The floor is going in!

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We spent the last few days preparing for today...... the installation of the hardwood floors. It started today by 3 amusing African fellows. They're doing good work. Stay tuned for more pictures as we hope to actually spending the night by the middle of next week when Susan's parents come to visit for a couple of weeks. Thanks for staying up with us. Thank you for your prayers before you click out of this :-)

Would you like our new address?

If so, just send us an email at ellsworthg@gmail.com and we'll pass it along. Thanks!

Moved in??? Is that right???

"Moved in" sounds so..... final. And final would not be accurate. However, we do have all of our stuff OUT of our storage unit (after almost 14 months) and with apparently little to no damage of any kind; at least that we can tell so far. We heard horror stories about mold in storage units. We found none; except for maybe a little on the refrigerator but even that was debateable. So, yes, now all of our stuff is in our house. Granted it's mostly still in boxes (and will be for awhile until we're REALLY finished in.....????), but it's at least out of storage and we can start slowly building our home. A HUGE thank you to Zach and Scott who helped us out tremendously today; AND to Dad E who probably lifted a couple tons of stuff today and Mom E for the refueling dinner. We're glad to have such great support to help us reach this milestone. Thank you, GOD!

Click here for pictures. Oh yeah, at the end of the pictures you'll see some shots of our visit to Johnson City, NY where we went to the final service of Dad E's boyhood church in their old building (80 plus years, with the church 120+ years old) AND to Great Gma & Gpa's grave site along with some uncle's who served in WW2. Before we left for home we stopped for some Spiedie's. Why hasn't CA caught on to those yet? They're YUMMY!!!! and pretty much available in that part of NY only.

Carpet is in!

The carpet is in! For the rooms, hallway, and upstairs. It was completed in less than two days! It looks nice and makes the house look more like a house, along with all the hard work put in by Team Harkleroad! Here are some pictures of the rooms with the carpet. The BRIGHT orange is BayLynn's room, the tan is the master bedroom, and the gray and white is Connor's room.

Carpet tomorrow!

Click here for some "before" pictures. It's 1am, Susan and Geoff just finished and we're ready for carpet starting tomorrow morning! Stay tuned for more updates.

Summer Synopsis

A brief update since our last major post:

- Our friends, the Castro's visited us from Glendora (our first visitors from CA); we did a lot of fun things with them including going to Hershey Park.

- our friend Breanna visited us, ALSO from Glendora so that she (along with Connor) could attend the Teen Leadership Conference at BBC.

-when we took Breanna to the airport we then headed directly to Delaware for some beach time; we returned via the Cape May-Lewes Ferry with our van (an 80 minute ferry ride to New Jersey).

- August 2-5 we went to Kingdombound, a GREAT Christian music event where we saw the Newsboys (the best; although it's quite different with Michael Tait singing lead now. Peter Furler WAS there though for a final appearance singing "Breakfast."), Skillet (awesome concert), Paul Baloche, Phil Joel (GREAT!!!!), Israel Houghton, Casting Crowns, Robin Mark, Family Force Five (probably never again), Hawk Nelson, and a bunch of others. You'll see also in the pictures, Geoff with the guys from Downhere, the band we had at Grace Church back in the day before these guys hit it "bigger than they are now."

- BayLynn got to go to Big Blue Soccer Camp at BBC and Connor starting soccer at his high school. Bay starts her online school (8th grade) on Sep. 1 and Connor starts his Jr. year at Abington Heights HS on Sep. 9.

-Connor also got an exciting new acquisition. We'll try to include some pictures of that in the next post as well. Hint: Connor and Geoff might be spending some time in the PA countryside this fall.

- Geoff had his first crop of students come in (about 50 plus several "online" students) after a year of talking, travelling to churches, schools and camps. It was exciting to see them altogether.

- and Susan was busy keeping her sanity (which she's doing by God's grace and tons of inner strength) as the foreman for our house (including BayLynn painting her room orange) and all the other things that come with being a mom and wife (to Geoff in both cases :-)

Click here for a few pictures.

We are still in the thick of the house. We MAY be sleeping there by the end of this weekend but we will not be completely done for another month or so. The kitchen still does not exist. The bedroom wing should be done in the next few days. Then the living room and dining room (which shouldn't take too long) and THEN the kitchen as well as a likely total redoing of the heating and AC system. Fun times!!!! We'll try to get some progress pictures up soon as well.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. God is good all the time!

A greater update is coming

It's been far too long since we've updated you on all that's happening. There are a lot of reasons for that. Things we hope to fill you in on soon but mostly having to do with college starting and us working on our house. It's been long and hard and it's not over but we're getting closer and we MIGHT be spending the nights at our house this weekend or next. We'll fill you in soon. Just wanted to let you know we've not forgotten about you and that we'll be updating with more words and pictures soon. Maybe even tonight, so check back soon!