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Wow! Are days are screaming by. Some of my old-timer neighbors are squawking about the heat and the fact that "winter is just around the corner." LA-LA-LA...I can't hear them! I am soaking up every ounce of these beloved 80 and 90 degree days. This past weekend we spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday hiking the local mountains looking for and studying the names of the many species of wildflowers that fill our alpine meadows. Exercise, photography, and nature study. All wonderful! We are getting to know the nooks and crannies of our surroundings and it is feeling so nice. I lived in Oregon almost my whole life....I know every mountain, every road, and every place to get whatever....it feels great to be doing that here. DS started golf lessons last week and bought a club membership yesterday. Now he can golf anytime he wants. He really loves this game and it is fun watching him find his own passions as he grows. Today I am taking DD and a friend to the new American Girl movie that opens today. I have been promising for months that I would take them today. Wouldn't luck have it that Butte isn't playing it....the closest theater is 100 miles away. So, I will keep my promise and take these girls today - in a day when I barely had enough time to make a Butte showing of the movie. Tomorrow we leave to Yellowstone. We will camp for two nights and stay in a cabin for one. We will be in Virginia City for the 4th to watch fireworks and watch the evening show of the Virginia City Players...a tradition we started last year. Next week hubby travels to Seattle and I am hoping to be free to blog a bit more than I have been able to. I really need to blog about the animals around here....our Have a safe and wonderful 4th! We still do live in the greatest nation on this planet.....that is something to celebrate! |
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Even though we left Virginia 10 days ago, I am just today back to my simple, settled routine. The day we drove home we were only here long enough to unpack and repack for a five day camping trip in Yellowstone. It was marvelous. We logged 30 miles of awesome hiking, watched grizzlies, wolves, and black bears. We even spied a coyote catching a current in the Yellowstone River. Like all trips to my favorite Park, this one was peaceful and refreshing. After arriving home my days were spent cleaning, doing laundry, grocery shopping, and of course a trip to Missoula to get the generator repaired (because I so had time for that!). But today the laundry is done, the cupboards are full, and I have time to share a few pictures from the five weeks I spent with my family. The time with my family was a treasure. We did many fun things but the time I enjoyed the most were just the days we spent living together. My little brother and I spent many days together-those were especially priceless. Being with my dad on Father's Day this year was very special, he just lost his dad a few months ago. I was with my mom everyday and I gleaned so much from our moments together-lots of bonding, laughs, and stories from the past...things that will and have made me a better mom.
Temperatures here are in the 70s and 80s. Never can I remember a time when I loved summer so much! I have big plans....I will walk in the sun, sleep in the sun, eat in the sun, walk in the sun, relax in the sun. No boxes to pack or unpack, no houses to buy or sell, no moving trucks. Yeah, my plans are big.....I plan to live a simple live, in a simple home, in a simple place. |
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Just wanted to pop in and tell you all that we are having a fun time and thoroughly enjoying family time. Because of the extreme busyness of our schedule I am going to take a break from blogging. I will resume blogging the last week of June. In the meantime enjoy the sun...wherever you are. |
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In my last post I told you that I was taking the kids to Jamestown so they could see a very special, once in a lifetime archaeological find. I came across this little treasure when I took my grandma to Jamestown National Historical Park last Sunday. Archaeologist have been digging at the original town site for several years now. Not too long ago they unearthed the oldest English structure in North America, dated 1607. When I came across the diggers on Sunday and saw this wall I was awed and inspired. Awed because I *got* what I was looking at and that I was only one of a few thousand people that would see this in my lifetime (I was told that because our generation doesn't have the technology to preserve it properly it is being recovered and left for future generations to do the work) and inspired by the diggers story and infectious passion for what they had found. As I stared at the wall that was built over 400 years ago I thought about the men who built it. I pondered their passion for adventure and their pioneering spirits. I felt thankful for their endurance that led to the birth of our great nation. Naturally, I wanted my children to see this archaeological marvel. You can understand my great disappointment when we discovered it had already been covered yesterday. I was under the impression that it would still be available for public viewing for another few weeks. Nevertheless we still enjoyed the trip and learned many new things. Today we visited the beach. The kids spent hours burying themselves in the sand, building forts from sand and rocks, and swimming in the water. I laid in the sand and read a book. I soaked in every moment of wonderful, hot weather. I am convinced that I will never mind a warm, even hot day as long as I live! |
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Everyday I keep thinking that I need to come and update this site. Everyday I am too busy. Everyday I tell myself that I will do it tomorrow. Everyday I put it off, until tonight. So here I am. Our daily life here has been full and lively. My parents left for France on Friday. They were supposed to be picked up by a limousine that never materialized, instead they had to settle for me. I offered to put on a cabby hat and put up a sheet for a privacy screen, but they declined. I hoped that wasn't a sign for the way the trip would go and thankfully I was wrong. I have heard from them a few times and they truly are having the time of their lives. My mom called me tonight from her hotel room and told me all about her room with a view-looking right at the Eiffel Tower and the L'Arc De Triumphe. Over the weekend my cousin, grandma, brother, and sister-in-law all joined us for a weekend of food, fun, and a few work projects. It made the weekend go by quickly and we had a ton of laughs. On Sunday I took my grandma to Jamestown National Park. She had read about the archaeological digging going on there and had to see it for herself. So, with chicken salad sandwiches in hand we headed out and had a fun day. Grandma is fragile and requires a lot of patience...patience that I tried to learn over the past couple of weeks being around her. My hat goes off to people that work with the elderly on a daily basis-you all have a gift. Today we took grandma to the airport and said goodbye. The kids and I joined my brother and sister-in-law for a nice dinner out. We sat out on the screened in porch and chatted late into the night. Tomorrow we will all head out to Jamestown because there are some once in a lifetime viewings of the archaeological findings being shown this week. I will blog more about that next time. I am missing hubby desperately and not sure how I am going to make it through the next three weeks without him. I have learned not to agree to anything in the middle of a long Montana winter.....my mental status is distorted. Seriously, we are having a fun time and cherishing every moment with my family. |