happy monday!

a home at last

We found a home! It is a brand-new 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment in an 8-plex. Very close to Jamie's work and also to the school I'll be working at most and the one Ava will be going to. Now we just need to fill it! We brought all our stuff over from the hotel and checked out of there Friday. We bought an air mattress so we have a bed and the girls are sleeping on our sleeping bags on the floor. Our furniture (and a lot of other stuff) is still in Minnesota, so the girls and I are going to head back and spend a little time there next week and then my dad and Jamie's brother are going to help us move everything out here. Right now, our living room is donned with lawn chairs!

The front of the building

The main bathroom

The master bathroom (aka Jamie's room!)



The girls' room

The kitchen & living room
(and Zoe!)

The best feature is the mountain range that we can see out our bedroom window! Now that we'll have an extra bedroom, which will be great for working on little projects, but will be even better for when we have company! If anyone is headed out to our neck of the woods, we have room for you!

Camping at Gibson Reservoir

We spent the weekend of the 4th camping near Gibson Reservoir & the Sun River. If you like rustic camping this is the place.

The girls were quick to try out the sleeping bags when we set up the tent.

Not sure if you can see our tent, its nestled in the pines on the far left. We had huge mountains on all sides of us and we could hear the roar from the dam not far away.

The weather was nice at first, but most of the weekend it was pretty cold and windy.

That didn't stop Zoe from resisting (ahem...refusing) to wear pants. Zoe hates pants with a passion. She will only wear skirts and dresses, shorts were a big stretch for her and she had a tantrum about wearing them too. It got so cold, I had to wrestle her down and put pants on her...that lasted all of 2 seconds. She pulled them down around her ankles and screamed, "I DON'T LIKE PANTS!!!!!!" This past winter was not fun dressing her. Ever been to reptile gardens and seen them wrestle alligators?...that's about as close of a comparison I can think of...girl is STRONG! I hope this phase passes before this winter!

Ava surprised us by asking to take the training wheels of of her bike! She's got some of the balancing down, but still working on coordinating balancing with steering and pedaling.

Jamie spent a little time fishing by the dam.

He caught a trout and cooked it over the fire.

All 4 of us...Ava bundled inside daddy's sweatshirt

Zoe wanted her Baby Kooka to snuggle in with her too!

"I want MAKIN'!!!"
aka "bacon" to the rest of us.
Zoe had her heart set on a big plate of bacon,
sorry babe, next time!

we love the water!!!

We spend a lot of time in the pool here at the hotel and also at the natatorium where the girls take swimming lessons. We've always joked that Ava may really be a mermaid because she loves the water so much, and now she's taken it to a whole new level. After just 2 swimming lessons, she is not only jumping in the water with no hesitation, but she is swimming! She can doggy paddle across the length of the pool! These videos are from a couple weeks ago, now she's doing these jumps without her floaties on and also doing a great back float and getting pretty good with a back stroke too! Her new favorite thing to practice is trying for a handstand. One day at the pool when we were here for a visit in May, she was being a ballerina in the pool and I told her about synchronized swimming. A little confused, I looked it up on youtube so she could see what I was talking about. Ever since she saw it she is dead set that she is going to be a synchronized swimmer and talks about it often. BTW, if you're ever interested in seeing a really cool synchro swim video to the song Stairway to Heaven, check this out: here. I think the comment posted on the video says it all..."The only way this could possibly be cooler is if one of them was playing guitar while riding a dolphin." LOL! :)

Anyway, I have lots of short videos to share. Some of Zoe too. She love-love-LOVES the water too. She can twirl around and around (with floaties on) but wouldn't do it when I had the camera with! I'll have to get that one another time.

The jump

Timber!

The running leap

The doggy paddle





Zoe swims





The launch





Zoe flies





And finally, with daddy...The cannon ball!

big sky...big move

Okay...we moved out here a month ago, and I'm just now posting about it! I love not working this summer (my first summer off since I started working when I was 16)! One thing that I really love is taking a siesta with my girls, which is frequently, hence still not getting photos off my camera! It is my goal to take care of my photos this week! I've got some fun videos to share too :)

On June 7th, we packed up my car and Jamie's car and brought everything that would fit in them. I mean EVERYTHING that would fit. Those cars were so packed, we literally could not fit another thing. Just to fill everyone in...the search for a place to live in Great Falls was not easy. A little background...There really aren't many apartments here. The ones that they do have are small and don't have a sign outside with anything like...a phone number. Craigslist and the newspaper didn't have much. I literally drove up and down almost every street in town looking for a place. I was just about to give up when I saw a little red sign in a window of a small brick building. I quick pulled over and read it..for rent! Yay! We checked it out and it looked great. It was available April 1st though, a little sooner than we needed, so when the property manager suggested that we might be interested in the new building being built 2 blocks up the road which would be done in May/June, we thought it would work great! In late April, we found out that it wouldn't be done until August. Uhhh, that might be a problem. Back on the internet looking for more rentals. Jamie checked some out, nothing promising. We decided to stay at the hotel that we had stayed at during our visits in March and May for the summer and just wait it out for August. Don't feel too bad for us...housekeeping, a fitness center, breakfast every morning, appetizers 3 nights a week, a great patio on the river, and need I mention a POOL!?!

This is our place...kitchen & living room

bedroom

bathroom

...and the stuff!

the patio area

the full patio area

the water fall and fire pit.

Now for the update: I just talked to Gladys today (the property manager for the apartment we're waiting for). After driving by the apartment and peeking in the windows, it really doesn't look like it'll be done in a month, so I wanted to see what she had to say. She confirmed that it will not be done in August and suggested that maybe we might want to look somewhere else. She couldn't give an estimate of when it will be done either. Sooooo...now we're back to square one. I've been on the internet again and we'll see what we can do. I'd really like to have a place before the school year starts because we have to get all of our other stuff out of our house! My brother Justin is renting our house from us, so there is some flexibility, but I'm sure he wants to fully settle in and so do we! For now, we'll just keep enjoying the pool and housekeeping! I'll keep you updated...hopefully with good news :)

memorial weekend

For memorial weekend, my mom, the girls, and I drove down to Chicago to spend the weekend with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. We had beautiful weather for most of the weekend and spent a lot of time outside.

We walked to the farmers market in downtown Downer's Grove

We had a picnic outside

Emma got a hold of my camera and snapped quite a few silly pics :)

Like a puppy dog, Zoe found a favorite spot on the floor to curl up in the sun...

...a few times!

The one day that it rained, IT RAINED! We decided a trip to the zoo would not be a good idea and instead made rice krispie bars, which were way fun!

Especially the tasting part!