Happy New Year

No pictures just yet. I am still trying to catch up. The kids go back to school tomorrow unfortunately. I always have big plans that never come to fruition. We will just have to carry some of the fun over into this next year. We spent Christmas in Montana mostly with the Ostler side as this is the last Christmas with the ranch. Alan and Nathan and families will be moving to Wyoming this spring/summer. Jennie will stay and keep a few acres. We did manage a quick trip into Butte to drop off presents. Believe it or not, but my side of the family is more mobile or at least come to visit more often so, though it was disappointing in terms of my visit with my family, I was consoled with knowing I get to visit more in the future. Don is just out of luck.

We rang the new year in by ourselves watching movies. Linay didn't make it. Ainsley did, but was angry we didn't watch ice skating instead of the ball dropping. Emma was with her friend just a few houses away playing board games and barbies.

Now we are back to getting in our school routine. Maybe now I can remember to send the kids to piano.

Hooray!

 

 

You can finally count your blessings that I made an excrutiating effort to get a little caught up with blogging. After many hours and much relearning, here are a few glances of what we have been up to this year.

Don't Give up

First, thankyou to all who dutifully keep up their posts so that my kids can keep connected with beloved family. Second, don't give up on my efforts. I have just been focused in other areas right now, but will try to do better about posting. i think I will have to relearn how to do pictures as soon as I relearn how to get them off the camera, the few I have taken.

Huckleberries!!!!

So, the state fruit of Idaho is the huckleberry. Growing up in MT and going to the Huckleberry festival for many years in Trout Creek made Huckleberries a treasured novelty. Well, now that I am in Idaho, I kept hearing people all around talk about going out for huckleberries here and there and I wanted to give it a try. Of course, not so many are willing to divulge "their spots", but after a little prodding we were given the general direction of where to try. After doing a little research on-line, I thought I might be able to identify some given the chance. So, we went out over the weekend, and low and behold, I think we found some. They are small for the most part, but they smell like huckleberries, and we had fun picking them anyway. So, another life long desire fulfilled. We might even try again. There aren't pictures of the picking because it was during a rainstorm.

A first: aren't you proud?

So, believe it or not, our family purchased furniture this past week. While this furniture is still second hand, it is actually something you will find in a furniture store today. We had gone shopping at furniture stores, but found the exact thing for 1/2 price on craigslist. The pictures are of our new set as posted on craigslist, not at our house.

When Don and I first married, we got two pieces of furniture from thrift stores for about $50 and have used them for close to 13 years now. When we moved into our house, I just couldn't bring myself to bring in the couch partly because I was afraid the bottom would demolish the wood floors, as I had seen what it did to carpet. We did use the love seat and a broken recliner.

Now we actually have a full set (couch, chair, and love seat) and they all match. They are really comfortable and make the house so homey. We love them. We feel so blessed to have a house and furniture, too. The Lord has really been blessing us lately. Also, thanks needs to go to our "counting mutant"(Mr. Magorium's wonder Emporium), who does such a wonderful job on our taxes making some of these purchases possible. Thanks Toni!!! Thanks also for the love from all of you. Mom, I knew you would be happy. Though I do get attached, it has been nice to move on.

Life continues

We are still unpacking and settling in, but life is moving on. We were blessed to have Toni come spend the weekend. It was a little like going home as I provided a basement room to sleep in, piles to wade through, etc. Jill, Justin, and Katie were able to come hang out, as well. We had a good time and the weather was gorgeous. Today, everything is rainy and wet, but that is fine, as I need to spend a day working on piles. I am getting a little tired of digging in boxes to find everything. Also, I almost have the yard all raked. After no one taking care of the grass and leaves(we have 4 maple trees out front), things needed a bit of attention. We are truly blessed and are enjoying life.

We are here!

Well, we finally closed and moved into our new house in a whirlwind. I had envisioned this move as taking a week to 10 days to complete and having it be so organized. Yeah, right. We closed on late Monday afternoon, didn't get a key til Tuesday afternoon, and were completely out by Wednesday 3pm. I had to take a couple of days to recover, but now we are going strong. We still don't have a phone and won't for a little while as it is an electrical problem involving some chewed wire. Anyway, as we get a little bit more settled, I'll keep you posted.