Dakota house

Jon's cut finger from working on cabinets.


I don't normally have to be gone from home everyday, but this week we had to work on the Dakota house. So everyday we rush out of the house to get to work. It's coming along really good. I have a man working for me. He's such a blessing. He works hard, knows how to do everything, doesn't mind working with children, and only charges me $12 an hour.

Trip to see Gina

Rick and I left the children to help Moriah and Joe and we left to go see Gina in Bozeman. From Kalispell the drive was 5 hours there, visit for 5 hours and 5 hours back. That was the plan anyways, but we ended up getting back to Kalispell at 2 am.

We had a very nice time. Visited with Gina and her friends, wandered around the mall a bit, a book store and went out to eat.





Gina's messy room and her friends, Laura and Michelle
Gina is waving from her bedroom window

The girls dorm
Spencer


The roads close to the school were flooded. This little water fall was a parking lot really.
Laura, Gina and Rick

Crazy cat and more

My day started needing to get the cat and kittens to town at 6:45 am. I didn't want to tell the children that we were fixing them ( or breaking them, because they are not broken), because they get really sad about it. This time I didn't think I should be talked out of it. So I put them in a box and started to drive to town, but Prissy, the mama cat was extremely nervous and got out of the box. It was a horrible drive to town. Then when I got there and tried to put her in the cage she ran off into the woods. Interesting start of a day! Some lady's helped me catch her and off they went to Kalispell to the sad fate of no more kittens. It is sad, because she makes very cute kitten as you can see.

Off to Bozeman

Well Gina was wanting us to come down to Bozeman for her spring concert. It was very hard to get everything situated, but we finally decided to go. Moriah came all the way up here to Libby to get us, and we left a little later then we planned. But Gina said the concert didn't start till 9 pm. well it turned out it started at 8 and we got to Bozeman about 8:45. so we missed her concert on Fri night by less then an hour.
Moriah, Monica, Mark, James, Eric and myself got to Bozeman Fri evening, stayed all day Sat, enjoying a great church service, Choir practice in the afternoon and then Gina and her group Choir performed again on Sat evening.
Sunday morning there was an awards brunch. Gina got the first award given for the best achiever. We left Sunday afternoon after a short but very nice visit.
Camping out on the floor

Our beautiful Gina

In Gina's dorm

Eating snacks

Gina and her teddy bear!

Eric loves his mommy!We had fun meeting all her friends, and seeing how she lives day to day.

Mothers day and Rick's birthday

I had a wonderful mothers day! We went to Kalispell for the weekend. Moriah gave Martha a housewarming party on Sat. Then we spent the night and on mothers day we had a wonderful BBQ. Joe and Moriah bought really, really good steaks and lots of food. Martha made salads and a cake. Everything was so good, the steaks were better then a restaurant.
I got a tea pot, a pretty potted plant, a dozen roses, amazing cards, with words to me cry.

Rick's birthday was the next Wed.
He never looks very happy for pictures. I guess he fits in with his German ancestors or maybe just old fashioned. He still wasn't feeling too well either since his appendectomy.

My old house

We started ripping down a wall in the Dakota house. It was like going back in history. Layers of wall paper, wood for walls instead of dry wall. The top layer is some sort of fiber board. It rips down very easy.
The different wall paper from different times in history is fun to go back and imagine some one fixing their little house in the 20's then the 40's later the green in the 60's maybe? there was at least 6 layers. One right on top of another.
I wonder if the sink is the original sink or if someone put that in later as an antique? We can only guess.
We have enough of Libby history that it's easy to imagine the western town in the early 1900's.
"The town grew quickly in the early 1900s, with many new businesses opening. The first cement sidewalks were built, streets were graded, and electric lights and water systems installed. In 1906, a disastrous fire swept through downtown Libby, destroying many of the original business buildings.
The first school house was built in 1892, a small board building, in the same block as Libby Hotel. The first church was the old log Methodist Church in 1897. The first homes were built in the early 1890s with dirt floors and dirt roofs. The first newspaper was the Libby Miner in 1892. Telephone service came to Libby and Troy around 1913."
For some reason I'm guessing this house was built around 1920. It's a good solid house.

Monica and James birthday

My babies are really growing up! :(
Monica wanted pie for her birthday. It's a sour cream lemon! Yum
Both of them had quite a bunch of presents.
There are draw backs of big families, but their are defiantly advantages too. Lot's of presents on birthday! :)
Monica started her day with breakfast in bed with blue berry pancakes!


You might think these are for Monica's birthday! But really Joe sent them to Moriah while she was here. So we took advantage of the pretty roses.
We had a simple snack type dinner. We got 2 subway sandwiches, crab meat and crab salad, whip cream and strawberry's,

Chore buster

I found this really neat chore thing on the Internet. It's called chore buster. You type in all the chores, how often they need doing and you assign it a level of hardness. Then the computer divides it up among the children. the chores change day to day, and it keeps everyone assigned evenly. It was a donation of $2 and so far I'm finding it well worth it.
At first I was typing in parents jobs too, but that got too complicated. So I finish my schedule and the first list I look at is James'. It looks like James paying bills this week! Oops. That won't work.
A bit of fine tuning it and I hope this helps me get this place back in order again.

Kara's Millers wedding

We went to Kara Millers wedding today. It was so fun. It was like a reunion of sorts.
Alan and Barbara and Dwight and Susie were there.
It's so weird because there is that "family closeness" with them. No matter how much time passes, it's always easy to talk and enjoy each other.
It just seems like yesterday we talking about having babies, potty training and teenagers. Now we are talking about empty nest syndrome.

Charmane and Tonya
Alan and Barbara with Susie Strubar

Carma Linda and Moriah

Monica's birthday

Beth and Monica after their special day together.
Mark in the rafters
Gina being a strong man!


A friend of Monica's has a birthday the day before hers. So her mom decided to treat them to facials. She made it really special with sparkling cider, and a pretty snack. They soaked their hands in wax and did fun girly things.



Then we went on a impromptu picnic.
Eric