Labor Day 2010

In typical MT fashion, we went from warm and sunny to cool and rainy to winter in the course of two days.

Dani came the cabin with Alex, Allison and me. Mom and Dad met us there and we had a lovely weekend of playing in the "river", hiking to the meadow, listening to the musical stylings of Alex on guitar and hunkering down against the cold.

Grace, Logan, Molly and Kevin came up for the day on Saturday. Kevin went hunting, until a freak hail storm rolled through. Grace and Dani had a wonderful time playing together.
Grace had trouble remembering Dani's name, so just called her "my friend" all day. They're so cute together.

It was quiet, restful and relaxing....well, as much as could be expected with a three year old and three pugs along.

Buddha enjoyed his first visit to the cabin and christened every tree and bush in sight. Chloe and Zoey snarffled around and had a wonderful time frolicking in the grass.

All in all a good time was had.

Goodbye Summer

September. Actually September 11. 8 years since the attacks in NYC and WA DC. 8 years. Seems like yesterday. We were watching Disney channel. Alex was 4. Mom called and said turn on the news. And there I sat, in stunned disbelief watching the tape loop over and over again. Watching the second tower fall, then watching it all again and again and again. Alex said "why does that building keep falling down?" Time to turn it off and try to sort out all the emotions that were swirling around in my head. What the hell was happening? What next? Where? When? Katie, Sarah, Allison and Brittney were all at school. As far as I knew they were safe. Then the Pentagon, then the plane crash in Pennsylvania. It was all too much. It was all too scary. Then days passed and slowly and with time, life returned to some sort of normal. Now here we are 8 years later.

We've had a fairly good summer, all considered. Alex did break his collar bone right after school got out then he ran into a bar and cut his forehead requiring 13 stitches. But that was the extent of the drama for the summer. Not perfect, but not horrible either. Thom consented to TWO mini vacations. One weekend at the cabin and the other a weekend in Yellowstone. We camped in Mom and Dad's new 5th wheel and had a wonderful time. Allison, Sarah, Alex and I took a 15 mile bike ride on the Hiawatha trail and had a BLAST. Allison and I took a hike to Morrell Falls. 5 miles round trip. We've hosted Pug club nearly every Sunday this summer and count 13 pugs as members. So fun to see them all running around playing and having a great time. I've also enjoyed getting to know their owners. We hosted the 3rd annual neighborhood ice cream social and had some new neighbors to meet. Nice to catch up with everyone and have a laugh or two. So, all in all, a good summer. School is back in session, and the routine is in place. I miss the carefree days of summer but do like a nice routine.
Bittersweet.

Montana Wildflowers

It must have been a pretty wet spring at the cabin, because I've never seen the quantity or variety of wildflowers like I saw this year. They were everywhere and just glorious.

This is the one layout I completed at scrap night this week. I didn't do much, but wanted to record the gorgious flowers. The pic here is a bit lopsided as I just plunked it on a chair and snap a digi pic. Sorry about that.

I've added this page to my cabin album and have a couple more pages to do for this trip. We'll see if they actually get done. LOL

R & R

My annual dose of R & R. No phones, TV, computer, doorbells, etc. Just the babbling of the creek, the chirping of the birds and the pitter patter of pack rat feet on the roof at night.

Allison and I drove over Friday. Mom, Alex, Molly and Grace met us for the day on Saturday and we drove home Sunday. Not quite long enough, but I got home before the lack of showering drove me nuts. Alex and Allison played in the creek. They build a damn and a raft every year. The raft never quite works out, but this time Alex actually got on it for a brief bit. But whatever, it keeps them busy and happy and that's all that matters. We read and played bunco and they did a puzzle and played with the old windup radio. I napped and read more and just sat and looked at the mountains and trees and all the wildflowers. Chloe rolled in horse poo and swam in the creek and snored at night. Doggie delight. It was wonderful and over all too fast. I must stow away the memories so that they hold me over for another year. You can see more photos by clicking my Flickr badge on the right.

A Weekend In Paradise

Ok, my version of paradise and someone else's might not be exactly the same, but it was paradise none the less. My cabin. My happy place. Where I feel the most ME. Where I dream of being all year long. Where I would love to squirrel away all by myself for as long as I could stand to not have a decent shower. I've thought of buying or building a cabin of our very own much closer to home, but how could that ever be as good as this one? Would it be tucked way back in the woods away from everyone and everything else? Would it have that cabin feel? I don't think its possible. To me and my family this place is just magical. The history that swirls around it is palpable. We gave Gracie a bath in the same basin we've all had baths in. Her cabin baptism, if you please. To think that my mom got a bath in there, then me and Molly in her time and my kids and now Grace. I'm trying to scheme a way to get Dani up there during their time here. She needs a cabin bath too. Sarah, Allison and Alex came along this time. Molly and Grace followed in their car. Mom, Dad, and Molly's Dad and stepmom came up for Saturday. Sarah decided to go home with Mom and Dad and we met them on Monday to trade Sarah for Alex. So Alex is having his week with the grands. That left Allison and Alex to play and amuse themselves on Sunday. They spent the whole day down at the creek, building a "raft". Isn't it wonderful that in this day of technology two kids can entertain themselves for hours and hours on and in a creek? For some reason all thoughts of TV, computer, internet, telephone etc fly right out of our heads when we drive through that gate. We don't miss any of it at all. The only thing that I'd like to change at the cabin is the hot water situation. We must haul the water from the creek, sift out the organic matter, and heat it on the coleman stove (the wood stove is just too hot in summer). To do all this for a cuppa or in prep for dishwashing is the only thing I'd change. I don't even really want to have hot "running" water. Just a means of storing hot water. I need to look at those things that caterers use. I might need to buy one. Oh and a way to keep stuff cold longer than a day or two. Then it would be perfect. We experienced the great ice debacle of 2007. We had ample ice (if the temp is in the normal range). But the temp was not in the normal range and our ice supply dwindled too quickly. Thankfully the parents left their ice with us, but we still could have used more. We drove 6 miles to the next town to the north. No Ice...go south. We drove 12 miles to the next town to the south. No Ice for you....the owner died and we can't make the ice fast enough. WTH? we spent the rest of the weekend cracking ourselves up over how the death of Bob, of Bob's Bar and Grill, could have had any impact on their ability to produce ice. Did Bob have the recipe? Was Bob the official ice tray filler? Where they keeping Bob on ice for some reason? We laughed until we almost cried over Bob's untimely demise and the lack of ice. But now we're home and I have hot running water and coffee waiting for me when I wake up and and ice maker happily churing out ice on demand, and I've had two showers and will probably have one more before going to work today. It is good to be home, but I miss that place already.

And The Winner Is......

No Freakin' Way!!! So every week I get a cheerful little email from Digital Freebies

http://www.digitalfreebies.com/ announcing their new digital kits and free add ons. So I got an email last week announcing Nathional Scrapbooking Day contest. It read:

Feel like scrapping this weekend? Then I have a contest for you! Digital Freebies is having a layout contest!Entries can be entered in 1 of 3 different categories: Digital Layout (fully digitally created), Hybrid Layout (layout containing digital kit pieces, printed and used in paper scrapping), and Cards (digital or hybrid). The majority of the papers/elements used on the layout/card MUST be CURRENT Digital Freebies products. This is a great time to go shop, as we are having a 50% off sale in the Boutique right now!Prizes???? Yup, we got ya covered:Digital Layout:Grand Prize: 1 year Digital Freebies Club subscription Second Prize: your choice of 1 kit from Angela Sharrow and Eva KThird Prize: Artistic Doodle-Do from BannerwomanHybrid Layout:Grand Prize: 1 year Digital Freebies Club subscriptionSecond Prize: your choice of kit from Jan Hosford and Leslie RaymondThird Prize: your choice of kit from Maria LaFranceCard: Grand Prize: 1 year Digital Freebies Club subscription Second Prize: your choice of kit from Lara PaytonThird Prize: your choice of kit from Maria LaFranceDeadline for layout submission is Monday May 7th at 11:59PM ESTHow do you submit?Just post your layout in the appropriate gallery! Digital Layout GalleryHybrid GalleryCard GalleryFine Print:Entries must be created mainly of Current Digital Freebies products.One entry per category per personEntries must be posted in the correct gallery by 11:59PM EST on Monday 5/7. Late entries will not be considered.Winners will be announced in the May 11th Friday Freebie NewsletterDecision of judges is finalContest not open to Digital Freebies Designers.

So, just on a lark I decided to enter. I had several layouts that I'd recently completed with Digi Freebie add ons and I loaded my current favorite, "The Cabin". I'd never posted on that board before and wasn't in the habit of visiting there regularly. So, I posted and forgot about it. I went back a couple days later and looked around and posted a few more layouts using their kit add ons. Then I completely forgot about it over the weekend. Last night I went poking around and I saw that the cabin layout had new comments. Its always fun to see what people have to say about your stuff, right? The last comment said "Congratulations". Huh? Congratulations about what? That I posted a layout? That I completed a layout? That I what? I shrugged my shoulders and moved on. Then I saw a thread announcing the NSD winners. Oh, lets see what's going on over here.

I had to refresh the page and look again. Hey, wait, someone made a huge mistake. That's the cabin layout in the grand prize spot. Uh, excuse me, ma'am, you've made an error. Hello, is anyone there? There's been a mistake. I'm sure its just an oversight on someone's part but......hello?

So the MU girls know that my initial reaction was to piddle in my panties. There was lots of silly giggling and jumping around. Grand Prize is a one year Digi Freebies club subscription. Freaky Deaky cool. Can you tell I never win anything. Well, I take that back. I did win a stone muffin pan at a Pampered Chef party once. Oh, and I did win "Queen of the crop" at Tammy and Ouida's Valentines crop. Ok, so I'm a lucky SOB. Want me to pick your Lotto numbers for you?