Red Lodge

We just got back from a wonderful 1st anniversary trip to Red Lodge. We stayed at the Rock Creek Resort. This weekend was their annual Christmas Stroll so we took in the festivities on Friday night. It was really cold but that didn't slow people down at all! There was a short little parade where people decorated their snowplows. We enjoyed alot of tasty treats and some good eggnog and cider.

On Saturday, we spent the afternoon at a little Pub to watch the Griz destroy Stephen F. Austin! It was a fun game to watch. It was filled with Griz fans! Saturday night we had a great dinner at The Pollard hotel.

Then on Sunday we stopped on Billings on the way back and had lunch with Tim's sister and her husband and son. For dinner I made Chicken Piccata and we had a bottle of wine that was given to us as a wedding gift. It was a very memorable weekend, and look forward to many, many more happy anniversaries!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. This year Tim and I decided to host my family at our house. The whole family was able to come which was great since it's been awhile since we've all been able to get together. As usual, there was way too much yummy food, but we all gave it our best try! In the afternoon the men went shooting for awhile. They did manage to get a skunk, so that's something I guess. The women stayed behind and played games. And all the little boys were so cute and were very good. We have 4 little boys in the family now ranging from 3 years to just over a week old. It's going to be so cute to see them all together playing in a couple years. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are hoping to put up Christmas lights this afternoon. Tis the season! Happy holidays to you and your family!

Happy Halloween!

This last weekend was another busy one for us. On Friday night we traveled to Butte where we met Sarah and Jimmy and attended the Rodney Carrington show. It was so much fun. My cheeks hurt from laughing so much. It was a very entertaining show. After that we traveled to Missoula and watched the Griz kick some Weber State booty on Saturday! That night Sarah and Jimmy had a great Halloween party at their house. Lots of good food, great costumes and of course, more laughs!

Barn Building

The past two weeks we have been busy building a horse barn here in the Gap. It's been going up pretty quickly until yesterday when the weather changed. We are supposed to be hanging tin but will have to put that on hold for now. We got the walls and trusses up and have tin on two and half walls. Just the way it goes sometimes. But we have plenty to keep up busy until we can get back to the barn.

Griz Weekend

We finally made it over for a Griz game this year. And we actually got mom and dad to come as well. They hadn't been over for a game in 3 years, so we thought it was about time for a family adventure. Tim and I went over on Thursday and stayed with Jim and Sarah. Friday we met up with mom and dad and we all had lunch together. Then mom, Tim, Sarah, the boys and I headed to campus to purchase new Grizzly wear. While on campus, we visited the Pulitzer Prize winning photographs they had on display. Afterwards was more shopping, a very filling yet delicious meal and some relaxation.

Saturday morning, we met mom and dad at the Press Box, as is tradition, for their breakfast buffet and Bloody Mary's. We headed over to the tailgates and met up with some other Stanfordites. It was a beautiful game day, and of course an exciting game. Griz won 41 to 34! Tim still refuses to wear any Griz gear, but we did get him to use a grizzly koozie. Small steps!

It was a real fun weekend and it was great to be back in Missoula!

Working

The past few weeks, we have been working over at Tim's brother and sister-in-law's house. We resided their house and now we are working on building a deck. I can't believe the range of weather we have been working in. When we first started it was in the 90's and today it has been blowing snow. So crazy. We just hired my cousin Justin to help us for awhile. Wasn't the best day today to have him start in the cold but he did great. It's so nice to have an extra hand. We have quite a few big projects lined up. Next we will be building a horse barn and then will be doing a master bedroom and bath addition in Lewistown. The jobs are still lining up. No economic slow down here!

Here's a picture of Tim and Justin on the deck today. Still sounds like more snow this week. Should be fun!

They made it!!

Well after 3 years, the Comptons finally made it to our house! They arrived Friday night and spent a wonderful weekend with us. We took them to the Chokecherry Festival in Lewistown on Saturday morning and showed them our house there. That afternoon, Joni, Landon and Laine came over to play while Tim and Jimmy went shooting. After supper, all 9 of us loaded up in the pickup and went to look at the elk. There are about 300-400 and they're only about 20 minutes away. Tim and I had been going out all week to watch them. Jim brought along his bugle and he had some answering back! Jimmy

That night, Joni and I decided to show Sarah some more of Central Montana, so we took her up to the Oxen Yoke where the Bent Willows were playing. We had a lot of fun. Many laughs and some dances with some interesting people! While we were whooping it up, Tim and Jimmy decided to go spotlighting for more elk right behind our house.

Joni, Me and Sarah

Sunday morning, Tim cooked us breakfast, and Joni and Shawn and the boys joined us. Christopher and Landon had a lot of fun playing together. It was a real nice weekend. I so loved having all my little "nephews" here! Thanks Jim and Sarah for making the trek across the divide!

Laine Nicholls and Charlie Compton

Christopher Compton and Landon Nicholls

Tim and Charlie

The fruits of our labor-- Or is it vegetables?

Saturday Mom and I spent the day canning. We made pickled beets, beet jelly and some spicy dill beans. It was a fun way to spend the day. I'm waiting for the cucumbers to get bigger and I will make some different kinds of pickles. The garden is doing really well. The corn is just about ready to pick and the peas have been producing like crazy.

Camping

We took off for a nice 3-day long camping trip after finishing a siding job a few days early. We had no idea where we were going to camp, we just knew we wanted to try something new. We headed for White Sulphur Springs, and turned onto the highway leading to Monarch and Neihart. We passed through a few different campgrounds before settling on King's Hill. We were the only people there Thursday night. It was so peaceful and quiet. Almost a little too quiet! During the night we could hear an elk bugle from a long ways away. Friday brought a few more campers but no one camped near us so it was still pretty nice. We spent the weekend doing not much of anything, which was perfect. Alot of reading and playing games. We did enjoy some great meals (barbecued chicken, shish-ka-bobs, breakfast burritos) Dutch Oven cooking (killer cheesy potatoes, peach cobbler). We are hoping to get one more trip in this year. We will see what happens!

Placid Lake Reunion

This past weekend, Tim's family held a family reunion at Placid Lake. Tim's brother Ted from 29 Palms, California was staying with us for a week and we thought this would be a great weekend to get together since it has been a long time since Ted had seen some of his cousins. We try to get together every summer and pick a different place to camp. It was a fun packed weekend with water skiing, hiking, eating and sharing many, many laughs! Sarah, Jimmy and the boys came over from Missoula and spent the day with us as well.

Ted, Carol and Tim at Morrell Falls

Sarah and I on the intertube

Tim, Kelley, Ted and Sarah

Ted tearing it up

Nature Drive

Since it was way too wet on Tuesday to do any landscaping, we took the day off. We decided to take a drive up in the hills behind our house. Saw lots of deer and a couple different groups of elk.

Seal Foundation-- Check!

Well we got the whole messy business finished despite some heavy rains. The foundation is sealed, the drain tile was set, and we filled it all back in. Now we have a solid clay dirt yard. It's really pretty! We also got our sidewalks put back in and we built a cute little deck which we will seal on Monday. Still doing some landscaping. I guess the next big project is finding all the underground sprinkler heads that have been buried. We have a rough idea where they may be.

Messy Business

Yesterday we finally started on the project that we have been putting off for almost 2 years-- sealing the foundation. It didn't take us long at all to "dig in".

While Tim was digging, I was doing some landscaping. I cleaned out the beds and put some new bushes in and added landscaping rocks.

That pretty much took care of yesterday! Today we sealed the foundation and were able to start backfilling. It's going way faster than planned which is really good. But boy do we have a mess! The soil is pretty much pure clay-- just a sticky mucky mess. It's also fun that the house is on one of the busiest streets in Lewistown.

We had sold a recliner to a lady at our garage sale on Saturday, and she was coming to pick it up today. She drove right past our house because she didn't recognize it with all the dirt and gravel piles in front of it! I have some better pictures of all the mess on my camera that I left in town. These are just pictures from my phone. Stay tuned....

4th of July Weekend

Things have been pretty busy around here. Since getting back from Costa Rica we have finally finished the siding and window job out past Buffalo. It's so nice not having to drive clear out there everyday. We have since been prepping our house in Lewistown, getting it ready for the big excavation tomorrow. We've also been working on the basement bathroom. We have one coat of mud on so far.

On Friday we had a little BBQ with some friends and family. We had some yummy buffalo and whitetail brats. It was a nice, casual gathering. It was fun to do some catching up.

Saturday was quite the day. We had what we called a "Multi-Generation" Garage Sale in Lewistown. We had truckloads of stuff from Grandmas, mom's and our house as well. It was unbelievable the amount of stuff we had. We had it scheduled for 7:00 that morning, so we had to get up pretty early. There was only one other garage sale that day. We weren't really sure what the turnout was going to be on 4th of July.

We got to town by 6:30 and there were already people stalking around waiting for us. As soon as we opened the garage doors to start pulling stuff out, people started showing up from every direction! When mom pulled up 10 minutes later, we were in full swing and not even set up yet! It was a lot of fun though. It's so funny to see the kinds of things people buy and when they try to haggle you. We weren't really in it to make money, we just wanted to get rid of stuff, so we took any offer. One guy bought some floor cover stuff that you put under laminate flooring and a margarita glass! We had to send Tim to get us some McDonald's breakfast at one point. It stayed pretty steady up until the parade started at 11:00. Grandma Jo came down and sat with us until the end. Tim and I went to the parade and left them in charge. We stayed open until about 2:30 and we got rid of alooooooot of stuff. It was amazing. It was such a whirlwind. And we all made some pretty good money too!

This morning we went to mom and dads to borrow their skid steer and rototiller for our excavation work. We dropped it off in Lewistown and dug up the sprinkler heads around the house. Now we are resting up from our busy weekend and we will be ready to hit it hard tomorrow. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.

Springtime in Montana

There's just no better time nor place. The wildflowers are in full bloom now. Tim and I stopped and picked ourselves a little bouquet on our walk tonight.

A few weeks ago when we were doing a siding project way out in the middle of nowhere, way west of Buffalo, a short little rainshower passed through. It left behind this really neat wall of rainbow. It wasn't in the sky like usual, but was ground level.