Saying good bye to Montana...

This was taken just as we were about to jump in the car for our long move back to Oregon. I actually miss Montana a little, but just a little. It was alot of fun and really good for me to live so far from home, I really enjoyed it! We had alot of adventures, family visits, no dishwasher, meeting and getting to know C, our adoption experience, welcoming Mac, the LONG winter, sub-zero temperatures, long walks and drives, working as a dental assistant, making new friends, getting ready for a baby, 4 hour drives to the temple, taking lots of pictures, Wrangler sandwiches at MacKenzie River Pizza, and so much more! In leaving Montana I was mostly sad about not seeing C anymore, or at least not as much. (But she has her own adventures coming up as she was just accepted to both BYUI and BYU Provo).

Our March gas bill...

$60.61

Yep, that's right! We only spent $60.61 on gas in March, and that is for two cars.

If you want to lower your gas bill, live in Helena, Montana for the winter!

HAPPY SPRING!!!

YAY, it is the FIRST DAY OF SPRING!!!

Spring is my favorite season, although I may be a bit biased since my birthday is in Spring and my middle name is Spring!

However I am not quite sure I like the way Montana celebrates the first day of SPRING...it is not with beautiful daffodils or tulips or yummy smelling blossoming trees!

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It is with a brand new coat of snow on top of all the dead brown grass...

are you kidding me!

2008!!

I am excited for 2008!

I know that this next year is going to be full of many happy, fun and emotional memories for us, and I can't wait!!!

I am excited...

To watch our beautiful, sweet MAC learn and grow and to see what his personality will be like. I am excited to laugh with him, teach him sign language, and see him do all the many FIRSTS that he will experience! I am excited to spend the year as his Mommy!!!

To finalize Mac's adoption! And be able to take him to the Temple to be sealed to us and be able to see Hubs give our son a Name and a Blessing. And to have all of our family, friends and Mac's birthfamily there to share it all with us!

For the possibility to be moving somewhere. Hubs's job will be taking us somewhere and who knows where that will be, but I think it will be a fun adventure! Also hopefully it will be somewhere bigger than Helena, and maybe have a little bit warmer winter.

To work on my photography. Now that I have a beautiful subject, maybe I can work on taking better pictures, and learn my camera a little bit better and figure out how to use Photoshop CS2.

To spend another year with my amazing husband. To find a million more ways to show him how much I love him. To celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary! To watch him be a Daddy to Mac!

To spend my last year in my 20s with all these many blessings!

weather report...

The low yesterday was 3 degrees and the high was 19 degrees!

Hubs and I just stayed home yesterday and ate a Thanksgiving steak dinner. The steak was SO good! We were invited to some friends house from church for dinner, but I have been sick all week and I didnt want to get their 4 little boys sick. But we really enjoyed just the two of us! We are very grateful to have each other!

so very grateful...

I did not want the day to end without me expressing what I am grateful for...because I truly have alot to be grateful for at this time in our lives!

I am so incredibly grateful for a most AMAZING HUSBAND! He is so wonderful to me, loves me, takes care of me. He is my best friend and the love of my life. I love everything about him! He is such a hard worker, ambitious, patient, smart, and so very handsome.

I am so grateful for the GOSPEL, for my faith, for my knowledge of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and their love for me. And for the Priesthood and eternal families. With out all of this my life would be nothing.

I am so grateful for ADOPTION! For the most amazing young women who is making a heart wrenching sacrifice to do what is best for her sweet baby boy and for herself. And for giving us hope to be able to raise children in our home.

I am grateful for FAMILY and FRIENDS. Their love and support mean everything to us!

I am so very grateful for so many things in my life. We have been so blessed in so many ways. My list could go on and on but these were in my thoughts today.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

a few things...

***Tomorrow is my last day of work, yahoo!!!

***I am actually starting to enjoy the cold weather and snow, and have ventured out into it quite alot. (I just took this picture when I got home from work today. I love icicles, aren't they beautiful?)

***My sister Candis had a baby boy this morning...all I know is that his name is Callen Grant. Emilia Jo is a big sister! I can't wait to see pictures of him.

***23 days until "C" is due...I hope that the little guy comes a little sooner!

***Please check out THIS about trials that my friend from The R House posted today. Hubs and I have been through ALOT of trials since we have been married. And when I read this I thought this is exactly how we feel and how we have gotten through it all and still have smiles on our faces.

we woke up to this...

We finally have our first snow in Helena. We had begun to think that maybe they were all fibbing about the snow here. The weather reports every week for the last two months has showed snow but it never even rained. So this weekend it was actually raining and we figured it was bound to finally happen. The temps are not going to get any higher than 34 this week and we will get lows in the teens everyday.

Wow, I hope I can be a big girl about this.

Shhhhhh...Don't tell Hubs!!

Well, even though it was in the high 30's today...I decided to wear my sandals anyway! Bryce hates me wearing sandals in the winter, and I usually get a good scolding for doing so. But what is great about Montana is that it is sunny almost everyday and that just makes me want to be in my sandals, even if it IS cold.

I Love my CHACOS!!!

Happenings...

Well, I thought I would just update everyone on what has been going on with us. Nothing exciting, but here goes...

I was able to go home to Oregon to visit friends and family last month. I got to see Mylisa and was given a very fun baby shower.

Hubs is now teaching Seminary. It starts at 7am, so it isn't too early and he still gets to work on time. He will be released from his current calling this next week as 2nd counselor in Elders Quorum.

We were able to go to the Stake Center and watch all sessions of General Conference. Which we really enjoyed!

Work has been good for me, but really frustrating at times. Especially this last week. The 10 hour days with basically no breaks, is really tiring and getting old. I cant wait until my last day the end of November. In the meantime it will help the days to go by much faster.

We finally got Montana License plates for one of our cars. It cost $275 for one car for one year! OUCH!! We are waiting to get them for the other car next month.

We have yet to get any snow on the valley floor! But I don't think that it is too far away! It has been really cold. We are still trying to figure out what we need to do to get our cars ready for below 0 degree temps.

Hubs and our landlord Perry, took down the window screens and put up the storm windows this last weekend. And it has made a huge difference in our house warms up. It feels less drafty and it stays warmer longer.

The Fall has been beautiful here. The bummer is that there are no real pumpkin patches around. We were really bummed because that is one of our favorite things to do in the fall.

We are getting very anxious for our little boy to get here. Just about 7 weeks left. Hopefully a little sooner.

We cant decide on a name for our little guy, mostly because of Hubs and him not liking ANY name at all. But we don't want to pin a name on him yet anyway, we want to wait to see him and then decide.

So that is all that I can think of at the moment. Hope you all feel caught up on us!

I won't be able to sleep tonight...

Well, today when I was cleaning, I found a little surprise. As you have probably guessed from the picture, it was a spider. Not just any spider, we are pretty sure it WAS a Hobo Spider. This picture is pretty close to the actual size it was too. NOT COOL! Hobo spiders are harmful, they wont kill you but they will leave a skin lesion that could last for months, and you are supposed to seek medical treatment immediately. SCARY!! I am really terrified of spiders!!!!! Especially big ones, and I hate squishing them too. So I managed to get a grip on my terror and catch it in a glass jar and then waited to kill it until Hubs got home. We dumped finger nail polish remover in the jar and we managed to poison it and drown it at the same time. So anyway I don't think I will sleep very well tonight, I will probably freak out at the smallest itch. I don't know if I am going to be able to handle spiders in my house all winter, especially big Hobo spiders.

***So that you all wont have to look at this spider every time you look at my blog, I will delete the picture after a day or so when everyone has had the chance to see it at least once.

So NOT ready...!!

We realized this week that it is getting dark before 8:30pm. Which means summer is coming to an end. I am so not ready for the winter here...

People keep telling us that winter starts this month...What, No Fall?!?!? I cant believe I am going to miss the Fall! I don't want winter to start yet (although it will mean it is closer to when our baby is born).

I don't want to live in freezing temperatures! I don't want to have to put a coat and gloves on every time I go outside! I don't want to have to get up even earlier in the morning to have enough time to warm my car up before I drive to work which really isn't that far down the road! I don't want to have to worry about getting my car out of the snow that is piled on it because we are on a snow route! I don't want to worry about the weather conditions we will have to drive a hour and a half in when we get the call that our birthmother is in labor!

But I don't really have a choice and it is most likely that we wont be here next winter, so I guess I should just tough it out, right?

East Helena Rodeo

We decided to check out the Rodeo this last weekend. Hubs loves Rodeo's, although you wouldn't be able to tell with him always in a white shirt and tie, he is a country boy at heart. We enjoyed most of the rodeo, although the atmosphere was not a pleasant one. Everyone around us was smoking and drinking, and this large group of young adults decided to take every last inch of seating around us, and we were squished. And then they were talking to each other over us, and the girl next to me kept on yelling for her friends in my ear. Finally after about 15 minutes they decided that they would move, and boy were we glad to stretch out a little. We left before it was completely over because both of our backs hurt from sitting on the hard wooden bleachers. But we were able to play around with my camera and take some fun shots. Sorry there are so many, I just couldn't pick a few. Both Hubs and I took these pictures, I took mostly the still pictures and Hubs took most of the action ones.

Enjoy!

Mini-Cowboys

Little guy watching the "Rocky Mountain Rocksters".

This picture is blurry but I really liked it!

Dreamin' of bein' a cowboy!


Mini-Rodeo Clowns

I just loved that these guys were standing exactly the same way. But I hate how it looks like they are standing on the fence pole.

I think that this is torture!


This guy really caught some air!

Hubs likes this picture.

OUCH!!! (All the same guy.)


...And the sheep riders. They were so cute!

another day fishing...

I got a job...

I got a job as a Dental Assistant.

I am really excited about it, because I have been so bored out of my mind. Also, the extra money will be nice to be able to save. How I got the job was all kindof weird but I dont feel like explaining it, it would just be too confusing.

Celebrating...

We didn't do much during the day, but in the evening we went to some friends house for a BBQ. It was alot of fun, and we met some other couples. One of the guys there served his mission in the Eugene mission (Medford, Eugene, Klamath Falls, & Salem) from 2001-2003, it was fun to talk to him about home. Both Hubs and I feel very old around all these couples.

Then we went to watch the fireworks. There is an older couple in our ward who live in CA but own a ranch that is in our ward that put on a huge firework show for everyone in our ward ever year. They hire someone to put on the show, played music to go with the fireworks and they were shot out over their little pond/lake. It lasted a good 45 minutes. We were impressed!

But all in all, I much rather have been at the lake house with Hubs's family or at the beach.

It's a loooooong road to...Park Lake!

Sunday night Hubs and I decided that we wanted to take a drive and explore a little. We decided to take a road that went into National Forest past Mt. Helena. A few miles down the road it turned into gravel. We decided to keep going because it was so beautiful! Seriously! As we are driving down this pretty nice gravel road the houses become fewer and fewer, but every once in awhile a house would pop up. We go a few miles until we come to a sign that tells how far different little creeks and meadows are and it says that Park Lake is 16 miles. Hubs wanted to go to this lake because he said that someone had mentioned at work that they camp at this lake. I was the one driving and did not want to drive 16 miles on a gravel road. But we were trying to be adventurous so we kept going. After driving for what seemed like forever we came upon another sign that had the miles on it. It said Park Lake was 14 miles. I couldn't believe it, I thought we had at least driven half way there. I kept on saying "I am tired of driving!", and I got no response from Hubs, which obviously meant he wasn't offering to drive (both Hubs and I hate driving and we always argue over who has to drive). After more driving we came to a T in the road and there was no sign saying which way anything was (by this time I think we had driven probably 15 miles on the gravel road and about 8 or so miles from the original sign for Park Lake). So we turned right on a hunch, and not far down the road we saw a sign for cars going the other way and as we passed we turned to see what it said. It said that the Interstate was 5 miles ahead or Helena was 15 miles. So we had taken the very long way around to the lake. That made me even more happy that I was driving. So we finally came to a sign that said 6 miles to Park Lake, and then the gravel road got really bad and bumpy, my insides felt like they were put in a blender. I was thinking and probably mentioned once or twice that this lake better be something pretty to look at or I was going to be mad. When we were only a few miles away from the lake we saw 4 huge Elk and they were just staring us down as we slowly drove past. So we finally get there after about an hour and a half of driving 20 miles. There were alot of people there and yes, it was sooo beautiful as you can tell from the picture. There was even a really nice and beautiful camp ground there, which we now plan on going back to to camp. And then kindly Husb offered to drive home, how nice!

gone fishin'

Saturday evening we decided to go do some fishing with a guy that Hubs works with and his wife and then we ran into a guy from our ward who was fishing too. I actually didn't do any fishing because I feel like I take the fun out of it for Hubs because he is always having to help me instead of fishing, so I decided to just take pictures. Hubs actually thinks this kind of fishing is really boring, he prefers to fly fish on the rivers. Needless to say, nobody caught anything but seaweed.

I really like these pictures of Hubs, I think he is HOT!

MY MANLY-MAN!

So this is my manly-man watching baseball while he is sewing!

Hubs and I have been trying to get this quilt done for Mylisa for months now. With her birthday coming up in a few weeks, we thought that it was time to finish it. I have made several baby quilts and Hubs always wants to help a little bit, which I love. He decided today that he was going to work on it while he is watching the OSU baseball team play in the College World Series (Which he has been really excited about watching all day.)

I just love this MAN!!!

a good mail day...

This is a card that Hubs and I received in the mail today, from our sweet little eight yr.old niece, Hallie. It is the sweetest thing ever!!!

She will be getting baptised next week and we are very sad to miss it, but her grandma and grandpa (Hubs's parents) are taking her and our other niece McKenna and nephew Cole on a rode trip and they are going to come and visit us at the end of July. We are very excited to get to see all of them very soon!

Translation (everything is exactly how she wrote it):

Dear B &B, How is it in Montana? And thanks for the message! I'm so glad I'm eight! How's your (the) New House? What part of Montana do you live in? Are they're alot of restraunt's they're? in Sherwood we only have 4 1/2 days of school left! (at Middleton) All see you in about a month so I won't say goodbye! Please write back, love, Hallie

I almost forgot! My babtizom is on June 30, 2007! It's getting so close! Love you lot's love Hallie (again)

P.S. We do not know the time of my babtizom yet!

How's Montanna?

It's gr8 2 b 8!