Animal Kingdom, Disney!

So here is a snapshot of our trip to Animal Kingdom today.  This is the first park of four that we will be doing while we are here until the 6th of February. We are also going to be going to Epcot, Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.  We are going to have an awesome week!

Animal Kingdom is by far one of the best "themed" parks we have visited.  I always enjoy the safari ride! We had fun today on the Everest Expedition coaster.  This was Owen's first ever try at a coaster and well, he went back three times! I was really proud of him.  He showed no fear whatsoever.  The kids loved it and I have to admit I would have went more if we had more time.  The park is always no nicely kept, well staffed and very entertaining.  We capped our night off with the Nemo show and sadly had to leave.......... tomorrow off to a new adventure!

I will be doing a blog on last week really soon.  We were on a cruise and have look through pictures and video! Thanks for reading.

Having a great time in Naples Florida!

Naples Signature RV Resort

 So we are staying in Naples Florida and have been here for a few days now.  We pulled in on Thursday and will be leaving tomorrow morning to head to Miami and get onto the Carnival Victory for a one weeks cruise!  Now, this place we are staying at is one of the nicest RV parks we have ever stayed at.  We have stayed at some nice places but this is probably the second nicest place we have ever stayed at.  We were blessed to be able to get a spot here as the resort has 3 pools, each with a jacuzzi for Ro and I as well as a beach for the kids to play at.  The sights are nice and level and the kids have been having a good time riding their bikes and playing outside.

Big Cyprus National Park

Really cool mangrove tree!

While we were here, we took the opportunity to visit Big Cyprus National Park in the Everglades.  We saw this on the drive up from the Keys and it looked pretty cool so we took a short drive and visited yesterday.  We had the opportunity to see alligators, herrings, cool mangrove trees, Cyprus trees and other wildlife.    Below is some pictures of the kids at the welcome center.  As always, we tried to teach them the best we could about the habitat and the animals living here.  We also tried to teach them about the Indians that lived here and how they survived on the land.

On the way home we stopped at the Big Bend state park and took a little walk into the everglades.  They have a trail there that goes a few miles into the actual Everglades that you can walk through.  They really were not into that but we had fun none the less, telling jokes and looking for lizards!
 Tomorrow we head on at on the cruise so I will write another blog when we get back! Thanks for reading.

Alligators hatching!

I have a TESTIMONY!

This is a testimony to all of you, of the great and generous Father in Heaven we serve!

As many of you know, Rory and I and our family are currently under contract for a house right near Long view Lake.  I wanted to tell you the story to testify to God's lavish love for us, how He hears our desires and sets in motion to answer when our motives are to glorify Him.  Its a long testimony but worth it!

I had to fly back to KC because we were closing on one property and finishing another for our company Upper Room Properties.  We also had another property that I had put a bid on so I wanted to go back and see the inside of that duplex.  While home, like I always do, I drove by all of our rentals to do a check on them and make sure that everything was OK.  I was finishing the last one on Sunday when I was leaving the Holy Spirit spoke to me to go for a drive down a specific road.  So knowing that voice, I simply obeyed wondering where God was going to take me.  The Holy Spirit said to me go down this road because I have a gift for you.  I drove down the road and thinking and feeling I had gone to far I thought briefly I must be going nuts!  Then the Holy Spirit said, turn around you missed it!  (I am not kidding this is for real!)  So I turned around on this road and went about 1/2 mile down the road.  That is when I looked to my left and saw a for sale sign right off the road and up on the hill I could make out the outline of a house that I have never ever seen before even though I had literally driven down this road hundreds of times before.

 That morning it had snowed in MO so I needed to park along the road with my flashers on.  I got out of my truck, walked up the driveway and was overcome with a peace and joy that only God could give me.  The Lord spoke to me and said, "Timothy, if you so desire this house from me then you would be able to purchase this house for $225,000  It is your choice and is an option."  Kind of weird right?  So I walked around the house and it was oozing with so much charm, character and love I could feel it so tangibly.  I started to get really excited and really happy! I felt so deeply that this place was in the past a place of refuge, of love, of family, of nurturing children.  Many memories were no doubt made in this home.  I stayed there for about 20 minutes and then went back to my truck.  I called my wife, Rory Aughinbaugh, and told her how this all went down!   Like my wife usually does, she listened and said I trust you to lead this family.  I quickly made arrangements to see the house the next morning before flying out to go meet up with my family again in Georgia.   I saw the house the next day and fell deeply in love with it.  It sits up on a hill (I have since learned its the second highest elevation of Jackson County), come with a little over 6 acres, back up to 600 acres of park land on the south and east corners and is surrounded by a horse facility on the west.  The house has 4 beds, 4 baths and just enough space for our family.

I flew home encouraged that we were going to make an offer but we needed to discuss it as a family first.  I made it home that night and we discussed the house.  I talked at length with the family about it and what we could do in that home with the house and the land and how we can be a benefit to the community there using these two tools to help.  They were completely in!

We submitted an offer that was higher than what we wanted to do and also higher than what God had told me.  I resisted to trust the Lord and just felt I should "pay up" for the home.  This was the disobedience part! I repented to God then my wife and said if you truly desire to bless us with this home than I  will not take the Glory from you and when we do receive it then the children will know that you are God, that you care deeply for us and you hear our desires.  We prayed for several days as a family about the home and Rory was in the middle of a 10 day fast as well. After a few days we learned they took our offer after rebuffing another cash offer.

We were so excited as a family we packed up our van (from GA) and left and drove through the night to get to Kansas City.  We arrived the next day and had 6 inspectors at the house crawling all over so that I could get a good assessment of what I needed to do to renovate this home.  We recieved a pretty dismal report, lots of things we know we would repair but some I was not counting on.  Rory and I felt strongly that we should ask for a price correction so knowing that they were now 3 people interested in this home, 2 that were serious I really did not think this would end well.  After much prayer, we put in a revised offer, much lower than our original offer.  I also submitted with it a letter from our family saying how much we loved the home, how we would care for it, how we would use it for others benefit, how we wished to preserve and use it for the Kingdom of God.  The mother who owned the house then against her sons wishes, decided to sell us the home and as she put it, "she wanted that nice family to bring the house back to life!"

Here is what we plan on doing in this home:
1. Rory and I are going to sign up for Safe Families with the Orphan Justice Center.  We will be a safe place for children to come in and be loved on and this family will house all these kids we have yet to know!  Eventually we will adopt some siblings and enlarge our family.

2. We will have a small farm with chickens, cows and maybe a few horses that will serve the community with food.  Part of this will also be a 2 acre garden where we will give the community around us free veggies!

3.  We are going to start a marriage ministry where we will guide, counsel and encourage young newly married couples into what God wants and has designed for them in marriage.  We will fill a critical gap in the lives of newlyweds and offer the wisdom God has given us over the years to help them move closer to one another in their union of marriage.

4. We will use the home for small group meetings, to pray for people and to show them the love of the Father.  Rory and I will most likely counsel doing this through Men's and Women's groups.

5. We will set up self sufficient practices such as water conservation and reuse, independence from the electrical grid, and living off the land.

Below is a link to the house.  Obviously the house oozes with character and charm.  We will be renovating it when our trip ends but we will be keeping much of the charm in the house.  All the original doors, knobs, floors, and such will be kept intact.

Thank you for praying for us and with us through this process.  We are very grateful to call you our friends and we look forward to the years of memories to come in this home.

http://www.kansascityhomes.com/Kansas-City/9109-Highgrove-Rd-Kansas-City-MO_64149/1860267.aspx

Key West Florida

We have recently spent the last week here in Key West, well actually Marathon Key.  We are not too far away from the legendary 7 Mile Bridge.  Our first impression of the Keys are, "we drove all the way down here for this."  Don't get me wrong, we are grateful to be able to enjoy the warm weather for a few days and it surely does beat sitting in 20 degrees in many parts of our country, however it truly is not what we expected.  We have been to some really nice places over the years and I would say other than the weather, Key West is a little rundown and needs some sprucing up!  We are having fun though and we have done some really cool educational things while we were here.  Tomorrow we are moving out to Naples for a few days before we head out on our cruise next Monday.  Here are few things that we have done here at the keys.

We visited Mel Fisher's Treasure museum.  This guy is pretty famous around these parts.  Not only is he famous here but around the world.  Mel and his team have found some of the richest shipwrecks in the history of shipwreck recovery.  I remember years ago seeing a History Channel documentary on him and always wanting to visit his museum.  Well, we had a chance and some of the things on display are really cool and really valuable! I can not believe that some of those treasures are just sitting there.  A few years ago, I read that they were broken into and some gold bars were stolen! YIKES! that would ruin your day.  Anyway, it was fun and I always enjoy seeing the kids faces when they are learning cool stuff like this.

Next, we visited Mallory Square.  This was pretty neat to see with a whole lot of street performers out when we arrived.  There was also a Royal Caribbean cruise ship that had docked so there were many people standing around and watching the performers.  There were also many homeless, young vagabond travelers as well as weird, just plain weird, things going on.  It definitely is not a place that I would go back to.

After that we took the kids for some ice cream, saw the southern most point of the continental US and headed back to the campground.

The following day we went to the Key West Botanical Gardens.  As a family, we always try to visit a botanical garden everywhere we go.  I, being a gardener and plant lover, just love to visit these places and see the hand of God in all his Glory.  There are so many plants that we see that we are just awestruck at God's creativity.  I mean some of these plants are so neat and cool looking only God can come up with them!

We also got to go fishing here at the docks at the campground, swam in the water and met some new people! It is always fun just to ride bikes, make new friends, and hang out with the kids.

Ice cream anyone?

Cannon at Mel Fisher museum

Little Sophia cheesin' it up!

Playing outside the RV

Having dinner!

Cool tree at the Botanical Garden

Relaxing on the beach in Key West

For the last six weeks..............

Well, we went six weeks and no blog posts. Seriously! The time flies by when you have 4 kids and you are constantly in a state of movement.  Sometimes I wonder how time could go by so quick.  I remember being a kid and thinking it took forever for an hour to go by while I watched the clock dreaming of being my own "man" and making my own choices.  Now I just want five minutes with no child asking for something or having to clean something up.  I know you people with kids feel my pain...................

Sophia and Ma.

So it has been six weeks since the last post.  Many things have transpired in our lives but as far as the RV travel goes we were solely in one spot! We spent the holidays at my wife's parents house in LaGrange GA. It was a full six weeks of having fun, hanging out, spending time with family and it gave me some time to do some maintenance on the RV.

Just talking! with some wine

While in LaGrange, Rory surprised me for my birthday weekend and took me on a romantic getaway into the Georgia mountains.  We spent the weekend together at an awesome rustic mansion in the woods and we even got a room with no TV! It was really cool to be able to talk without having a conversation interrupted and just hearing the beauty of my wife speak! I love to hear her heart and to listen to her dreams.  She is a great encourager with her words and always has a positive  word to say to people.  Her dad let me drive his new BMW 5 series and it was really cool.  It brought back memories of the days when we had our 745 BMW.  Wow what a machine those Germans make! Thanks Pops!

Rental house kitchen

Other than spending our time in LaGrange, I had to fly back to KC for some business.  I closed on two new properties for Upper Room Properties LLC and had one project finishing up.  It was really good to see how my team is progressing with these renovations and I have to give a great big thank you to my friend Glenn, my general contractor and friend, who is really doing a great job while I am on this trip with my family.  I am finding that in order to succeed and grow your business sometimes the owner (ME) just needs to get out of the way and put your trust in those around you.  We keep expanding our rental portfolio in KC and by this time next year will have 20 income producing properties, all rehabbed and beautiful, and all with awesome tenants!  While I was there I found a beautiful home that I knew the family would love to make our home when our trip ends! We put an offer in on it and it was accepted! We are going to be closing on that home in mid February and starting renovations shortly after that.

Family Christmas pic

I love this woman!

Right now we are in the Florida Keys and will be in Florida until Feb 10th.  I will be doing some blog posts of our journeys here over the next few weeks and putting up some new videos.  Thanks for reading!