Hi ho hi ho...it's off to camp we go!

Tomorrow we are leaving for family camp in Hungry Horse, MT (just south of the entrance to West Glacier National Park.) This is our 8th year in a row we have gone...we look forward to it all year long! It seems to be a perfect blend of time with God, family time, alone time, etc. Some years we go all out and do something every day...other years we just hang around camp and relax. And every year we stop at the huckleberry stand for huckleberry milkshakes... ssshhh...don't tell the Muffin Top Killers! So for the next week I will be blogger-free but I'll be sure to come back with pictures to post! Hope you all have a great week!

You know your a redneck when...

I have mentioned in previous blogs that we started a Thursday night dinner group at our house several weeks ago. It started with a couple of our neighbors and a couple that had come to our church preview service. Each week we pick a theme and invite new couples. Our themes have been BBQ, Mexican, Italian and this week being fair week we decided to have "Redneck" food. Some people went all out and it was hilarious! Some of our menu items included tater tot casserole (that was my recipe), hillbilly chili, spam pasta salad, pork rinds, an elk meat and cheese whiz platter, beer butt chicken, hot dogs on bread, and of course moon pies and deep fried twinkies for dessert. I was pretty sure we were all going to go home hungry! But in the end most people tried a little of everything and went home with indigestion. I am thinking our next group should be a cranberry juice and flax seed cleansing dinner! We did end up laughing a lot however and had a great time visiting with some of the new families there this week! Hope you enjoy the pics!

The "Redneck" spread! It was all kind of the same color! No vegetables present!

Our gathering spot at our neighbors house.

My friend Michelle I met at the mom's play group who is also a neighbor.

Brandy (another neighbor) deep frying twinkies for dessert! Yum Yum!

Some more deep fried delicacies! This time it's deep fried Little Debbies!

Proof that they were actually deep fried! Who thought this recipe up? Actually, I looked it up and it was quite interesting to read about. You can check it out here.

Lindsy and the moon pie dessert! It is amazing how a can of Redi-whip and a cake plate will fancy up your moon pies!

Wester Montana State Fair

The kids watching a cow milking demonstration. They were pretty intrigued!

The kids at the petting zoo. Riley is looking a little bored. I think he may be getting a little old for the petting zoo. The other kids seemed to enjoy it however. Brock was so excited to see all of the different animals and he would scream and point every time they made a different sound (see pic below.) The only bummer about the fair was that we went the first day it opened and the rides weren't open yet. I enjoyed looking at the other stuff at the fair but apparently the kids were not as interested as I was...rides sound like more fun. We did eat a little fair food and we came back in the evening to go to a Third Day concert. It was such a great concert! We took the kids as well and they enjoyed it too! All in all it was a fun day at the fair!

The Olympia crew comes to visit!

My parents were here this last week and we had such a nice visit! It was there first visit to Missoula so there was so much to see. On Wednesday, my mom and I visited the Missoula school of massage for a little pampering which was so great! While we were relaxing, Dave took the other kids to a movie and to the carousel. On Thursday, my parents took the kids to a kid's festival at the park where they got to play and ride the carousel yet again. They took Thursday night off since we were having our dinner group and went out to dinner by themselves. Friday the boys and Abby went bowling with Grandpa and Grandma while I stayed at home and rested with Brock. That night we went out to Carino's Italian Grill, yet another yummy Missoula restaurant. We finished off there visit with a trip to the Missoula farmer's market this morning. The market is so much fun, but a little overwhelming with 4 kids to keep track of. I am so glad they made the trip even though it took them 10 hours to drive each way...most people would probably make it in 7.5 hours. They just like to go a little slower and enjoy the sights :o) Thanks for coming to visit ~ we miss you already!!

3 generations! My mom, myself and Abby. We took at least 10 pictures to get this one. Abby kept making silly faces! I should have taken my glasses off so I could see if there is any resemblance. I know for a fact that Abby has a lot of the same traits as my mom....mainly her eating habits. She has always preferred healthier foods and even asks for salads and prefers water over pop. It is a strange thing the traits that can pass through genes.

Grandpa Dave and Abby at the Missoula farmer's market.

Abby's favorite pastime when grandma is here...doing grandma's hair! And what a trooper my mom is. She just sits there as Abby tugs and pulls on her hair and puts lots of clips and ponies in!

The diva in our house!

I took these pictures of Abby the other day after I found her in my bathroom. She had a very suspicious look on her face as she leaned against the counter as if to hide something (see picture 1.) When I asked her what she was doing she told me she was putting her makeup on but then admitted she was using just a little of my make-up too (see picture 2.) She actually looked pretty cute so I took some pictures of her and she was more than happy to pose for me (see pictures 3 & 4.) As you can see , she is quite the little diva! If she is like this at 5 what does it mean for her teenage years! Our rule as of now is that she can just put a little of her own make-up on if she is at home playing but when we go out or she plays with friends it comes off. Why do they have to want to grow up so quick?? I guess I should just be grateful I have such a girly-girl with 3 boys in the house :o)

Time to simplify!

We spent most of our day filling up our storage unit with the remainder of our stuff from Lewiston. I was amazed at how much you could squeeze into a storage unit when you get creative with your packing! I am also amazed at all of the crap that one family can accumulate through the years! Gone are the days when I moved all of my belongings to Washington State University in a Suburban! I have decided that I need to simplify a bit but first I have to find the time. It seems that every time we move it is such a quick thing and we never have time to organize and purge. When we move into the new house I need to implement the Flylady techniques again!

All of the stuff was the result of our spontaneous trip back to Lewiston this weekend. We had a couple of renters we needed to meet and we decided we would just take the opportunity to pack up the rest of our stuff while we were there. The only problem was that we had underestimated how much we had left in the house and we ended up filling up our 26' uhaul truck and still leaving some stuff behind. The good news from the weekend is that we found some good tenants that want to lease our house for 18 months. We are thinking that the market will pick back up in the next 1 1/2 years and we will be able to sell the house for more. This is definitely new territory for both Brian and I, being landlords. But the people moving into our house are landlords as well so hopefully they will be good renters. We could have never imagined that we would be renting the house instead of selling right away but God had different plans.

As far as our new house goes we haven't made much progress since my last post as Dave, our builder, was back in Lewiston last week as well. Hopefully by the end of this week I'll have some more pics to post.

I did buy a fridge for our new house at Sears! They were closing out all of last years models so I took advantage of the sale and got a new stainless, side-by-side counter depth beauty of a fridge! The best part was that it 70% off! By next misson is to get a stove and dishwasher to match at 70% off as well! Hopefully I will be able to find something in the next 3 months.