July 2009

Our trip to Camp Tuffit in Proctor, Montana went off without a hitch on June 26th, bringing that month to a close and starting July with a bang. Before we left, the house we share with Jean got sold, leaving us scrambling to find a new place to live. She looked at a few places before settling for a condo on a golf course in Pleasant View. The trip was made a lot easier without the worry of potential homelessness hanging over our heads. Unfortunately, the prospect of a strenuous, lengthy move loomed in the distance.

Allen and I had a good time with each other for the most part while Brian, Andrea, Valentina, and Jean provided some occaisonal bursts of enjoyment. The back and forth between Brian and Allen made for a lot of laughs while the girl talk between me, Jean, and Andrea was invigorating. Valentina is a ray of sunshine who brings smiles to the faces of everyone who sees her. We were excited to get home at the end of the week and start working.

We never realized how difficult narrowing down the amount of stuff three people have, packing what's left, and transporting everything. The new place needed the carpet removed because it smelled like cats and dogs had free reign. Paint would finish the process of making the condo look like a perfect home. Needless to say, we can't wait for the seemingly endless moving process to end.

Next month, we have our 1 year anniversary. Whoa. The time has flown by fast!

Talk to you all Later

Sunbeams

June 2009

We went up to Allen's mother's camping lot at Sourdough Wilderness Ranch in Ogden Canyon on June 6th. This lot has been in the family for 15 years, but has been neglected for the past 10 years. We hope we can return it to its former glory. Allen thought it would be a lot of work, so he tried to get out of going. Little did we know, it wasn't that bad. 6 hours of weed-trimming, tree-chopping, junk-rearranging, surface-scrubbing, floor-sweeping, trash-hauling goodness later, we were finished and ready to come off the mountain. Little did we know, this would be our last trip there until after our trip to a little slice of heaven in Montana called Camp Tuffitt later this month. After we return on the 4th of July, we look forward to many more weekends of fun on the lot. That is...until our leaning snow shelter gets fixed.

Allen is still looking for a job. The market is being fairly kind to him, offering a couple of recent interviews, but not kind enough in our eyes. Although the picture looks grim, he continues to work at it every day, applying for more than 30 jobs a day. We were taught that persistence pays off, which we hope comes true in our situation.

As we stated earlier, we are leaving for Montana for a week on the 27th. Allen's brother Brian, his wife Andrea, and their little baby Valentina will be there along with the woman who started this madness, Allen's mother Jean, and, of course, Allen and I. Allen has been going off and on for 15 years, and I have been gracing all those lucky people with my presence for 3 years.

We're going to be putting pictures from that trip and telling stories about all the fun things we did in July's post.

Toodles, sunbeams!