Ready .....Set....

Well, its about time for an update- even if it is just a tiny one.

We are about 3 weeks away from our final departure date. Our flights purchased, hotel booked, and we have our VISA applications turned in. I am training at Logos Bible Software (2 weeks now) and our house is starting to get packed up. Our official departure date is June 10th. We will leave for a week in London, and then on to our new home, Chennai India! It is starting to feel very real.

And we are so excited!

We will probably put up another blog for our travels and I will post that info on here as soon as we decide on a new name. Got any ideas? E-mail them to me at
jennycustis@yahoo.com

Blessings,
Jenny

Family Time!

These days family time is precious with our departure date is speedily approaching. We had Josh and Holdyn over last night for dinner. I thought I would share some of the pictures we got of this amazing little boy- my nephew Holdyn.

Look how much he has grown !! He is walking all over the place and getting into everything. Joshua kept mentioning all night that we don’t understand just how much trouble he can be. Cute kid. Joshua is doing such a great job of being a Dad. He has blossomed himself and is so much fun to be around. We are very proud of him. We had cheesy eggs and ham scramble for dinner and Holdyn LOVED it! He ate with us at the big table and had a look of “I am a big boy now- look at me” most of the time he was there with us. The rest of the time was spent laughing at how funny it was to throw pieces of eggs and ham on Aunt Jenny’s kitchen floor. It was a fun night of playing together and enjoying each other’s company. I really do think being an Auntie is the best job in the world! Can’t get enough of it these days! We are going to miss both those guys!

Date Night in Seattle and Jaime Cullum

Oh I was so excited to hear that Jaime Cullum was touring his new album the Pursuit through Seattle. Anyone been to one of his concerts? He is a phenomenal artist and his concerts are like non other! Miles and I got tickets in the first half hour they went on sale to premium fan club members and we got row T at the Moore Theatre in Seattle. Sheesh! Popular guy, let me tell you. He lived up to his reputation too! His concert was absolutely amazing and we had a wonderful time. Our Seattle play or concert tradition is to eat the Cheesecake Factory and boy did we have fun eating there. The food is always so good and we got there early enough to walk around a bit and take in the sites in the city. We are so excited to spend some time living in a big city! Although Chennai will be so different than Seattle it is a big city just the same and we enjoy being in the city!

It was a night of musical jazzy magic and it was so wonderful to share it with my best friend and hubby!

I love you, Miles!

VICTORY!

I took Joshua to court yesterday for the final placement court. The Judge ruled that Holdyn could return HOME with his daddy! Praise the Lord for this victory. Joshua could not stop smiling. Even today when he stopped by my office to show him off to me after picking up his son out of foster care he would not even look up at the camera. His eyes and life surround this little guy. It is so precious Holdyn's mother will of course still have visitation and how the final parenting plan will work is yet to be determined but Joshua was name primary care giver and Holdyn is now released by court order out of the foster care system and HOME. I just had to share this victory with all of you about my little Holdyn! We are so thrilled. Praise the Lord!

Outsourced!!!!

Dear Friends and Family,

We’re moving to Chennai, India! Yup you read that right! Chennai, INDIA!

We just received word that Logos Bible Software will be sending us to India where Miles will be supervising Amnet, the company Logos outsources much of its text processing to. Logos has had a presence in Chennai for almost 2 years now (Miles will be the 3^rd person living over there). We had known this was a good possibility for about a month. We will be leaving in July (exact date yet to be determined), and will be there for anywhere from 6 months to a year. We’re pretty excited about this adventure. We will be having a huge sale to sell off a bunch of our stuff and putting the rest into storage while we are gone. I will be leaving my job in May or June depending on when we are leaving so that I can be sure to have time to pack everything up and gather the things we will need for our time over in India. We, meaning mostly myself, will need your communication and support for I will not be working and will want to keep in touch with those of you I am leaving. We will be moving into a house/apartment fully furnished and given a chef, a chauffeur, and a cleaning person. It sounds pretty amazing. We will have a new laptop with internet including Skype and a webcam as well. We will keep our blog updated making sure you are all a part of our big adventure. My dream will be to get involved with World Vision which is based out of Chennai, India. The little boy we sponsor (Lalit) is from there. I am excited to potentially meet him and get involved with other children in the slums over there and volunteer time with this organization.

http://www.worldvision.org/

This is an honor for Miles to be asked to go and represent Logos with Amnet. They are moving him to a salaried position which is good for us financially as we can just save money since we will have very little expences to worry about.

So many things have happened this past year that was of course planned ahead in preparing us for this trip. We are so nervous and excited in anticipation to see what God has in store for us in India. This opportunity is a dream come true and we are so thankful.

Love in Him,

Jenny Custis ( and Miles too)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai

http://www.chennai.org.uk/

Christmas Day!

Waking up early on Christmas morning is a wonderful tradition. The kiddos did sleep longer than we thought they would this year. They must be getting older. (sad) But the Christmas morning excitement could still be seen on these bright eyed kids that we love so much!

We started off the day opening stockings with the Custis side and then headed over to the Bell household for more festivities of breakfast and of course presents!

David got a guitar. My parents gave Joshua some major work to get his car fixed and they gave Miles and I a trip with their Marriott travel points to travel anywhere in the world! Every year my parents will combine birthday, anniversary, and Christmas, and give us a week stay wherever we want to go worldwide. We are pretty excited and first off hoping to make it to visit my aunt Sharon in Arizona who is not doing well and on the way back perhaps see the Grand Canyon. Next year perhaps, Hawaii and visit my brother David’s place there. That would be amazing! My mom got the sweetest gift of all. My Dad. We all have had him 3 years longer than doctors said he would live. So praise the Lord for that! Christmas morning my dad gave my mom a beautiful card with a poem that made us all cry. He then got down on one knee and presented my mom with a beautiful diamond ring that would take your breath away. Their wedding/engagement set had some problems with the prongs and my dad was going to “replace them” for her ( and he did) but with another band/setting. The diamond is the same that he proposed with but its setting is stunning with something like 26 other diamonds around in and inside it and all over it. It was beautiful. Even the boys thought that was cool even though they would wince and cry out in pain every time mom and dad kissed. Cracked me up. This day would be a day of multiple trips. Good thing our parents live about 10 minutes apart. The trips between Clackamas and Gresham is not too bad. We left for more presents with the Custis family and all of Krista’s family there. The cousins were so excited to see each other. Cousin Josh drove in “on the roof” (through the sunroof) and made quite the entrance that left the cousins giggling for a long time after. It was so funny.

Jenna was so thrilled with the ornament she made for Uncle Miles.

These pictures are so fun to look at as I know they are their Christmas memories and mark another year’s end.

Cousins! Then it was dinner time at the Bells house and then back to Custis houshold for another dinner. YUM. I suppose we are lucky we get 2 dinner tables filled with food and family. Who could ask for anything more wonderful than that? Helping to read the Chrimstas story with Grandad.

We had a wonderful Christmas filled with lots of family and friends and remembering our Savior’s birth.—For He is the real reason to celebrate the season. We have so much to be thankful for.

This is the card I made this year.

Merry Christmas everyone, and I hope that your New Year is blessed!!!!!!
May it be filled with HIS love, joy and peace throughout this coming year. With love,
Miles and Jenny Custis

Friends and Family on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Time is Here.

A time for travelling to Portland to visit family and friends for the holidays.
Christmas Eve we spent the entire day with my side of the family. Both David and Joshua were HOME for the first Christmas in years and years. It was wonderful having us all home together. We were only sad that Holdyn could not spend his first Christmas with us. He is still in foster care back in Bellingham and the course will hopefully decide soon to be released into Joshua’s care full time. I am sure it was still pretty great for Mom and Dad to have us there but they of course so hoped that Holdyn with us as well. David had some biological family (we had never known about) come down and visit with us a while to learn about David. That visit took up most of the morning and in the evening Dad took all of us bowling. That was pretty fun. I think we all played really well. I did not quite woop the socks off my little brothers like I used to but if I remember right I was in second place. My dad of course was number one. He is the ol pro, so naturally I will take second place any day of the week. My goal is always to beat Josh. I can usually beat David and most of the time even Miles, but Josh is really gifted and it is really exciting when I can take him. -And I did the first game. Bowling has been a Bell family pastime. We all did it because Dad was really good at it (He went to Nationals and even made it into Sports Illustrated) way back in the day. Anyways we had a nice time together.
Later on in the evening Krista showed up. It actually has become quite the tradition. Our family used to have Arnichs and the Tse family over on Christmas Eve to watch movies and play games together. Oh such sweet memories we have together as families. It has been a while since we saw Krista. She looked as beautiful as ever! It was great to visit with her and meet her new boyfriend. Soon after she left it was time to finish up a movie with dad and then off to the Custis house to sleep for the evening for tomorrow morning is Christmas! Our nieces and nephew would be heading to bed all excited for the morning to come! Oh we could not wait to open stockings the next morning!