Franklin Family Journey

Friday, March 19, 2010

Being Silly

After the haircuts, the children were attacked by a man-eating, octopus plant outside the beauty shop.

Emilie Donates Her Hair

Emilie has made her first donation to Locks of Love.

It had gotten quite long.

Mrs. Williams prepares to make the cut. She cut Sadie's and my hair when we made our first donation almost seven years ago.

Sweet!

She donated 12 inches of hair.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Well, after a two and a half year search of the entire country for a new home for the Franklin Family we have finally found our new home! Smack dab between where we started! Yes, I grew up in Arcadia, Patrick grew up in Lake Wales, and we are now living 40 minutes from Arcadia and 30 from Lake Wales ~ Avon Park, FL.

Patrick is now working with Modern Woodmen Fraternal Financial and we needed to find a home near Hwy 27 so he could serve the Sebring/Avon Park area. We began searching back in November. We drove all over these two towns and looked at nearly 30 houses. Too far out, too small, no yard, too high priced, terrible neighborhood, perfect! ... contract pending :(... Then we found one with four bedrooms, large garage, family room, living room & dining room, with 1/2 an acre, out of town, but close to stores, nice neighborhood, decent price... we made an offer... we were getting desperate... sorry, going to auction.

So guess what we did? We got up early and drove to Orlando for the auction. There were about 130 houses on the block... the one we were there for was 12 from the bottom. Hours later the bidding started... opening bid... 1st bid, 2nd bid, Patrick raised his number... do I hear $5,000 more?... sold to the highest bidder!!!! What?! That's us! We won! Unbelievable and for less than we had originally offered. Thank you, Lord!

Now the waiting. The seller (a bank) had 15 days to accept or reject our winning bid. Merry Christmas! We received news on December 23rd that our bid had been accepted. Now we had 45 days to get our financing. Here we were with an excellent credit score, ZERO debt, a good paying job, and a fare amount of cash in the bank, but the bank decided that Patrick hadn't been at his job long enough. Maybe if we jumped through this hoop and turned in this paperwork, maybe they'd loan us the money. We jumped. We got the paperwork turned in and then more hoops were required. All along the deadline loomed. The seller kept pushing us to close in 30 days (Jan. 22nd). A miraculous technicality was used. The seller didn't sign the contract until January 4th, so we had a little more breathing room in our deadline ~ Feb. 17th was the final date.

January 20th the bank denied our loan, but told us if we did this or that, maybe they still might loan us the money. Oh Lord, what are we to do? Then another in a string of miracles. Dear friends of ours heard of our plight and graciously offered to loan us the money. Praise the Lord! February 11th we signed the papers and took possession of our new home!

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

We are busy unpacking now. Patrick took a trip up to Tupelo to get our stuff out of storage. The Lord's timing allowed us to help our friends the Dischers carry a load of their things to their new home in Missouri and then have help from Ed and Peter to load our things in Tupelo and unload them back here. Pictures will follow soon.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

A Star is Born!

Daddy had to go up to the local coffee shop/bookstore today to access the internet on his work computer and he invited Emilie to tag along. A local celebrity, Luke Wilson, was there performing and apparently, Emilie got into the act.

Here she is sneaking her way up to request he sing a song she knows.

Next thing Daddy knows Emilie has a microphone and is joining Mr. Wilson in the song.

Take a bow

Luke and the Little Lady

Friday, December 25, 2009

The Reenactment

Sadie has dreamed of the day that she could attend a reenactment with the Discher and Stricklen families and this past weekend her dream came true. It was a very small reenactment, but the girls got to dress up and be together and that's all that mattered : ) Thanks again, Stricklen girls for letting Sadie borrow a dress. Thanks also goes to the Dischers for letting Emilie borrow a dress as well.