I finally promoted to Branch Manager with United First Financial in November, right before the UFirst cruise. Wow! It took me longer to get there than I would have liked, but I made it. Now my goal is to work hard to help agents I’ve recruited to accomplish their goals as well!
I am married to the most wonderful man on the planet, Kirby Bertholf. We just celebrated 40 years of marriage last August 23. We have four grown children.
Kristi is our oldest. She and her husband Martin live in Mildenhall, England, where Martin serves as a Chaplain for the United States Air Force. They have two children: Titus, who will turn 13 in another month, and Eraina, who is almost 11.
Karla, our middle daughter is married to Tom, an electrical engineer, and they live in Idaho with their three sons, Chase, 11, Tanner, 10, and Caleb, who will be 8 in January.
Kinsey, our third daughter, is a single mom of two children, Elias who is almost 11 and Lexi who will be 9 soon.
Our son, Kyle and his wife Amanda live in Oklahoma, where he works for Grant Thornton as an auditor and she teaches second grade. They just purchased their first home last weekend.
Kirby and I just spent a great weekend in Vancouver, B.C. on the 19th floor of the World Mark II Hotel. It rained most of the weekend, but we mostly just needed a place to get away and relax anyway.
We went for walks each day in Stanley Park. What a beautiful park with wonderful trails and sidewalks for what seems like miles. The sidewalk hugs the water and marina with a spectacular view of the Vancouver skyline. Today I had my camera with me and was getting ready to take a picture of Kirby up in the limbs of a fallen tree stripped of all but its main branches. A local woman stopped and offered to take both our pictures and we ended up in a pleasant conversation with a very interesting person. It’s amazing how many beautiful people there are in God’s world and most of them we will never meet. Once in awhile, when we happen upon a serendipitous moment with one of them, we walk away feeling rich and part of something much bigger than we had originally thought.
It took us about an hour to get across the border, not us, personally, but the wait in the car line. Not sure what made the delay, but when we got to the booth, the agent was friendly and waved us on after a couple of questions and a little bantering.
We saw a rainbow on the way home as the rain came while there was still sun shining through the clouds in places. We could actually see its end, or so it seemed. But as we drove, the end seemed to glide along with us. Our God made such lovely things. Thank you, Lord, for the beauty around us!