Great Lyrics

I bolded the parts that stand out to me :)

"By Your Side" - Tenth Avenue North

Why are you striving these days?
Why are you trying to earn grace?
Why are you crying ?
Let me lift up your face,
Just don't turn away.

Why are you looking for love?
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough?
To where will you go child?
Tell me where will you run, To where will you run?

And I'll be by your side, Wherever you fall
In the dead of night, Whenever you call
And please don't fight, These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side.
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life, I want to give you life.

Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I'll never let you go

_____________________________________________

James 4:8

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Oma's Bday & Paradise House

Yesterday was my great grandma's (Oma) 97th birthday. She is SO cute! I cannot believe how long she's lasting and how she can still totally pass for 80. haha. I know that she IS fading (losing her vision, hearing, memory in some ways, etc), but I do sometimes think she'll live forever! Haha. I joked with Ryan that I think she's like Richard Alpert from Lost. :)

Here's my beautiful, loving, sweet, godly great grandma Maria:

Before I went to Oma's birthday party, I went over to Lynae's house and had dinner with them (Pasta primavera. yum!). We walked two doors down to a cute yellow house that is for sale in our price range. Nae had snooped around the day before and noticed that the back door was unlocked. So yesterday we snuck in and looked around. It's a cute house. It's 3 bedrooms and 2 baths like we want. The size is smallish/average - about 1200 square feet. The backyard isn't any smaller or bigger than we need, and it has a little back deck. The kitchen is a good size and already has a dishwasher. The living room is a little bit small, but i've seen worse. It has a thing in the corner where it looks like a wood stove used to be. The windows are cute, and there's a BIG one in front in the living room. The main downside is that it smells like SMOKE and it was also built in 1970 so there might be some updates that we don't really realize. It looked like the garage might need some work, but the roof looks okay and the carpets seem to be pretty new.

We're going to try to see the house tomorrow with a realtor. I tried to contact our Paradise realtor the other day but I haven't heard back from him, so I'll probably see if our Chico guy can show us. Or, maybe the door will still be unlocked...? :) Ryan is yet to see it, and there is a house in Chico in a good location that we've been contemplating; it just needs a little bit of work. So I guess we have some decisions to make!

After we snooped at the house and ate dinner, it was time to go to see Oma. James got to ride in Aunt Leelee's car!!! :) He's so cute. I showed him that I had glasses, too and he said "they're new like mine are new!" I sang to him on the way there, and he doesn't make me stop like Ryan does. Haha! "Me and you, and you and me... no matter how you toss the dice, it has to be... the only one for me is you, and you for me... so happy togetherrrrrr!"

I had James guess how old Oma was turning, and he settled on "27!!!" Just a few years off. I tried to tell Oma and I'm pretty sure she heard me, but she might've been doing her fake laugh and nod thing she does when she has no idea what you just said. But still, I'm pretty sure she did hear me. :)

We took a few family pictures, visited, watched old family videos. Oma asked if my dad had any more "negatives" left on his camera because she wanted a picture of her flowers. She's probably never heard of a digital camera. We hung out on the "Oma swing" and wondered if it would break since it's 50+ years old, and ate ice cream cake. Oma shared her piece with Joey and he really liked it. He ended up with blue frosting all over his face and even on his ears. It was so sweet to see them together. I can't believe they're 96 years apart! Yikes!