Inheritance

Look what else came with the house.

4 starving felines that apparently live under our garden shed.  I found them and took them the chicken remains from our previous night's dinner and a half hour later there was nothing but dried bones left, leading to Katy naming the big one "starvey".

The adage "if you feed them, they will stay" came to mind, but they have already taken up residency under our shed so not feeding them felt cruel.  And they are so cute.  So I guess we have cats now.  Once they are bigger it will be easier to take them to work and leave them out on the prairie somewhere.   

Welcome to North Dakota!

Two weekends ago, which would have made it the 29th and 30th of April we were hit with  blizzard up here in North Dakota.  And when I say blizzard I mean a snow hurricane.  That was really my thought as I lay in my bed in a trailer house listening to the wind trying to blow the whole thing off the hill it sits on.  Come to find out having a bunch of trailers on top of a hill in windy country is kind of poor planning because once you got off the hill things were significantly better, still terrible but better.  For example: off the hill you could see about 30 feet in front of you, on top of the hill you couldn't see the end of your hood while you are stupidly trying to drive to work (I wasn't stupid. I was riding with someone else who was driving).  Let me show you, and be warned all of these pictures were taken with my cell phone so don't expect Pulitzer quality.  

This is when it has finally stopped snowing on the 1st of May.  Lyle is digging a path through the drifts so we can go check the plant.  Do you know how big a backhoe is?  Those drifts are above the tires.

 The dashes of red are Lyle's car in front of the plant which he was unfortunate that he drove it out to the shift because that's when it all started.  It had to wait a few days to make it home.  But there was an extra company truck lying around so Lyle was able to go home after working 3 straight 12 hour shifts because the next shift guys couldn't make it out from town.

 This is the back of the plant, out of the wind.  That's a full size shop door and a big dumpster buried there on the side.

 This drift is about 5 feet tall and ran pretty much the entire length of the plant.  We are supposed to check some gauges in that shack over there but that may have been neglected for a day or two.

But really we were lucky it was so cold and snowy out...

 Because it froze this 6 foot wave solid was just feet from washing the plant away.

 

You may think "why did he hold the camera sideways to take this picture?"  Well i didn't. That thick sheet of scary ice death really is sticking horizontally out off of some pipes.   

Meanwhile, back on the hill...

 My car was well buried.  And this picture was taken after it had been sunny and warm for about 13 hours.

Like the picture above, this drift covering half my trailer and making it so I had to pound/kick/slam/dig out my front door so I could get out, is only about 7 feet tall instead of all the way to the top of the trailer like it was originally.

Other than 2 days of rather scary wind and snow, huge drifts left over, poor Lyle working 36 hours straight, the only other problems this storm made where a few thousand downed power lines and a couple thousand people without power for 1 to 4 days.  No biggie right?   

So needless to say, if you want to come visit us here, wait until June through September.  All the other time is when we will be out visiting you people to get away from this stuff. 

New House

Purchasing a home was never the original intention for our family at this point.  However there were no other options.  Seriously, the housing market in this part of the country is insane and impossible. The whole process of buying a house is horrid.  For all of those of you who are yet to brave this terrible experience a few tips:

*Start early- once you find the house you want it will still take 5 to 300 weeks for all the paper work to get done by the bank, title company, realtor, sellers and NASA for some reason. 

*Have enough of a down payment for 20 percent, otherwise you have to pay for some extra insurance. Stupid

* When the end is in sight and you are walking into the title company's office to sign all the closing document, you still have a long way to go.  The stack of papers you have to sign and initial is incredible.  I was curious how many times I had to sign and initial afterward so I went through and counted: 18 thousand.  No joking I used up 6 pens and had to spend that night in the hospital because my hand just fell off after we were done.

  But the fam is up here and that is what counts, and now we have a house. 

 And our first visitor.  Big thanks to Jack and G for making the trip up here and the trip to Utah to get our trailer and for the past 5 months.  You guys rock!

Since this is our first house we don't have a lot of stuff, or we didn't.  We inherited a lot of furniture from the last owners.  I don't know how much of it we will keep long term but it sure is nice to move into a furnished home. But the unpacking sure does stink.  We aren't in a huge hurry, a little here a little there with plenty of movie breaks in between and  it'll get done eventually.  But unpacking after having all of your stuff packed up for so long is just like Christmas.

Basketball shorts.  Yea!

 

And old man Loreli was sweet enough to just hang out while we were unpacking. What a gem. 

What a week!

This past Monday (the 9th I believe) we were finally able to close on our house.  This was great because Katy, Loreli, Jack and G were able to make it up from Montana.  They had been in Billings, MT the last week and then stayed Sunday night it Glendive, MT because that was the closest hotel that had vacancies (which is 2 hours away).  

While the trip may have been trying for some, Loreli was never at a loss for attention. She is just full of smiles these days.

 She has also developed the habit/skill of sucking on her own lips which gives her an old man/bitter beer face; quite comical.

You would think that this is a picture of a very unhappy or just ugly baby; but no.  She is neither ugly or unhappy, just entertaining herself.

iFeliz Cinco de Mayo!

For those who are not fluent in Spanish like I am, the title means "Happy Fifth of May!" Okay, okay. I am not fluent in Spanish, but I do remember some basic vocabulary words and still know how to conjugate a few verbs. So I'm not fluent and have no Hispanic background, but why not spend the fifth of May eating delicious salsas and tacos? So for this one day out of the year I am of Hispanic decent and so is Loreli. Take a look.

Okay, she really didn't grow a mustache over night. Tricked ya! 

Here she is mustache-less.

Check out those CRAZY eyes!

 

Go eat some salsa my American, un-Hispanic friends!

Picnic!

Believe it or not folks, but the sun was shining in Star Valley today! It felt awesome and looked beautiful all day so we had a nice little fire and roasted hot dogs for dinner. It did get a tad chilly, but it was still delightful!

 

 

Jack giving Loreli her first taste of mango! Yum!

Freezing uncle Bridge

Loreli loves to be outside. She may not show it in these pictures, but she loves all of the new things she has to look at. We've been going on lots of walks now that it's warmer in Star Valley and she gets very quite and calm as we walk around and it's not until we get back inside that she begins to talk and smile again. 

Oh Loeli.

Have a stupendous day friends!

Creative Bridger

Bridger created a game for us to play last night that fulfilled a Faith in God requirement. The game was supposed to teach us a gospel principle, but it really taught us that playing games with family always involves some good laughs. He created a game board and in the center of the board was a picture of the temple. The goal was to make it to the temple, but along the way there were ways to earn ('read scriptures', 'get baptized', 'go on a mission') and lose points ('bite your sister', 'wake a baby', 'punch your brother'). There were also dare cards. If you landed on a color square you picked up the corresponding dare card and picked one of the three dares to do. These were the hilarious part! Here are some pictures of the dares.

"Dance like a chicken with a bowl on your head" I don't look ridiculous at all.

"Lay on the ground and wiggle your arms and legs in the air"

"Tape lettuce on your four head"  Bridger only had one head though.

"Put one of your hands in your mouth"

 

Why do I look the most psycho out of all 3 of us?

 Some of the other dares that were done that are not pictured include:

"Eat 3 avacato peces"

"say stinky 100 times"

"stare for one whole minute"

Some dares that no one did, but were hilarious:

"eat two tomato slices"

"drink 12 glasses of water"

"eat 2 plain peces of bread"

"watch 2 scary movies"

Oh Bridge, you're hilarious! This game was fun and full of lots of giggles. Thanks!