Hamilton Happenings since we saw each other last...get ready this is a big one.

Shannon, Kim, Steph and I took a trip to Spokane in August to see The Book of Mormon.  We had a blast while we enjoyed a night away from our families.

 

We went camping in August with our dear friends Kahne, Nat and Acacia.  It rained most of the time, but we made the most of it.

  

Hiking to Baker lake with friends.

Jesse and Job Corps students marched in the Ravalli County Fair Parade.  Looking good Jesse!!

First day of school.

My baby is in Kindergarten.

We went to a wedding in the woods this September.  The kids got to take a canoe ride with daddy and Chris.

Reba is 40!!  I was sent to a salon for a scalp massage and hair style so folks could set up my party.  

Paula and Shannon

Nat and Kahne

Kim and Johanna

The obstacle course was a big hit!

I asked Chris and Jim for a new Raiders sweatshirt for my 40th. This is what I opened....A sweaty raiders shirt.  Hilarious.

The decorations were mostly pictures of me with people I love!  Look at my hot 19 year old self.

I am volunteering 3-4 days a month as a receptionist at the Women's wellness center.  This is me at our fundraiser last month. It was a Alice in Wonderland theme.

Jesse spent many weekends with his friend Chris to keep our family warm this winter.

Rowan had fun playing Pee Wee Soccer.

Dylan loves to play football.  He is practicing to do a flag football show at the High School  football game's half time this Friday. 

The boys are getting better at guitar hero.  Mommy sings of course.

Halloween sugar cookie decorating.

Nothing like a little home improvement.  Jesse power washed both decks and the house.  I spent yesterday staining the decks.  As mom would say "Way to go"

PROVIDENCE UPDATE CHAPTER TWO

                                                       

  Let's see, where was I?  Oh yes, I wanted to share this cute photo of how the family helps each other out.  Good going, HollySue!


  

Congrats to Katie who hardly broke a sweat when completing in the 26.2 mi Big Cottonwood marathon in SLC two weeks ago.  First time she's done a 26 miler and I'm glad it worked out that I could go down to support her.  I'm looking forward to when she does the Boston marathon so I can go support her there also.  Good going, Katie!

It's harvest time and Holly and I are reaping the fruits of our labors.  We have pears, peaches, apples, cucumbers, beets, tomatoes, kale, lettuce and spinach. .  Here's poor college student,Eric (Katie's brother) hanging out in the delicious spartan apple tree.  He helped pick the top, hard to reach apples  for me so I could share with family, friends, neighbors, can and store some for HS and I.

I've been doing lots of dill pickles, HollySue found a delicious dill pickle relish recipe and we worked together to bottle some for her use this year.  So much faster with two people on the job.  Good going Holly - you're a canner like younger sis Reb.





We've had more  AZ type monsoon rain storms this week and roads still aren't repaired from last month's heavy rain.  Yesterday we got 1.7 inches (i thought I was back on Guam)!  Had lots more flooding downstairs and mopped up two separate times - Holly helped me sop it up faster with very large heavy towels.  She was heading to work and I noticed that there was a river behind Japanese maple tree next to garage.  It hit me that the problem wasn't crack in cement below front porch, but the RAIN GUTTER since there was a water fall next to the rain spout.  Who to call?  Everyone I could think of was ill, out-of -town, too old or usually never home when I needed help.  But this tme my neighbors to south were home, came right over.  Bruce climbed up ladder and with two swipes of his hand in gutter, Gayle and I were relieved to hear the loud swoosh of plugged up water going down the drain under the front lawn.
The tree had gotten so tall and when trimmed last spring it left leaves, etc in to cause the problem.  I'm so grateful to them for helping me out.  We've had more rain today, but no more in the basement, yea!  I just removed their thank you dessert from the oven.

PROVIDENCE UPDATE

Congratulations to two family members with significant milestone birthdays this past week!

"I'm loving 40, it's great!! .. and at 18                     voting adult Hannah says,                      "Rats, I'll never be a child again!!!!!"
                 (That was soooooo easy).

The trek 2 1/2 weeks ago through WY I took with Lance, Becky, Lonnie (Becky's brother and his wife Marsha was great and really gave me the essence and pictures of what my great grandparents and papa's great grandparents went through to come across those desolate plains and mountainous trails.

Becky and I pulled Lonnie who played the part of great grandfather, Hopkin Matthews (first land owner in Providence) because he was ill and his wife, Margaret and daughter, Elizabeth, had to do it for him.

At Martin's Cover, after I watched a large rattle snake crawl right in front of me.  Then on the way back Lance nearly stepped on another one while pulling the cart.  Such excitement!

Here's Lance and I at Independence Rock where another great grandmother,Mattie, gave birth to Peter who lived only one month.  He made the 7th child she and Mads had buried:  three in Denmark, one at sea and and two others who died of diseases after they arrived in America.  I'm in awe of her as she had been raised in a wealthy home and wouldn't have had to do any physical work.  She was remarkable that she could still keep going - must have been in her strong will.

The flat tire on Lances's car surely threw a wrench into our well oiled trip schedule.  But, it happened where he could get off highway on level ground and spare put on just before it got dark.   We had to cancel hotel reservations (too far) as spare requires only 50 mph on highway and the place we were going for  best deal in USA to get huge ice cream cones for little money was closed.  Found famous Little America had rooms and they all ate at midnight.  Next morning he had to drive about 30 miles and bought two new tires and returned to pick us up.

Oh, oh times up - canning of pears is calling.  To be continued.....

Providence Update - finally

Good afternoon family,

This wonderful photo of me "a few years" ago  describes perfectly how I felt two weeks ago when the computer hardware dogs ate all the work I had done on Grandma Dooie's history that I'd done soooooooo much work on.  The BB head Geek couldn't locate the latest one with all the photos, illustrations embedded, but fortunately came up with the test in another form along with 3, 635 pages of code, commands and gobbledygook.  It took me hours just to carefully delete it without touching the text.  I've been glued to this chair for the past two weeks cutting, pasting, reformatting text and arduously finding and added all those great inserts that were lost.  Pretty much everything else has been put on hold so I can achieve this goal that I've had for so long.  No problem with dad's.  His history was saved during computer snafu, but alas not mom's.  I'm pretty close to the finish line now and Holly is doing the proofs for me.  That's been great as I'm bleary eyed as it is.

Yea, it's official.  Holly's condo is now the property of a retired Air Force officer in New York who bought it for an investment property while his daughter is living there and attending USU.  Roger was delighted about the connection with Holly's dad and that he is probably smiling the way the whole thing worked out.  She's quite comfortable down stairs and is sorting and filing all those papers that tend to pile up from year to year. 

Lately though, we've both what's wondering  about these crazy birds around our house.  For the past three weeks 3 of them have flown into the south window (my office area) and died.  Another one was tougher and after 2-3 min. got up hobbled over to west deck and then flew away for another try.  This morning one hit the west window downstairs right behind where she was sitting and got dead also.  Maybe they're trying to torment the cats....who knows.  Strange..........

I had and phitzers removed on the north side of house.  They were getting old and ugly but so large it took two guys all day to remove them since Jared couldn't get his machinery around to that side.  I'm also planning to do some other unscaping so make the yard easier to care for.  Things do grow out of control after 19 years.

 We finally have a  garden this year.  All those amendments and better soil really paid off as the yield has been great with beets, cucs are really coming on, kale, lettuce and spinach doing well.  I've done 14 pints of pickled beets so far and a few dills.  Holly loves grilled beets also.

 Holly's grape tomatoes are so prolific that she can hardly keep up with them.  My low acid tomatoes are starting to produce more than I consume also.  The strawberries are about gone, but I've been eating fresh pears and peaches this week with other trees about ready.  Apples are getting close with limbs so full Holly and I had to prop them up so she can mow underneath.

The zucchinis are blooming out all over and Holly uses some nearly everyday in her breakfast smoothie.  Last one she did had about 7 different fruits and vegs in it.  She shares some of them with me each day to try out.  Tons of squash this year as we both love it and I can take some to Brooke this winter also.

One of her projects she's been working on for several weeks is to refinish Dooie's buffet that I inherited.  It was that white/gold one downstairs that she cut the legs off and refinished for the home I grew up in.  Holly's doing it bing cherry red and black to match her dining set.  She's a darn good painter like her mother and grandmother.  


Well, that enough for today - it's back to the history now.

Debt Thermometer

One more stinkin' credit card to go!

On my way to debt free!

Howells Reunion 2014

Hi ya'll,

Here are some photos from our time in San Diego.  Please feel free to post any photos you have.  Thanks rock stars!

Turtle selfie