Business in Bozeman

Roy and I spent a few days in Bozeman helping the boys with some projects and helping Robert and Jane move into a bigger house a couple of blocks away. They had outgrown their previous home, and are now excited to have more room...for kids, dogs, and stuff.

The house had never been lived in before. It has a great floor plan, with an upstairs and a big garage. Jane will keep in shape running up and down those stairs several times a day!

While we were there, we attended the annual Montana Trout Unlimited banquet and fundraiser. One of the big ticket auction items was one of our boats. It's always fun to see the excitement of the auction. The boat sold for $6900. We were rubbing shoulders with some of Montana's high-dollar tree huggers.



Anne Marie came up to Bozeman for the occasion. Here she is with Seth, Robert, and Jane sitting across the table. We were served a great prime rib dinner with all the fixin's.
Jane put some money down and entered a drawing hoping to win $1800 worth of women's fishing gear. And when the numbers were read.....guess who was the winner!? Yup, it was Jane! I wish I would have gotten a picture of her....she jumped up and down like a high school cheerleader! Later, (after I had gone to bed) she tried on all the stuff.... which included waders, jacket, coat, hat, boots, a rod, reel, boxes, bags, flies, etc.... not to mention hooks, lines, and sinkers! Did I mention she really loves fishing?

This is Danni, Ryann, and Sydney. The little cousins had a blast together.

This is little Axel...he is 15 months old and the epitome of sweetness! After Jane saw pictures of Roy when he was a toddler, she thinks Axel looks just like him. I think I agree.
It's always fun to spend time with our Montana kids.

Sledding...and Crashing

The day started out great. The sun was shining, no wind, and temps were relatively mild. Our Driggs kids were visiting for the long President's Day weekend. Our plan was to have a fun day on one or two of Bancroft's great sledding hills.

Trevor was here, too, ready to play. He and Val blew up this big tube for the day's events. (You can see the little town of Bancroft in the background.)

Here is a couple of kids being shuttled up the hill by grandpa in the sled they called the "Cal Ranch Special." It was by far the fastest ride. Trevor and Val were going 50 mph (or more), I swear at one point in that thing.

Not long into the day, Lataun jumped on the tube. Sicilee, Haddi, and Kadee Simmons jumped on, too, and off they went, flying down the hill. I was watching as they hit a bump, and they all went flying off the tube. Everyone got up laughing and hooting....everyone, that is, except Taun.

Her knee was messed up....hence her fun day of sledding was cut short. Her knee was swollen up and was very painful the whole rest of the weekend. An x-ray showed no broken bones, but an MRI is scheduled for later this week to see about the tendons, cartilage, and ligaments. So she is now in a knee brace and on crutches....and her house is not very crutch-friendly.

After Taun's crash, and a couple of other near-misses, we moved to a smaller hill at the gravel pit where the kids had a ball sledding at a much safer place.












On a side note....Chad had his own kind of suffering going on. He twisted his ankle and took an elbow in the eye playing basketball the same day.

They were a couple of cripples...for sure! Hope everyone gets better soon!

Elk Watching

Yesterday was a beautiful and sunny, winter day. Roy came in and asked me if I wanted to go see a herd of elk. He has been noticing signs of them in the desert east of here and wanted to see if we could find them. So off we go on the snowmobile, and come up over a little knoll, and there they were, about 200 elk just grazing on the sparse grass and sagebrush.

This picture isn't the greatest, but it's the best I could do. They didn't let us get very close to them. It was quite a sight...only a few miles away from our house.

Our shadows, and the mountains behind....a great way to break up an otherwise uneventful day!

A-Subbing I Will Go

North Gem .... a small and interesting school. Grades K-12 all attend school in this same building. Classes sizes average around 14. The grade school kids get to do a lot of the same things as the high school....go to the pep rallies, participate in plays and musicals, and even get to march in the homecoming parade. They are very proud of their school and all the positive things that come along with being so small.

I decided this year to put my name on the sub list at the school. My friend, Kathy, who is the district secretary mentioned that there's a real need. I am no stranger to the teaching / subbing world. I was an aide in Mesa in a first grade class of handicapped kids. It was hard work, but very rewarding. I still think about those kids and wonder what they are doing now... as adults. When we moved back to Idaho, I subbed at Central Elementary in St Anthony for a few years. But for the last 15 or so years, Roy has kept me busy helping him in his businesses. He's not using me in the shop much anymore, so I ventured out. I was a little nervous, but it has been good for me.

My favorite place to sub is in the office. I'm subbing there now while the secretary takes a class twice a week. I make copies, answer the phone ("Good morning, North Gem"), stuff envelopes, do some filing, etc. Sometimes, I just read a book or work on projects. My least favorite place to sub is in the elementary...those kids can be bouncing off the walls sometimes. I so much admire those that choose to be grade school teachers! One day before Christmas, they were really desperate, (so much sickness) they asked me to come and be the kindergarten / preschool teacher! That was a stressful day! Good thing I had a lot of Primary teaching experience.

I have surprised myself and have not minded subbing in the high school. One place I like to sub is in shop class....after all, I do know my way around a shop. They have a cool plasma cutter and can do amazing things with it. With the help of one of the students, I made this cool metal sign for Val for Christmas. (His new welding business is called "Black Dog Fabricating") One day I was subbing in a junior high math class and they got their work all done, so we spent the rest of the time playing "Name That Tune" with my cell phone music. I'm finding with a little creativity, you can get the job done.

Go Cowboys!

Our Happy Holidays

We woke up Christmas morning at Faren's house. The three little boys were so excited about all the loot! River got a remote control snowmobile....and karate pajamas the night before.

Boston shows off his karate moves!

Simon's legs are too short to make the inchworm go.

Indee and Mia got American Girl dolls that look like them.

There was some sledding before the big family party at Lataun's house.
(Notice the gorgeous Tetons in the background)

After eating a yummy turkey dinner, and before opening family gifts, the kids performed the musical numbers they sang in their school Christmas programs.

The girls showing off their new sweaters.

I made winter hats for all the grandkids this year. It was a fun project. I started about Halloween, so I'd have plenty of time to do all 17 hats. (Seth's five are not pictured here.)

After spending a few days at Driggs, we took three grand-daughters and traveled to Monteview to spend the night with Grandma Eddins. It was a sad and empty house for her this Christmas. (sad face) The girls then went to Bancroft with us. We had fun with them, playing games and swimming at Lava. They went back to their own homes Wednesday. Then we spent New Years with Ron and Cindy in Dayton.
Hope all of you had as much fun as we did. But now...on with a new decade!

Living with Scrooge

My husband can be pretty Scroogie sometimes. For instance, he doesn't like it when I play Christmas music, he thinks I over-decorate, for sure he doesn't like to shop, and he drags his feet when there's a party to go to. When the kids were at home, he whined and whined about all the money I was spending, then on Christmas Eve, after putting everything out, he'd say, "Is that all?" Several years ago, one of our friends gave him a hat that said, "Bah, Humbug" on it. I thought it was very fitting, but he wasn't amused.

I'm a firm believer that we have grandkids to help the grandpa chill out. This is Sicilee on one Christmas morning putting make-up and jewelry on her grandpa. He's on cloud nine.

He's a pretty good sport, and actually has fun when he finally gets to a party. I guess we're all like that on some level. (I wish I could remember this game...making reindeer horns out of pantyhose and balloons....it looks pretty fun!)

Like so many other couples, we have learned to agree to disagree on a lot of things in this life. And we always have a good Christmas....with or without the attitude.

Giving Thanks

This year's Thanksgiving was held at my house, with Taun's family, Faren's family, Val's family, and cousin Ron's family. The guys brought their 4-wheelers and motorcycles, hoping for good enough weather to tear up a few of the local hills. They were not disappointed. The kids played with cousins, did some crafts, and enjoyed some geocaching with grandpa and the uncles. They were hoping for some swimming at Lava, but....maybe next time.

It took Haddi all day Wednesday to make this famous rainbow jello salad. She was so proud.

The favorite after-dinner activity.

That night we had some games and the losers (the girls) had to dance for everyone.

The next day we made suckers with Megan's molds. After doing this a couple of years ago, we think it's a tradition now.

We made five different flavors. I was the official sucker wrapper.

The kids were the official taste testers.

A great few days with kids and grandkids. I am blessed.