add additions as we go. We had an awesome House Warming Party a couple months ago that had 60 some people arrive and we surprisingly had food left over. From everyone's generousity, we were able to buy all the paint for 2/3rds of the house. I've started painting with the intention of having most of the painting completed before the babies come.

Our Church is blossoming and God is really showing us all how to build stronger relationships with our family at Church and in the Body of Christ. We've had some pretty amazing guest speakers this summer, but probably one of the most significant was the Internationally recognized and respected speaker, author, and virtuous woman of God, Billie Brim. That anointed woman called my wife and I forward and laid hands on Katherine to bless the health of our seed, and these miraculous pictures are what resulted.

There's so much more to share with how good God has been to us, but I'll just have to make some more installments.

THE HOUSE THE LORD PROMISED

There's lots of people today that say that it's difficult to hear from God. It's not difficult, you just have to "seek his face" and he will reveal himself to those that believe.

About 9 months ago the Lord told me that we would be in a house. Just so you fully understand the idea, we were not looking and thought we would rent for many years to come. We were paying $800/mo for rent, utilities, water; everything. We were spoiled. The Lord wanted to stretch us and our Faith! He told me we would be in a house in 8 months and told me the amount that was (extremely) low. Through the months to come we realized it was to get us to understand the monthly amount we wanted to pay. The amount was so low we were reserved to thinking condo or preferrably townhouse (at least I was), Katherine was always looking at houses ;-)

We were into 7 months and 2 weeks and we had not heard back from our Mortgage lady about some cleaning that needed done with my credit. We finally met and the credit still looked bad and the monthly rates weren't at all what we were expecting. Then she comes up with the idea of leasing to own. She knew a few people and had us connected within a day or two. Within the 2 week period we viewed 2 "HOUSES". Even though the house prices were out of our range completely, the monthly rates were just right. Within two weeks, we viewed 2 houses, agreed on OUR home, and had papers ready too sign the day after the end of the 8th month. Its twice the amount of house we could have expected on .27 acres of land. Check out the back yard.

We went from 750 sq ft to 1300 and .27 acres. GOD is Good!!!















It snowed on Saturday night.















Entertainment Room.















Tiny kitchen, but we got some big plans for this ;-)

The day we went to sign the lease papers, my bosses took me to lunch and offered me a raise and promotion. We were expected to lease the house for a year before attempting to sign the ownership papers so that my credit could repair and we could attempt to get better interest rates. The raise changed a few things financially that I don't fully understand, but we are now targetted to sign the ownership papers on May 1st. 10 months in advance!!!

Romans 4

20 Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. 21 He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. 22 And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous. 23 And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded 24 for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.

OUR AWESOME FAMILY UNITY TRIP TO CALI

Its been a while for updates; hasn't it? We had our first vacation in 6 years last weekend. It was extremely great to see my Sister, Brother, and awesome spouses. It was really cool to meet my nephew Jacob and be there for his 1st Birthday. He's having a hard time teething but is one cool kid. We went to Disneyland the 1st day and the pic of Jacob looking out a small window was the Find Nemo Submarine ride. Coo, huh? We have soooooo many pics but here's just a few of our favorites from Katherine's phone. More will follow soon.

THE FATTENING OF THE LAMBS

Talk about about feeling like a lamb being led to slaughter. Christmas Eve/Eat; Christmas Day/Eat; Fred and Janet Sue (Katherine's Mother's Cousin's/you do the math) 50th Anniversary at the end of the same week/Eat. It took a Muslim friend at work to give me the revelation that New Years Resolutions are a marketing ploy for weight loss diet plan companies to market thier "get out of jail free cards".

Below is Christmas Eve at Katherine's Aunt and Uncles house. from me going left we have Evan (Katherine's 2nd Cousin's son), Brother Brian, Sean (Cousin's Son), Aunt Dorrie, Miyuki (2nd Cousin by marriage), sexy fine maama jamma, Janet Sue (mentioned above), and our drama queen (school certified) niece Elizabeth.

Here's some Burdick Christmas shots, starting with Sister Carol:

Carol, Elizabeth, and Taylor (far Right) [The Richmond Song/Dance/Drama Troupe]
and the Tough Old Burd, Nancy... (inside joke that isn't as mean as it sounds :-)

Taylor, Da Johann, and Patriarch Burdick (also known as Carl); on the left. Cynthia (hostess with the mostess/ awesome food and always a great family party), with son of hostess withe mostess, Erik. Now you've seen Christmas at the Burdicks!!!

WE LOVE YA'LL AND WISH YOU A GREATEST AND HAPPY NEW YEAR, AND PRAY THAT YOU ALL COME TO KNOW THE FULLNESS OF THE LOVE THAT GOD HAS FOR US ALL!

GOD'S ABUNDANT LOVE

The Lord is making it soooooo clear lately that he Loves us, and that is more amazing than us Loving him...

1 JOHN 4:10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

ROMANS 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

ROMANS 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Our friends the Hienemanns are such a living example of that right now. Their daughter Aimee (Ah-may) has sparked a huge move of God's love in their lives by his provision for them in their time of need, but also in unifying a huge diversity of people together in prayer for Aimee. And they are abundantly blessed due to their steadfast Faith and Love. They receive and accept God's Love, having full understanding that it can not be earned and/or deserved.

Visit their blog at theheinemanns.blogspot.com for the great updates...

1 THESS 1:2 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Heinemanns, your daughter is not the only child that is a tesimony to Christ's Loving and Healing sacrifice. There was an amazing testimony from a 8 or 9 year old girl named Alicia yesterday. She came down with a random case of Lyme Disease several months ago and started loosing function in her face. She was in a youth service and she heard the audible voice of The Lord say "Mark 5:34" (audible to the point that she thought it was the person next to her).

And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."

Within a 3 month period she has been made completely whole and is healed! Praise the Lord, for He is Good, and His Mercy Endures Forever!

WARM BEACH

Did something very different this year with some friends from Church. The Yotters and Chad & Liz (Newly Engaged; yahoo!) led the charge to Warm Beach Christian Camp in Stanwood, WA. They have a village of lights that they set up every year, that they start setting up after Labor Day. In the first pic, not only do they create a huge net of lights to create a mountain scene, the tree to the right has a string of lights zip tied to each and every branch.

All I could picture is some Christmas nazi that has to black out his entire neighborhood to tie strings of light to each and every branch. It was awesome. The mountain scene was half the size of a football field. Hopefully it's not blasphemous, but someone forgot to change baby Jesuses diaper in the huge nativity, he was layin in a poddle. Yet another sacrifice he made for us!

It runs until 10pm and we got there at 9pm and got half price entry. I'd suggest though that if you are a donut fanatic like Chad, that you get there sooner so you can stand in line for what I've heard are legendary donuts. Poor guy got rejected in 3 locations because they were closing. Good times for Christmas!!!

Katherine's got more pics to follow on her phone. (Hint) Phone cameras are not the greatest for night shots.

INTRODUCING MISS MOLLY

I refuse to call her my sister, seeing as how I am not a dog

:-). But I can finally say that I'm no longer Momma's baby. Molly is a pure breed Lab. AAAAAAWWWWWWHHHHH!!!

JINGLE BELL RUN (WALK)

Katherine called me a few weeks ago when she was at a friends running store and asked if I wanted to join this run with her. When I grunted and said I'm not sure, she said ''great, I'll pay for your entry''.

Paying money to stand out in the cold with a few thousand crazy people at 8am on a Sunday morning isn't my typical Sunday morning. It was fun even though I whined. Katherine had planned all summer to take a friend's daughter Nicole on the kids portion of the run that was 8:20 to 8:45. Nicole was very cute, very excited, and very cold. She finished; yeeeaaaa!

We walked with our friends Bill, Heather, and their son Rhett. We've all been off our exercise plan for the past few months, and I slowed the whole train with my walking. The most embarassing part was the included video of the 2 year old that passed us a few times and finished before me. Bill was very pleased that he finished before the kid.

Katherine on the way home ensured me that she'll make sure to sign us up every year.

ITS WINTER

It started snowing on Saturday and lasted all day and middle of the day Sunday; it rocked! It started raining yesterday evening and now it's all gone

I AM THE MASTER SURPRISE GIFT GIVER... But I screwed up Sat. Katherine wanted a nice warm, stylish neoprene shelled jacket a few weeks ago. While out on errands I found the perfect one on a one-time sale, in her favorite color red. I went home to get her after she was done working. I'm really building it up as a surprise. And she getting gitty asking what while she's trying to finish some phone calls. She's asking random questions and I'm answering with, ''get in the car''. She finishing phone calls, and I'm pacing and notice she wore my very obviously man looking work jacket (it truly irritates me to see my attractive wife wear a man jacket). And as I'm walking past the dang jacket, I randomly say ''Cause I'm sick of seeing you wear a man jacket''. I stop in mid-step and stare at her and she stops what she's doing and stares at me with this victorious little smirk, mixed with alittle awe at my total slip. She states the obvious, ''so I'm getting a jacket'', and then we both look amazed as we both say, ''you actually said that out loud''.

Its not the best pics but we are open to any suggestions on the most affordable place to find a decent digital camera.

LION OF JUDAH

Test From My Cell E-mail

So now I'm testing the idea of e-mailing in a blog posting. I'm at work and taking a quick break.

Here's another pic of my lovely wife ;-* <end>

This Is A Test

I'm totally new to this whole blogging thing! If you know me and you have my number, call me to tell me this worked. On Thanksgiving Katherine and I got alittle vain and wanted to update my Cali family on our latest in fashion and glamour.





If this works, I do want everyone to know how the Glory of the Lord is falling on Everett, WA. Christ's Love through The Holy Spirit is manifesting in power and in demonstration. The following is a picture I took of a single mother that was Praising the Lord and had a break through and had a loving moment with her daughter. Hopefully you'll notice the awesome image in the background where her son is playing (hint: that is a fern with several large leaves that changes appearance in the glare).