The House and a Hike

We have the trim completely finished in the basement and just have to finish the bathroom. We have even made progress on the outside of the house (the house itself is still purple but the yard is looking better!) I have 200 iris bulbs to plant and we are transplanting a bunch of local grasses from the hillside above the house. We've had amazing weather and saw two huge bears this past week. The last one had to be close to 400 lbs.......easily the biggest bear we've ever seen in the wild!

June and Riley came up and spent a weekend with us. Riley ripped it up on a mountain bike ride and June made us the best dinner! It was so nice to come home to a hot meal, it made us feel like we were kids again.

We want to send a special shout out to Mary and Andy for the arrival of their beautiful little girl! She looks like an angel and we are so happy for you! We miss all of you and hope you are all doing well.

Our "gym." We thought if we had some red on the walls it would energize us this winter!

The view into the basement

We still have to finish the stair railing but it looks so much better than before!

We had to cover up the main water pipe and thought that adding shelves would make it look a little better.

This is the view into the W. Fork of Gold Creek. It is part of the Wilderness by our house.

A family of BigHorn Sheep.

Russ relaxing during our hike. We had to drive an hour to get to the start of the hike and then realized that this trail was only 16 miles from our doorstep! I got pretty carsick driving to the start of the trail so I decided to run the trail the rest of the way home. It would have been great except it was 90 degrees outside and I didn't bring any water. Russ and I used to make fun of Brett Gleason for sipping water out of a creek on his bike ride in Sun Valley. Never again... I now realize that person can only handle so much thirst! I still beat Russ home (but just barely) and my legs cramped so bad that I'm not walking too well today!! I just hope that my creek drinking experience doesn't come back to haunt me in a couple of days!

A Little Bit of Summer

Summer has been busy and we can't believe it is coming to a close. Sukha is fully recovered from her surgery and swimming up a storm. We had a wonderful family reunion in McCall and spent a lot of time with family in Boise this summer. My Grandma, both nephews, and mom and dad have been visiting us and we've had a great time. We can see the finish line with the inside of the house. I wish I had up to date pictures to post but I broke our camera last month.

The before picture of the basement (if by before I mean after we tore out all the nasty carpet and wood panels, cleaned it up and put in drywall!!!)

After paint and flooring


My brother and a little pug dog!

Bear Grass blooming on our bike ride

Sukha enjoying the summer air!

Russ ripping it up on the mountain

Our friend Ewa with Maya and Sukha

Best Buddies! Jeff and Russ.....

A little great horned owl that had a broken wing. We found him by our house and took him to a rehab center.

My all time favorite airplane. I took my picture with this plane when I was seven years old

So, I had to take another picture with it when I saw it again this summer!

My friend Meesha's wedding. It was so fun to see all the girls again!

Kelli, Tam and me in Lake Tahoe

Hopefully we will get a camera soon and be able to show you our finished basement. Hope you all are enjoying the last days of summer!

Random

Here's a bunch of random pictures that we've taken over the last couple of weeks. We are still working on the house. We have moved down to the basement and we can finally see the house coming together! Right now we are putting in a "fake wood floor" and experimenting with paint colors! I went to Boise and Oregon last month and it was so fun to see the nieces and nephews and enjoy Boise's warm weather.

Julian.....he hit the ball farther than anyone else!!

He even got to play catcher!

Elly, Izabel, Easton. and Ford.....silly faces!

Sweet Grandma June and little Easton. He is such a good little baby!

Believe it or not.....this was Ford's "serious face!"

This is the burner that my Grandpa used to run in Halfway, OR. I love everything about this town.

Basement......we are experimenting with red paint colors!!

Built in shelves at the bottom of the stairs. We also put new
windows in.

Office floor

Visitors and Drywall

We were so lucky to have visitors this past week. My dad and brother stopped by to see us on their way back from Helena and my friend Shelly and Jesse came up to see us for a night! We had so much fun and miss everyone already. We also had our friends Brain and Brittany stop by for a night on their way home to Colorado! Noone even complained about having to stay in our purple house! Speaking of the house....we've still been working hard on the yard and basement! We planted six trees and removed 500 pounds of lava rock from the yard! It still looks like a mess but continues to get better everyday. We also have two new egress windows in the basement and thanks to my dad and brother....the basement has drywall!!! My brother also talked Russ into wiring the basement with surround sound......funny since we don't even have a t.v. or stereo!

The backhoe and truck full of drywall that we got into the basement through the giant hole we cut for the egress window!

Cutting down all the bushes in the backyard!

The hole we dug for the egress window! We did this one with a shovel (we learned not to do the other window this way.......way too much work!)


The rocks that came out of the hole we dug


My dad and david putting up drywall




Cohen.....he didnt make a peep the entire time he stayed with us! Such a good little boy!'

Kelsey..... another amazing baby!

Killian......he was so sweet! He remembered us right away and it was so fun seeing him again!


Two handsome boys!

And my handsome dad!

Drywall......I promise I helped BUT someone has to take pictures!

This is how dusty our basement was when we where hanging drywall.

Spring Break

My nephews came up to Missoula to spend their spring break with us. We celebrted Julian's 6th birthday and spent our days swimming, biking, hiking, skiing, fishing, and watching movies with popcorn! We had so much fun with the kids and they were so great to have around! I can't believe how fast kids grow up....it really makes you appreciate the time you spend with family!

What's spring break without moss moustaches!

We all hiked up to the "M." It's a long, steep hike and we were really proud that Julian made it up all by himself. Gage ran up most of the way and beat everyone up! This was the only warm, sunny day we had the whole week!

Then we had to hike up to the "L." It snowed on us but noone complained!


Gage is a natural cross-country skiier!



Julian improved every minute he was out there!

It was such a fun week and we miss you boys already! Russ and I are always ready to take on nieces and nephews......so if you need a break, send them our way!!

Back-Country Birthday and BigSky

Russ and I took some time off of working on the house last week. Sukha turned 8 years old and we took her backcountry skiing at Lolo Pass for her birthday! It had snowed 2 feet the night before and although it was heavy snow it we had a great time! We also went to BigSky to go skiing with our practice. They do a ski trip every winter for the doctors. Russ decided to ski instead of snowboard and he even spent a couple of hours nordic skiing with me! We had the chance to skate ski at Lone Mountain Ranch which was amazing! The real treat was the 20 inches of powder that we woke up to on Thursday morning. It was incredible and Russ switched back from skiing to snowboarding and was spraying everyone with a rooster-tail of snow everytime he made a turn! It was the biggest powder day I have ever had and although I didn't look pretty going down the slopes I tried hard and I now understand the happiness of "face shots!" We even spent some time at the lodge's spa and we still smell good from all the lotions we piled on ourselves! It's now back to cheap living and house-remodeling! We love you all and hope everyone is doing well!

Russ and Sukha before heading down the hill.

Backcountry skiing with dad is Sukha's favorite activity!

The day before all the snow at Big Sky!

I was a little nervous at what I was about to ski down....

It may not look like it but there are some amazing "lines" down this mountain!