Day 2: Labor Day Weekend

We had a great day at Gates of the Mountains just north of Helena. It's the point at which Lewis and Clark came down the Missouri River in canoes and the cliffs opened up before them like a gate. This statue is a monument to the ranchers who founded this valley and their way of life here.

Mike and Brenda brought us out on their boat and we tubed, skiied and boarded. The water was distgusting from algae at that time of the year but we swam and had fun anyway!

Mom and Dad being silly!!!

Some of the cliffs along the river- there were holes all over them that birds live in.

Some Bighorn sheep that were literally walking right along the ledge!

Brady suprised us all when he stated that we wanted to go for a ride on the tube!!! I didn't think he's last more than a minute and he stayed on for the entire ride back to the marina- about a half hour!!!! He had such a great time and smiled the whole way!!!

The GATES of the Mountains:

Day 1 in Montana...

I arrived in Montana a day before my parents and my brother Andrew did so I could spend some time with my Aunt Donna. The kids and I stayed at her house and we spent that first day playing at the new Dinosaur Park:


The community of Bozeman pitched in and built this awesome new park! It had a great playground, a place to dig for dinosaur bones, lots of artwork done by artists of all ages, and interactive activities. Brady thought it was pretty awesome and didn't want to leave, but unfortunately Olivia wasn't feeling well and we needed to get her home for a nap!


Brady loved all of the obstacles...climbing, hopping, balancing, swinging...plenty to wear a little boy down!

Olivia formed a bond with Aunty Donn-Donn!

Later in the afternoon we went grocery shopping ...

...my helpful little shoppers!

...and got an ice cream!

Olivia's FIRST ICE CREAM CONE!!!

Can you see how much she liked it???!!! My cousin, Megan and I could hardly eat ours because she was begging for more!



That night my mom, dad and brother arrived and we had a delicious venison BBQ with grilled veggies and homemade salsa (all from my garden!) It was the best venison I'd ever had (and that's saying a lot since I have detested it in the past!)

When everyone was all tired out from our little reunion my parents, Andrew and Brady headed to my Aunt Brenda's house, where they were all going to sleep! Brady was so excited to "meet her chickens!" He helped her collect the eggs every morning, feed them scraps and he even helped Uncle Mike bury a dead one! Quite the experience!


Brady felt like the luckiest boy because he got to sleep in the teepee with his "bestest buddy," Uncle Andrew!!!

Two tuckered boys!!!

(it doesn't get much sweeter than that!)

We've been BUSY!!!

So I've been missing from the blog world for several weeks now due to the fact that I've been BUSY!!! I was gone for about two weeks on vacation in Montana and then had my parents and my brother here for another week. I also have been busy harvesting my garden, canning, cleaning up from traveling and having guests, taking a distance course on Medical Transcribing, having LOTS of dentist and doctors appointments, preschool, preparing for upcoming gallbladder surgery and oh yeah, did I mention that we're building a house????





Needless to say, I haven't had a lot of time for my blog- but I'm trying to get on top of things. I'll try to add one new post each day from the last month!!! The next post will be the first one!

Visit from Aunt Brenda and Uncle Mike

My Aunt Brenda and Uncle Mike were able to stop in for a night on their way back from visiting their two cute grandkids, Allie and Isaiah in Boulder City, Nevada, where they are living while their dad, Isaac (my cousin) works on the new bridge at the Hoover Dam

In about two hours I gave them the quick tour of Twin Falls- North, East, South and West!!! We went south to see our new house (which at that point was just the crawl space), East to see Chris' office and the temple, west to a cute little Mexican market called Mi Pueblo where we got cactus, tomatillos, jalapenos, some spices and poblanos for a mexican friend of theirs in Montana and also some pastries, mexican jello-s and popsicles.





The popsicles were very interesting! I got the best one- coconut which I shared with the kids. Mike got cucumber chili which was TERRIBLE and Brenda got mango chili (only because we didn't see that it said chili when we bought it!) It burned her throat and Mike ate his all gone although when he was done he said it was one of the most awful things he'd eaten. I asked him why he ate it then and he said, "Well, just because it was something different I guess!" (You'd have to know my Uncle Mike- he's a funny guy!)



From there we went north, back to where we live and I showed them the canyon, the bridge and the view!



Then they were off! It was a quick "hello" but I'm glad that we got to share with them where we live!

Updates on our house- September

So here are some updated pictures of our house FINALLY!!! These aren't even the most up-to-date pictures, but I'll be posting those soon! For anyone who cares to see pictures of the progress here they are!

Week #2:

Began with pouring the concrete footers for the vented crawl space.

Here you can see the forms and the rebar.

This is after they took the forms off, vents in place and concrete fully poured.

The week ended with framing beginning just as I left for Montana.

This is the last picture I took before heading out and then Chris (who stayed home and worked) kept me informed with pictures from his cell phone!!!

This is the framing for the floor.

When I came back from Montana we had a fully framed house with a roof!!! The first thing we did when I got back was to drive out to the land and walk through the house! It was so exciting to see it actually there! The showers/tubs had been put in also!!!

Week 3:

Master tub above;

Kid's tub below

This is the front of the house at the entry way prior to them finishing the arch in front and adding the two columns

Rear View:

There you have it! I'm heading out to the land tonight with the kids to take some more pictures! There has been a lot more progress which I will talk about in the next post!!!

The secret is revealed....We're BUILDING a HOUSE!!!!!

We are SO EXCITED to announce that we're building our first house here in Twin Falls!!!! We fell in love with a beautiful new subdivision south of town and just knew it was the right place for our family to be. It's called South Estates and is only about 5 minutes from Chris' work and right behind the elementary school where Brady will go to Kindergarten next year.

They are building a brand-new city park right across the street from our house that will have a playground, green space for playing fields and a large pond!

Our house will be on a nice quiet street that ends in a cul-de-sac so there won't be any through traffic. There is also a new Stake Center going in right behind our house about 1 block away!

We have a corner lot that won't have any houses on the corner side because it's all dedicated to the park and also there is a horse farm right across the street from us! We also have a direct view of the south hills (the closest thing to mountains here!) It's absolutely beautiful!

Our land right before they started:

Day One:

Day Three:

Day Five:

We are so excited to share with you our happiness and anticipation in building and becoming first time home buyers!!! I'll continue to post the progress as it develops!!!