Summer Recap *warning photo overload

Wow, another month has passed since my last post! Where has the summer gone? The time since I retired and moved to Billings has just flown by. These are some of the things we have been doing since we moved to Billings.

Fun...... swimming in the kiddie pool in our backyard. The adults had fun in the hot tub, but nobody would allow me to take pictures.

Fun at the mall.

Fun at the Mustang baseball game.


Fun at Riverside Park with the ducks and geese. Not so fun.....cleaning our shoes after.

Not fun......Caelen pouting because I wouldn't take her to the store with me dressed as she was. I know......what a mean grandma!

Fun at the Yellowstone County Fair.

Fun dressing Luke up in the girl's dress up clothes. (I hope this doesn't cause him problems in the future)

Fun........Caelen's first day of kindergarten.

Not Fun....... Another summer storm that had us worried we were in for a repeat of June's tornado and flood.

Fun........camping on the Big Horns over the Labor Day weekend even if it was only 40 degrees, at least it didn't rain or snow.

Not so fun (for Ken) funnier than hell for me.....Ken falling into the creek.

ROAD TRIP

Sunday morning we sat on our deck reading the newspaper and enjoying a cup of coffee. We decided we didn't want to sit around home all day so talked about what we wanted to do. Ken suggested we take the kids to Riverside Park to feed the ducks and geese. That was okay with me but it would only take about an hour of the day to do that so I suggested we pack a picnic and drive to Chief Plenty Coup Park. Colette squashed those plans when she told us the kids were scheduled to see their dad that afternoon. Ken then suggested that he and I drive to Lewis and Clark Caverns, something we have been wanting to do for a long time. Since we were getting a late start we decided to take an overnight bag and spend the night somewhere. The cave is located about 19 miles south of Three Forks and is the largest limestone cave in the

the Northwest. It wasn't founded by Lewis and Clark, but is located just above the Jefferson River which was part of their route. We have passed by the sign to the caverns many times over the years and have talked about visiting it every time. I am so glad we finally made it because I don't think I could make the hike to the entrance for too many more years. It is only about a mile long but all uphill. My camera doesn't take very good pictures in dim lighting (like in a cave) so the pictures arent' the best. It was very impressive and I am so glad we made the trip.

After we finished the cave tour we headed north and ended up in Helena. We decided since we had come this far we may as well drive up to Whitefish and see Ken's brother who has lived in the valley for four years and whom we hadn't seen for about that long.

After a disappointing dinner at Macaroni Grill (they are not all created equal) we checked into our hotel where Ken was dismayed to learn that the TV did not carry Fox News so he setteled for Horton Hears a Who. (it's a good thing he doesn't read my blog...he probably wouldn't appreciate this picture.)

This mother deer with her twins was the only wildlife we saw on our trip. We are used to seeing deer all the time in Colstrip, but didn't expect to see any in front of our hotel in downtown Helena.

Monday morning we left Helena and headed up the east coast of Flathead Lake. We passed many smaller lakes and a lot of small towns we had never heard of before. The scenery was gorgeous the entire trip to Whitefish.

We made a quick stop in the small town of Seeley Lake and enjoyed a huckleberry smoothie. Huckleberries grow in abundance in this area, but they are quite expensive because it is hard to get to them before the bears eat them all.

We arrived in Whitefish about 2:00 in the afternoon and visited with Jim and his family until 5 pm then hit the road again. We drove over 530 miles for a three hour visit? I would have liked to have spent the night in the Flathead and headed home Tuesday morning. There is a winery and a mission that I wanted to see, but Ken thought we should get a head start on the trip home so we drove down the west side of the lake and spent the night in Missoula. Tuesday morning we woke up to pouring rain and arrived home in the afternoon. We drove over 1,050 miles on this spur of the moment trip! It was fun though and nice to take a break.

July or Why I Have Been To Busy to Blog

June 30 - I retired! And now that we made it almost through the month of July, I am loving not working. Getting to this point however, took a lot of work. First we got the Colstrip house ready to sell, but as you can see in the picture, we had a lot of help. Luke did a great job of stripping off the old wallpaper. On the 9th of July we had a great moving sale, in fact I was so busy selling all my treasures that I didn't have time to take pictures. On the 10th we loaded the truck and headed to Billings. Once again.........no time for pictures.

We got moved into the new house with a lot of help from our wonderful kids and grandkids.

We're pretty much settled into our new place and are ready for company.

Last weekend we went to Cowley for the all school reunion. Ken's class got together for the first time in 42 years and what a turnout. Seven of his classmates were there, which is pretty darn good considering there were only 8 in his graduating class. My camera was in my purse with a full battery, empty memory card, and I only took 3 pictures. Pathetic!

Because neither one of us is working right now and the pension checks haven't started rolling in we have postponed all vacations for a while and are spending our time checking out the sights in our new city. For 40 years we have driven by a sign just outside of Billings advertising the pictograph caves. Last Monday we decided to take a little drive and check it out. I thought it was probably in the Pryor Mountains, about 35 miles away. We plugged in the GPS and off we went, traveling a distance of 5 miles from our house. All those years and I had no clue they were that close to Billings.

Sadly, years of erosion, water and weather have pretty much erased most of the drawings. The drawings in red symbolize guns; they are the most distinguishable drawings left in the cave. Next week we may venture a couple of hundred miles away to see the Lewis and Clark Caverns. People come from all over the country to visit them and this will be our first trip. It might be good that we can't leave the state this summer, there is a lot to see in our own backyard.

After the Storm

This is our neighborhood in Billings after the tornado and thunderstorm that went through the area Sunday afternoon. You can't see our house in the picture but we are 4 or 5 houses up from the house on the bottom left of picture.

The lowest level of our home was flooded when the window well filled with water and then came through to the house. We just had the carpet laid on Friday afternoon and two days later we vacuumed up over 70 gallons of water.

The tornado did extensive damage to the Metra and several business, but amazingly, there were no injuries.

My Blahhhggg

What a blah blogger I am, six weeks since my last post. I have been extremely busy the past month, with getting the house ready to sell (it hasn't), the Billing house ready to move into (we haven't) and getting all my retirement "stuff" in order (I have) that I haven't even thought about putting anything on here. My last day of work is two weeks from today, which also means my last pay check. (Yikes!) When I'm done working I plan on doing a better job with this thing or else give it up entirely.

Took the kids shopping Sunday and while I was looking for a new pair of sunglasses, Caelen and Luke found themselves each a pair along with coordinating hats.

HOUSE FOR SALE

Thirty years in the same house produces a lot of memories. Ken was 30 and I was 29 when we decided we would build a house. The optimism of youth! We had the house framed and enclosed, then we set out to finish it. Ken learned about plumbing, wiring, finishing and I learned to keep my mouth shut and do what he told me. That kind of partnership would never work now, I can no longer keep my mouth shut and he knows it. Ha Ha!


Five years ago we remodeled our kitchen. It's the hardest thing for me to leave. We added lots of cabinets and I will only have about half that many in the new house. But then, there are a lot more restaurants in Billlings so I don't plan on cooking as much either.
Our children and grandchildren are having a harder time with us selling the house than we are.
We will be leaving this house, but we'll take the memories with us.

Some Great Diet Advice

My five year old granddaughter told me this today, "Grandma if you would just quit eating so much junk you wouldn't have to worry about being fat". I think she's on to something.