Friday Afternoon At The Park

The kids were out of school today and Kyle had the day off from work so we decided to go exploring. This is the first really nice day we have experienced since moving to Colstrip. The weather was warm and sunny (almost Florida like except no humidity and not as hot). Colstrip has lots of little parks scattered throughout the town. Here is one that the kids really like.



This is Melena, Ethan and Camryn climbing all over this huge sandstone rock. The playground area of the park is surrounded by these rocks. They are lots of fun to climb on..

Camryn spending a day at her side job - modeling for Melena - too bad she doesn't get paid.

Ethan the power swinger


Ethan, Melena, and Camryn hanging out in the sun. Still too cold for short.


Here is the whole family except for me. Someone has to take the picture.

This is a herd of deer we see almost every night near our home. They must be taking a break. Usually they are standing up and eating. I love their big ears.

Working out at the CPRD

I got up this morning and decided I had to get back to my habit of going to the gym again. I had been doing so well in Florida. Six months straight of working out on the treadmill at the Y at least twice a week(usually more) with my workout buddy Kristen. Now here I am in Montana with no workout buddy. It really is hard to get motivated. But I did it. I got up this morning and took the kids to school and ran down to the CPRD (Colstrip Parks and Recreation District) or the gym. Its a little more wordy than saying the Y but it is essentially the same thing. The big bonus is that if you are a resident of Colstrip you can use it for free. Whoohoo! It has a cardio room, weight room, all sorts of aerobic type classes, and an outdoor swimming pool with an amazing water slide(the kids can't wait until summer).
Anyway, I did my 60 minute workout on the treadmill and I feel great. One day down and the rest of my life to follow.

Shopping Run to Billings

We got up Saturday morning and decided we needed to make a shopping run to Billings. This is a first for us. We have always lived in an area where you could get pretty much anything right at your finger tips. Not so here in Colstrip. We have a smallish grocery store, an Ace Hardware (that sell fabric. Have you ever heard of that?), a Subway and a video store. Everybody shops in Billings (120 miles away) or there is a Walmart in Miles City (80 miles away) and best of all there is a variety resturants. Anyway we left the house at about 10am - it was snowing- in April and headed for the big city. We had a mission to complete.
First stop: TARGET - looking for winter type clothes because it is still winter out here. Melena got some long sleeve shirts.
Second stop: Lunch at Fuddruckers because by the time we got to Billings it was lunch time and we were hungry after shopping at Target.
Third stop: LOWES - Buying paint for the house because we are painting the basement as the workmen get it ready for us.
Fourth stop: WALMART - My idea of hell - to crowded and crazy but you can't beat the prices and we had to stock up on food until our next run to Billings.
Fifth stop: BEST BUY - because I forgot to look for a vacuum at Target or Walmart and I wasn't going back to either store. I found a nice little canister vac. and was made happy.
Sixth and final stop: COSTCO - We need our food in bulk - Think 2 weeks before we get back to Billings. We also found Melena a nice winter jacket. That was a lucky find because all the spring and summer clothes are in stock now.
By the time we were done shopping we just wanted to get home and remember we took all the kids with us. You know what happens when kids get tired of shopping - they start touching and annoying each other and that in turn annoys their mom and dad and then we are sorry that we brought them with us and then we remember that we live 2 hours from Billings and there is no way we are leaving our kids home alone and be that far away from them without a responsible adult babysitting but we are too new to town to know any adults well enough to leave are kids with them and then what is we got in an accident, or snowed in or something. Oh no the kids are shopping with us and so we suffer through our first shopping run to Billings. Thankfully its a once or twice a month occurrence. (Hopefully).

Welcome to Montana

We have been in Montana for almost 2 weeks. We are moved into our home and have finally got Internet service. We are kind of remote so we had to find an Internet provider that serviced our area. Then it took them awhile to get out here and set us up and then it took 2 days to complete the job.
We are living in the upstairs of our house while we wait for the workmen to get the basement completed. We thought that they would be done before the kids and I arrived but that was wishful thinking. It is very messy and disorganized and we have dust everywhere and we can't put very many things away because we can't use the basement yet. Melena and Camryn are sharing a room now (the guest room) and Ethan (lucky boy) has a room (my craft area) to himself. Hopefully they will be finished soon.
Everybody is set up in school. Ethan and Camryn go to Pine Butte Elementary. It is close to where we live. They could walk to school but the weather has been kind of bad lately. They really like there teachers and have made lots of new friends. Camryn already has a marriage proposal from a little boy at church but she is not interested. Melena goes to Frank Brattin Middle School and is back in Band and Spanish class. I drive her to school in the morning and she rides the bus home.
There are three schools in town, the elementary, the middle school, and the high school. The kids from all three schools ride the bus together and all three schools start and end at the same time. Wednesday when Melena got on her bus to come home she over heard two elementary school kids talking.
Kid #1 " Look its the new girl. I thinks she's Ethan cousin"
Kid#2 "No, I think its his sister"
Kid #1 turned to Melena and said "Are you Ethan's sister?"
She answered "Yes."
Apparently there is no way to be anonymous in a small town. Everybody knows who you are before you have any idea who they are.

Camryn is 6

HaPpY BiRtHdAy CaMrYn!

Our Family is Complete (at least this week).

We picked Kyle up from the airport yesterday. What a sight for sore eyes. There he was standing on the curb at the airport waiting for us to arrive. We timed it pretty perfectly. We don't believe in parking. Just a quick pull over to the curb and hop on in. We did take just a minute for hugs and kisses. I did prep Kyle with the information that Camryn wanted to be the first to get hugs and kisses. She was so happy! Kyle's plane got in early so we decided to run to the mall for some shopping therapy. Not Kyle's favorite activity but Melena was really happy. She and Ethan needed new shoes for church. Melena went happily about her task of trying on shoes while we found a sales clerk to measure Ethan's feet. He said his church shoes were feeling a little tight. They are size 8.5 so I thought his feet must be getting a little bigger. We were dumbfounded when she had Ethan stand on the shoe measuring thingy(not sure of its scientific classification). His feet measured a whopping size 11. Bear in mind that Ethan is only 11 years old. I mean what is in store for us? How big is he going to get? Can we really afford to feed and clothe him? I had no idea that he had grown so much. No wonder he said his shoes felt tight. We found a pair that he was happy with and satisfied Melena's shoe desires also. We then headed over to Don Pablo's for a family Valentine's Homecoming dinner celebration. The topic of conversation settled around Ethan's shoe size and what is Montana like. Were so happy to have Kyle (for me) and daddy (for Melena, Ethan and Camryn) home again.

Returning From Montana

Kyle is flying in from Montana tomorrow. He will be here all next week. We have so much to do to get everything ready to move the rest of us to Colstrip. His new job is relocating us to Montana but they will only pay to ship 15,000 pounds. They sent in a moving company to do an estimate of how much stuff we have to move and we were way over the estimated limit. I refuse to get rid of everything so we have rented a relo-cube or pod to ship some of are excess stuff (books, paper craft stuff, more paper, rubber stamps or as Kyle says "Junk that makes me happy"). I have been packing boxes all week. I'm sick of packing. Thanks to Debbie Clayton for running over to Walmart after midnight to get me empty boxes. They sure fill up fast. We have lots of painting to do to get the house ready to put on the market. Anyone need a new house?

The kids are so happy that daddy is coming home. Camryn called "First" to be the one to give daddy kisses and hugs when we pick him up at the airport. This will be the best Valentine gift ever for everyone in our family. We are so excited to have him home again (even if it is only a week).