Fifteen years ago this month I married a person who totally changed this girl's life! Even my family shook their heads with wonder--here was a cowboy rancher from Montana and here was a former farm girl gone city-fied who hardly knew one end of a cow from another. Michael was the best thing that ever happened to me. I learned which end of the cow was up, how to ride a horse (sort of), how to be confident running huge farm equipment and just generally had a wonderful time.
Today is Michael's birthday and I wanted to wish him a wonderful birthday. He is the best and I wouldn't trade him for all the gold in the world!
Happy Birthday, sweetheart, I love you.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Snow on the East Boulder
One of the photos sent to us by our friends Jeff and Nancy--their home is about 1 mile from ours--looks like winter doesn't it??
We Are In Iowa
Rain woke us up about 7am or maybe it was Emmi howling that woke us up! On the way our dash defroster/heater fan had stopped working so Michael took it apart his morning without success. We left SD about 10am headed to Iowa.
We drove through field after field of corn--it is planted on every available square inch of ground. Traffic was heavier and we didn't chose the best road, either, two lane with very rough surfacing, lots of construction but we made it to our destination, Saylorville Lake State Park outside Des Moines about 3pm.
Corn fields and old barns.
Saylorville Lake State Park
Sailboat on Saylorville Lake.
Emmi learning to walk on a leash!
Emmi and me.
We all took a walk and then when we got back Michael took the fan motor apart and fixed it this time--is there anything he can't do??? And some one in this family (the mechanic) has a birthday tomorrow.
We drove through field after field of corn--it is planted on every available square inch of ground. Traffic was heavier and we didn't chose the best road, either, two lane with very rough surfacing, lots of construction but we made it to our destination, Saylorville Lake State Park outside Des Moines about 3pm.
Corn fields and old barns.
Saylorville Lake State Park
Sailboat on Saylorville Lake.
Emmi learning to walk on a leash!
Emmi and me.
We all took a walk and then when we got back Michael took the fan motor apart and fixed it this time--is there anything he can't do??? And some one in this family (the mechanic) has a birthday tomorrow.
Rain falling on the roof as I type this--it is following us but at least we are not at home, friends Geoff and Nancy sent us photos of our snowstorm--looked like at least a foot of snow on the ground if not more!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Across South Dakota
It was slow going this morning. Michael got up about 4am and took Emmi outside--she was howling. The two of them then came back to bed and wonder of wonders we all went back to sleep not waking up until close to 7am. So we didn't leave the park until after 9. Oh, well.
We decided to leave the interstate and travel the back roads today and it was wonderful. We passed sunflower and corn fields, up and down the hills--it was a beautiful drive. Emmi was such a good girl, too. No potty accidents.
In a small SD town we paid $2.49 for fuel, the lowest we have paid in a long time, we are getting about 6.5 miles to the gallon.
About 6pm we arrived at a beautiful state park, Lewis and Clark State Recreational Area on Lewis and Clark Lake outside of Yankton, SD. Miles of walking trails which Emmi and I took advantage of while Michael got the setup done.
When's lunch Mom???
Not the greatest picture of the sunflowers taken out the window of the RV. When Sept. 11 happened, I was working and traveling--I happened to be in Fargo, ND. As no planes were flying, I decided to take my rental car and drive home, I remember driving through miles and miles of sunflower fields.
We will have a short 250 mile drive tomorrow to a COE park on Saylorville Lake outside Des Moines, Iowa.
We decided to leave the interstate and travel the back roads today and it was wonderful. We passed sunflower and corn fields, up and down the hills--it was a beautiful drive. Emmi was such a good girl, too. No potty accidents.
In a small SD town we paid $2.49 for fuel, the lowest we have paid in a long time, we are getting about 6.5 miles to the gallon.
About 6pm we arrived at a beautiful state park, Lewis and Clark State Recreational Area on Lewis and Clark Lake outside of Yankton, SD. Miles of walking trails which Emmi and I took advantage of while Michael got the setup done.
When's lunch Mom???
Not the greatest picture of the sunflowers taken out the window of the RV. When Sept. 11 happened, I was working and traveling--I happened to be in Fargo, ND. As no planes were flying, I decided to take my rental car and drive home, I remember driving through miles and miles of sunflower fields.
We will have a short 250 mile drive tomorrow to a COE park on Saylorville Lake outside Des Moines, Iowa. Saturday, October 3, 2009
A Day of Travel
We finished packing early this morning and Michael took Emmi for a walk while I finished loading the refrigerator stuff into the motor home. We left about 9:30am.
Drove all day without any problems with the motor home until somewhere outside of Gillette, WY. For some reason Michael decided to check inside the engine compartment and one of the alternator belts was gone--?? So, I started up the laptop, logged on to Verizon and found the closest NAPA store. What did we do before the internet? I told the young man who answered the phone that we were towing a car with a motor home, how was his parking? Plenty of room he said and he was right. Michael got the belts and off we went about 50 miles up the road to Sundance, WY and the Mountain View RV Park. While I walked Emmi Michael got the belts back on.
It is cold here, 35 degrees. I warmed up the spaghetti I had made, fixed a salad and toasted some of the homemade bread. Along with a glass of wine, we had a fabulous meal!
We are all tucked in for the night except for one last Emmi walk, snug and warm.
Drove all day without any problems with the motor home until somewhere outside of Gillette, WY. For some reason Michael decided to check inside the engine compartment and one of the alternator belts was gone--?? So, I started up the laptop, logged on to Verizon and found the closest NAPA store. What did we do before the internet? I told the young man who answered the phone that we were towing a car with a motor home, how was his parking? Plenty of room he said and he was right. Michael got the belts and off we went about 50 miles up the road to Sundance, WY and the Mountain View RV Park. While I walked Emmi Michael got the belts back on.
It is cold here, 35 degrees. I warmed up the spaghetti I had made, fixed a salad and toasted some of the homemade bread. Along with a glass of wine, we had a fabulous meal!
We are all tucked in for the night except for one last Emmi walk, snug and warm.
Friday, October 2, 2009
A Busy Day
Quilting guild was fun last night, a local quilt shop owner did a presentation on a quilt called the Hunter Star--it was beautiful. This guild has a big quilt show every other year in even years. Every meeting a plea has gone out for volunteers to help with the show. I hadn't volunteered for anything as we are gone 3-4 months each winter and many of the positions require a presence the first part of the year before the show in October. At last night's meeting, a huge plea was made for someone to chair the food concessioner committee. I talked to the guild president after the meeting and we thought it was something I could do--so meet the new chairperson for the food concessions at the Peace by Piece Quilt Guild quilt show in October, 2010.
Marjean and I got home rather late from the meeting and Emmi was glad to see me!
Emmi is terrible about being so excited to see you in the morning when we all get up. She jumps up, wants to be picked up--is just a bundle of joy. Well, this morning, I had one leg in my jeans and Emmi got tangled up in the other leg causing me to fall, hard, landing on my hip and back. We will see how stiff I am tomorrow.
We spent the day getting the motor home ready to leave tomorrow. I cooked spaghetti and tomato soup to take with us. I also baked 3 loaves of the artisan bread--we had to sample one loaf, it was so good. I have always purchased flour at Costco in big 25 pound bags, but it is bleached flour. The recipes in the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day call for unbleached flour. I bought some Montana Wheat Flour the other day and it made a huge difference in the way my bread turned out!
This was our view during our walk this morning.
The bread
This afternoon Michael needed to go down to George and Shirley's to talk to them about how he is going to design and build their fireplace doors. We had a glass of wine while there and Emmi tormented their dog Cedar.
Marjean and I got home rather late from the meeting and Emmi was glad to see me!
Emmi is terrible about being so excited to see you in the morning when we all get up. She jumps up, wants to be picked up--is just a bundle of joy. Well, this morning, I had one leg in my jeans and Emmi got tangled up in the other leg causing me to fall, hard, landing on my hip and back. We will see how stiff I am tomorrow.
We spent the day getting the motor home ready to leave tomorrow. I cooked spaghetti and tomato soup to take with us. I also baked 3 loaves of the artisan bread--we had to sample one loaf, it was so good. I have always purchased flour at Costco in big 25 pound bags, but it is bleached flour. The recipes in the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day call for unbleached flour. I bought some Montana Wheat Flour the other day and it made a huge difference in the way my bread turned out!
This was our view during our walk this morning.
The bread
This afternoon Michael needed to go down to George and Shirley's to talk to them about how he is going to design and build their fireplace doors. We had a glass of wine while there and Emmi tormented their dog Cedar. When we got home, we hooked up the Explorer to the motor home, cooked steaks on the grill and gave Emmi a bath--we are ready to roll in the morning.
Montana is under a winter storm watch for Sunday evening with snow accumulation of 1 to 2 feet!!!!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Where Did Summer Go
Although I keep saying I'm not ready for winter, I'm thinking I better get that way quick. Fires in the fireplace and a brisk, nasty wind blowing today. We did get to take a walk today much to Emmi's delight but is was nippy!
This photo is looking west from our place toward where Lonn and LoraLee live, they got more snow I think!
Fall and winter
I did some more work on the baby quilt today and Michael spent the day in the garage puttering. Not much going on here.
This photo is looking west from our place toward where Lonn and LoraLee live, they got more snow I think!
Fall and winter
I did some more work on the baby quilt today and Michael spent the day in the garage puttering. Not much going on here.We are on our way to Big Timber to get flu shots, help a friend with a computer problems and then I am going to quilt guild in Livingston.
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