Airport Adventure

I LOVE the fact that Tony has flight benefits again. Debbie, Max & Ryan came to visit Billings for the week while Tony was working in Helena, MT. They had me fly out to Tacoma Town to help Debbie fly with the kiddlies. Max & Ryan did awesome on the plane. Max was super excited to go on a airplane again and could hardly wait the two hours in the airport for us to board. We had a bit of a complication with me flying standby and didn't know until the very very very last minute if I would get on or not. They let me!! We had a great time with them in Billings. Will post some pictures soon. The highlite at the end of the week was going to a corn maze. There was a whole lot more than just the maze. We had hay rides, cow train rides, Kettle Kar racing, hay bale maze, and Max's most favorite was the "corn box" (sand box with corn kernals instead of sand). I flew back with Debbie to help manuver the suit cases, stroller, car seat, diaper bag, very energetic two year old, going for the ride smiley 5 month old, coats, shoes, blankets all through the security point. And trying to remember to take the bag of liquids out of the carry on and whoooops the cell phone out of the pocket BEFORE entering the buzzer machine. Whew!! makes me wonder how we did it!!

A Fall Phenomenon

Last week here in Billings a strange thing happened. One day it was warm and sunny. The next day it was frigid and cold & snow came tumbling down. We hadn't even had fall yet. The trees hadn't turned they're brilliant colors. In fact they were still all green. Well when the snow came I think the trees were awakened from a warm bliss and wondered if they had missed the fall. Assuming they did many of them dumped their greens. Green leaves all around..."on the roof tops... on the ground."

And it wasn't like they dropped a few, some trees gave it all up. Wow...... so Fall and leaves remind me of a time when I was a kid. My sister and I were outside on a wonderful fall day with leaves all over the ground and we put our imaginations together, got out the rakes and designed houses out of the leaves. We would outline the walls and maneuver the leaves around to indicate rooms and then we started on the furniture. We had nice fluffy beds and crisp couches and fridge and stoves and whatever our homemaking minds could imagine. Then we played house for hours until the sun was setting and the brothers came out & trounced on it, scattering our play time back into reality.

Escape off the "Island"

Last weekend J and I were able to escape off our "Island" and make a quick flight to Tacoma. It was a much needed trip for my well being. I haven't been able to play & hug & spoil & spend Namma time with our little kiddlies for too long.

Ryan is growing so fast and sitting like a big kid in his little play seat.

Max was so fun playing with and he loves to sit a read. His favorite book by far this visit was his astronaut book. We read it 43 times :)

We enjoyed listening to conference with Tony & Debbie. Tony traditionally is the official pancake maker conference morning. He makes killer pancakes!!

During conference Dampa and Max built a Temple out of bristle blocks. Wow who'd a guessed you could make a temple out of those blocks.

During Priesthood session Debbie and I escaped with the kids to walk on Thea Foss Walk Way in Tacoma, right on Commencement Bay. Max is really into bridges and when we came to the docks that jut out onto the water, he wanted to go on the "bidge on wa'er". As we were walking on the 'bidge' he noticed you could see 'bubbles' when you looked down the cracks.

Ryan all cuddled up in his camo blanked dodging the wind but definantly enjoying the ride.

Debbie, Max & Ryan looking over the edge at some crazy suba divers.

Max & Namma on one of the 'bidges' looking out onto the bay. What a fun visit!! We were also able to see some friends and do a lot of walking. So good for my soul!! Flew back to Billings refreshed and ready to tackle life again.

(Sorry about the extra space at the end. Don't know how it got there and don't know how to fix it)

New job

Well last Wednesday I started a new job. I work for a company called Health Port who contracts with St. Vincent hospital and associated clinics to do their release of medical records (ROI). It's suppose to be a part time job but until I get trained I'll be working full. Health Port is a national company which contracts with hospitals and clinics around the USA. So my actual boss is head quartered in Denver but came out to train me. The person I'm replacing had given her 2 week notice, but by the time I came aboard she only had 2 days left to train me. Yikes! I did learn alot in those 2 days and my boss will be here next week also. Basically I process requests to receive medical records and go into the cyber world to 1) retreave them from the hospital system 2) if they haven't been scanned into the computer yet, there are 3 other system to look at depending on the dates & 3) send them off to Health port via cyber world for them to bill & send to the requester. So I'm learning six different systems....boggling my brain. I'm sure I'll get the big picture soon, but until then....pray for me. :)

Hermana Stacey

"Ah! Home sweet home. My chair is third from the right, almost in the corner."

"The view from our classroom. Nice isn't it. It keeps us happy."

"The picture in front of the sign. Hermana McNeil, Howes, Me & Mills. "

"District 49 C

"Me! On my bunk."

"My companion Hermana Mills."

So just a little update on Stacey. She's been in the MTC for almost 4 weeks now. The second letter she wrote she gave us a detailed schedule of her days. Each day for a week. They have very focused days. With classroom, excersize, a day at the Temple, devotionals, special speakers from the General Authorities, laundry times, eating times, companion time, etc. She has 3 other sisters in her district and they all room together. None of them are going to be serving in her mission. She's doing great & picking up the Spanish more & more but it's a challenge.

Some quotes, "This week in Relief Society we had Cheryl Lant the General Primary President speak to us. It was really cute. She taught how to include the children in the lessons. Because we will most likely be teaching families and we don't want to leave out the little ones."

"Another cool thing that happened was at the dreaded TRC. We were suppose to talk with someone in Spanish for 15 and "ride with them on a bus"then teach them the 2 lessons in English. Well the sweet old lady we had couldn't walk to the 'bus' so we just sat in her room and talked. She did most of the talking we just had to respond it was awesome, since my Spanish is still quite rusty. She taught us more than we did her." "Every day is a new experience and I enjoy every minute."

Billings: view on the Rim.

The Rim

Doug with the Billings Temple in the background

Doug & Stacey higher on the trail

Mike on the edge

Looking out over Billings

So if I can figure out how to add pictures to this I will. Billings has two areas of town divided by what they refer to as the Rim. Big hugh cliffs divided right town the middle of town. Pretty impressive. The airport sits on top of the rim and we can see it from our house which is below the Rim. While they were visiting for the week before Stacey left, we took Stacey, Doug & Mike to see part of it called Zimmerman's trail and took some pictures. You can see forever. It's a cool place with lots of bike & hike trails all along the rim. At the parking lot there is a BIG sign that warns of possible Rattlesnakes, which kinda freaked Stacey, Mike & J out. Picture J with two sticks in his hand clapping them together, I'm guessing to "warn" the snakes of our nearness. (We didn't see, hear, smell, or scents any snakes while we were there.) But we did see rabbits, lizards, and lots & lots of grasshoppers.

A trip to Market

So today I have been "little missy homemaker." I started out at Billing's great farmers market. It's located right in the middle of down town and takes up seven blocks. Thanks to several Hutterite colonies the market is filled with mucho wonderful produce. So I pick up (cause I didn't get a garden planted here in Billings,,,,well actually I don't even have room for a garden) a bunch of tender, greenist I've ever seen, Green beans, a sack full of corn which was $4.00 for 12 but this particular stand boasted that each sack had 15. And they did :), some crunchy yummy baby carrots, and some brocoli. J also picked up some, go figure, fancy dancy hot dogs and a grange fed frozen chicken which was worth just listening to the guy explain why we wanted this kind as apposed to store bought & highly refined. After that little sales pitch, I'm suprised any of us are still alive after eating store bought chicken. I get all our treasure home & have to do something with them. I search out the Ball Canning Book, look up the freezing section, and roll up my sleeves. Now I'm feeling pretty good & have filled up a little bit more of the big chest freezer which has been mostly empty since we've move here.