Saturday we went to a water park with Becky, our dad, Ella, Becky's foster daughter and a little nine year old friend from Oregon. We all had a BLAST!!!
Ella amazed me at her fearless attitude. She is a die hard water baby so it wasn't too much of a surprise that she liked the water so much as she was confidently charging up, down and through the water slides by herself! Dad, Becky and I rotated parking ourselves in the nearby hot tub where we could keep a bit of an eye on her and she'd check in occasionally. So impressive at how confident she has become! SUCH a different child than she was a year ago...
Ella got to attend her first birthday party Stateside last week, in Laurel. It was at the coolest park - I'd never seen anything like it before! She thought she'd died and gone to heaven :).
Wow! A child's paradise...
The birthday children and the party doings
Awesome slide
Definitely nothing in Uganda like this - especially for free!
Here in Montana one of the favorite activities of my four year old is cleaning sticky raccoon blood off of a live trap with a scrub brush and soap :). It's cheap entertainment (totally free actually) and gets an otherwise nasty job, done (Mommy gets a little wild with that gun)! Sure can't beat the enthusiasm and energy of a four year old :)
We've caught (and disposed of) raccoons two nights in a row. You know it's time to start clearing out the charming creatures when not only do they eat you out of house and home in the cat food department, but when they then poop all over EVERYTHING. THEN when they get just too confident and start chasing people who are walking through the barn at night to close in the chickens. Yup, time to go for sure.
Today a friend of Becky's flew in to help with some work on our construction project and Ella got to take her first ride in his small plane. She LOVED it, making her pilot/mechanic auntie very proud :). The valley is a unusually green this time of year, thereby making everything really, really pretty. The sky is really blue, too!
Loading up
Ella with her pilot Auntie
Happy passenger
Looking out
Mom's house - look how green everything is and it's the end of June!
Tuesday Becky and I went for our first real horse ride and boy was it ever fun! I had expected to be riding an older, lame horse but Fixie surprised me, stayed sound and gave me a real fun for my money! What fun we had and I even managed to stay on :).
Ella started out with us but after a couple of miles wanted to call it quits. No problem since Becky had her cell phone and we were still along the road so Granny could come in the car and pick her up. L is quite the little horse rider I must say, especially for a four year old. I was glad that she called it quits when she did however, so that we could go a little bit faster and it was a bit more like "old times" (other than the fact that I am a couple years shy of thirty and my back is worse now!).
We were lucky to have my aunt and grandpa stop by this week, giving Ella the opportunity to meet her only great grandfather and one of her great aunts. Both from my dad's side of the fam.
Our construction project continues. We now have the walls all insulated and are putting up the inside wall. It's of cedar slats and really pretty (inexpensive too!). We hope to finish that up tomorrow, do touch up work and some left over things on Friday, then start on the floor next week. We got the electricity wires all strung up so all that needs done is wiring things into sockets.
It's been a lot of work but a ton of fun too. Especially on days like this when you can see the progress :)
Beginnings of a doggie door for Nola and Shorty
Becky working on the trim outside with insulation on part of the inside wall
Here’s a quick synopsis of what’s been going on here lately.
Last Friday my sister, Becky, rolled in with her 14 year old foster daughter, guinea pig, and a motorcycle trailer full of four huge windows, French doors and single door. They made it all the way from Oregon without anything being broken!
Saturday we all piled in to two separate cars and attended a Corgi Picnic in Laurel. Boy was this fun! 100+ little Corgis of all shapes and sizes running around off leash in a huge field with a stream and pond in it playing together merrily. What fun! As an old time dog enthusiast I must say, I’ve never seen anything like it. After being raised with terriers (NOTE: I’ve always owned big dog mutts but my other family member have had the terriers, hence I was raised with them) it was more than impressive to see all these happy little dogs merrily playing together without ONE FIGHT or act of aggression. I am SOLD on Corgis – what awesome, cute little dogs!
Sunday, we left Mom at home and I spoke at my 10th and LAST scheduled speaking engagement at a church in Belfry. What a sense of accomplishment (and relief!) it was!
Monday, Ella headed off with her Granny to her FIRSTVACATIONBIBLESCHOOL while Becky and I stayed home and laid the subfloor for mom’s new mudroom. We are enclosing the carport, which already has the roof and cement floor laid. Ella had such fun at her first day of VBS that she started missing her friends back in UgandaL. Poor baby!
Tuesday, L and Granny headed back off to Bible school while Becky and I stayed home and put up the frame for the mudroom. We also put up a bit of the sheeting too. Talk about some awesome sister time – what a blast! Power tools are FUN to use and Becky has a ton of them that actually work! So different from working in Juba...
Wednesday it was L and Gran back to VBS and Becky and I put in the windows (three) and doors (French doors and one other). French Doors are a PAIN to install let me tell you and are not for the faint hearted or dull of brain (like me :- ). Luckily our old friend Kurtis stopped by to get some eggs and ended up staying for several hours helping Becky think. I think enough at work that I am just NOT going to be doing any extra thinking while here on furlough! Picked up our friend, Tiffany, at the airport in Billings at 12pm.
Thursday, Tiffany, Beck and I bought a bunch of plywood and enclosed the tack room in the barn. This involved climbing around in a crap load of raccoon poop and cleaning it out to accomplish the task, as well as some rather raucous laughter the ENTIRE time. Woo boy did we have fun ;-)! Also mowed the lawn. Ella had yet another fun day at VBS.
Friday was working more on the mudroom, doing sheeting and taking down the old storm door to the house. Attended the VBS program for parents. Simply amazing to see how far Ella has come in the last year to be able to attend and have the skills of a normal four year old and to have fun! Out of the seven children in her class, three were adopted and one lived with his grandmother and aunt. So basically half of the class were adopted children. How cool is that? Pretty darn! Cleaned up the porch and touch up mowing for the Open House the next day.
Saturday we had our Open House. What fun! The day was beautiful and it never rained. Mom had cooked up a bunch of bbq pork sandwiches and a friends from Wyoming and Billings, Roberts, Joliet and Bridger came by. Ella had a blast playing and jumping with friends from Joliet who have three boys and a baby, eight, five and three years old.
My mom has just been showing Ella “Resurrection Eggs” and telling her the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. She hasn’t been telling it quite like Ella has liked however. Ella wants Jesus to “run away fast” when the soldiers come to get him in the Garden of Gethsemane, “beat them all dead” with the hammer that they used to crucify him and “roll them over and make them dead” with the big stone that covered the tomb.
Jesus’ death and resurrection really does defy human nature – and even my four year old has noticed! Thank God that He chose to do things His way rather than our way... And that He still does!
Last week we took a little family vacation to Yellowstone, compliments of my dad. We had a great time and Ella got to see and play in snow for the first time! We didn’t see that many animals however, which was rather surprising, but we had a great time anyway. We left on Tuesday morning, spent the night in West Yellowstone (dad had a free motel room there, complete with swimming pool that he and L went swimming in), drove through Yellowstone again on Wednesday and were home Wednesday night.
A fun time was had by all, just different things made the trip fun for different people. For me it was seeing the bison (especially the babies) and elk and seeing some of the geysers and stuff as an adult and realizing that they are not normal! As a kid I really took Yellowstone for granted but wow! How weird to have boiling hot water shooting up hundreds of feet out of the ground...
For four year olds however, different things are fun for them. After experiencing all of the natural wonders of Yellowstone, eating at Old Faithful, and generally just partying the whole time, Ella’s most exciting experience was when she puked. Yes, throwing up beside the car on the Chief Joseph highway was what thrilled her the most (this is only the second time the kids thrown up in 15 months). I have never seen anyone take such delight in such an experience.
We got home and my grandmother called so Ella got to tell her great grandmother about our trip. I quote, “Grandpa drove and drove us and we got to stop at bathrooms!” Yes, that was the cheerful synopsis of our trip to Yellowstone. It is true – preschoolers truly ARE enamored with bodily functions! At least she didn’t tell her great grandma how she’d puked...
Going up over the Beartooth Pass there were lots of big snow drifts. It had just opened the Friday before.
Bear bait!
Ahhhh... grabbing snow for the first time!
Granny built a little snowman :)
Filling up the cooler with snow - L thought this was so cool!
Ella thought that not only was it pretty neat that you could eat the snow, but that it was free and there was lots of it!
Granny taught Ella how to have a snowball fight. Then poor old Granny got a snowball in her face and down her shirt! But no one felt very sorry for her somehow... ;)
Ella, with a straggly elk behind her, at Mammoth. She thought they were goats at first!
We saw quite a few of these old fellows, walking down the road stopping up traffic. At the end of the trip we did not have very kind feelings about these fellows...
Ella by a really cool hot springs
This was such a deep, BLUE pool - truly beautiful!
Ella with her grandparents
Dad and L in Old Faithful Lodge
There she blows!! Old Faithful Geyser actually came through :)
Grandpa got us ice cream :)
Enjoying it in the sun on the porch of Old Faithful Lodge
Ella reminded me of a little bear cub the whole time. She continues to just grow and grow!
The kids section was awesome!
Ella and her Grandpa
At the top of the water slide....
Going through the tubes with Grandpa
Hot tubbing with Grandpa
