We Have a Deal!

It would appear that we have a deal and will close on the house Thursday! As many of you know, the inspection revealed a few issues with the house, most of them minor, a couple not so much. The big issues were negative drainage around the perimeter of the house on the east and north sides and a chimney that was way out of plumb (speaking of plum, our baby is now the size of one). During the two or three weeks since the inspection, we have had an engineer out to take a look and make recommendations about how to fix the issues and we've had several contractors out to give bids on what it will cost to fix. Armed with the numbers, we went back to the sellers and after several rounds of negotiation came away with a deal that everyone an live with. Obviously, we would have liked to get more money out of them, but they are giving us enough to fix the major problems and we feel that we are getting a great deal on a sweet house. Not so sweet is the prospect of moving! Which is why I am blogging instead of packing. Anyway Montana is paradise in the summer so come on up and stay with us in our new place.

Baby :)

What a day... Jeff and I both woke up to get ready for work at 4 a.m., showered and off we went. I was off at 9 and Jeff was off a little before that. I came home, freshened up and we went to the doctor at 9:40. Many of you know that we are expecting a baby in November because we both have trouble containing our excitement but we were not wanting to go as public as the blog until today. This day was full of excitement and nerves. This is the appointment when we found out that our baby had not developed during our first pregnancy. Our nurse asked some questions, took my blood pressure and then attempted to find the baby's heartbeat... unsuccessfully... we both held our breath and said a prayer as we waited for our doctor to come in. Our doctor came in and also asked some questions before proceeding and then attempted to find our baby's heartbeat.... SUCCESS!!! I teared up the moment I saw her smile. She was our doctor during our loss last year and was kind enough to do a sonogram even though she had already found the heartbeat, amazing :) This is when both Jeff and I teared up a little. We saw the heartbeat and saw our little one kicking and moving around at 11 weeks along, once again, amazing. The picture above is our baby's first photo. We thank you all who have been praying with us and for us for a healthy pregnancy and we ask that you continue to lift us up.

We clung to the following verses as we dealt with our loss and we cling to them now as we celebrate this new life:

"Jer 29:11 'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.
Jer 29:12 'Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you."

and

"Phl 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!
Phl 4:5 Let your gentle {spirit} be known to all men. The Lord is near.
Phl 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Phl 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

THE House

As many of you know, we made an offer on our first house Monday night and it was accepted yesterday. We missed out on this house the first time it was on the market because I wanted to watch 24 instead of going to see it. Fortunately for us, the first buyer got cold feet and walked away so now it looks like this will be our first house. We still have a lot of hoops to jump through and the house has to pass inspection but so far so good. If all goes well we'll get the keys on April 30th. Coincidentally, we are having a moving party on April 30th as well . . . I know, who would have thought we would plan a moving party for April 30th months ago and then have our closing date end up on the same day. Anyway, from what we can tell the place is in great condition and needs only cosmetic attention. The Furnace and AC are only a few years old, the electrical has been updated within the last couple of decades and the siding and paint are in good shape. Most importantly, the house was built in 1942 way back when houses and neighborhoods had character and charm. We're excited to say the least. Hopefully things work out. Here are some pics.

The Front


The Back


The MOST Important Feature, the Massive Pantry


Cool Old Skool Doorknobs


Looking Through the Living Room and Dining Room From the Front Doot


Love Love Love the Chimney!!


Love all the Cool Lines, (it's not an ugly box with a garage on the front!!)


MMM Tree Lined Streets (note the sweet street lamps!)


The 70's Fabulous Master Suite that takes up the whole top floor and is going to be completely amazing once we do paint and carpet.


Hardwood Floors Hiding Under the Purple Monster

We just returned from a short trip to Boise over the weekend. We've been trying to get down there since November but jobs, plumbing and weather have conspired to keep us in Montana. We finally made it and finally got to meet our new niece Michala. What a CUTE little girl!!! She is a happy baby and smiles at just about everything. We even got her to laugh a few times which is apparently a new thing in the last few days. We both really enjoyed getting our baby fix.

On Friday night we had April, Jeremy and Jenness and their kids over for Jeff's famous hellfire elk fajitas and had a good time getting caught up. Saturday was spent eating and shopping. We found a copper pot rack at a kitchen store that was going out of business for 60% off. Good for us bad for them. We have our eye on an old house that is for sale and it will go perfectly in the kitchen there. On Sunday we went to Boise First Baptist church and saw old friends there too. Sunday afternoon was spent at mom and dad's with family. My sister Connie flew in to town for the weekend and we all had a good time playing games and getting caught up.

Otis and Moose accompanied us and had quite a good time. Moose wasn't too sure about car travel at first, but by Bozeman he had settled down and slept for the rest of the drive. Everyone really seamed to like our animals and the animals enjoyed all the extra attention. All in all it was way too short but we had a great time. Here are some Pics and a video.

It's that time of year when all we long for is green grass, leaves on the trees and sunny warmth cascading down from the blue skies. We've had a taste of Spring as it's been it the 50's and 60's all week . . . until today. Today Winter returned bringing with it wind and snow and cold. Fortunately it will be short lived as Spring fights back tomorrow. The battle of the seasons usually continues well into April up here at which time winter will finally retreat after dumping a foot or two of slushy wet snow. Then Montana becomes paradise. Snow capped granite spires protrude into the blue sky shedding their icy garments with each passing day. Rivers and streams boil and froth with snowmelt as they carry Winter's life giving moisture from the high country to the plains. Carpets of yellow, red, and purple wild flowers burst out of the ground and nestle up against it all. Birds, deer, elk, bears and creatures of every type come out and almost seem to smile because Winter is over. If you've never been up here in the Spring to see it for yourself your life is just not complete! I truly feel sorry for those among us that live out their lives in the drab grey snarl of buildings, freeways, strip malls and cookie cutter subdivisions too busy with "life" to answer the call of the wilderness. It's in the midst of creation where we really come to life. . . at least I do and I can't wait to get back up there!

Sorry it's been soooo long :)

Hello friends and family, I hope that you have not given up on us! It is amazing how easy it is to get out of the habit of blogging, even though I really enjoy it... hopefully this will be the beginning of keeping you informed once again.

Lately it does not seem like we have had a lot going on and yet we are in the middle of making some big decisions. We are hoping to buy a home this year, exciting and scary times! We have found the place that we want to live, pretty close to what could be our dream home, in a neighborhood called Josephine Crossing. There are so many exciting things there for us, we would get to build our first home exactly to our wants/needs, the home that we are most interested in right now is the Sun. There are also a lot of misgivings: we know that our money is not our own but the Lord's and truly desire to spend it wisely, we know that our jobs are pretty much secure but Jeff is in an ever changing industry that makes it difficult to commit to something long term in Billings, we are really hoping to raise our children closer to one of our families and this seems like we are growing roots so far away from them... and I am sure that many of you have been in this place before and know so many more of the questions that we face. Looking at 4.85% interest and $8000 tax credit for first time home buyers is another thing to our credit. This whole list is really just us thinking out loud, letting you know some of the thoughts we face as we make this decision. It is also a plea for your prayers, we want to honor God in all we do and desire for doors to be slammed in our face if we go any direction that does not honor Him.

We had a great weekend, our church had a dinner for Valentines with a really neat question and answer session for a panel of couples who have been married and seeking God for quite some time. I am still a Texas girl, I hear of a Valentine dinner and assume that it means we need to dress up for a fancy night out... well, here in Billings that is not the case and Jeff and I showed up way overdressed. Oh well, we like dressing up to go out and had a good time looking nice for each other :) Below is a picture from that night and picture from our walk out on some trails earlier that day.

The Montana Sweep

Yesterday I got stuck with "The Montana Sweep." Now that I'm a manager I get to do all the flights the nobody else wants to do. The reason that no one wants to do the sweep is because you have to fly six legs many of which are only 15 minutes between block out and shut down. When the weather is bad (which it usually is this time of year) it gets to be quite busy. . . too busy. This time the weather was actually quite nice (except for the 100 Knot headwinds over the Bob (Bob Marshall Wilderness Area)) and I had a camera with me. I decided to take pictures of final approach at all the airports and some of the cool sights along the way.(just what a pilot should be doing at 500 feet and 140 MPH . . . no different than talking on your cell phone and driving I suppose). Here are some of the Pics.

Turning Final in Great Falls. This was one of the very rare instances in which the wind was actually less than 10 knots. I don't ever want to live in Great Falls.



Departing Glacier Park Intl' you can see Glacier National Park up the valley and Lake MacDonald if you look real close. Now that the company has a crew car and an apartment in Kalispell we plan to spend a lot of time up there this summer.



Final approach into Helena. Helena is a really cool little town, it's a mining town that grew up into the state capitol and it has lakes all over the place. I would like to live there but then I would have to spring for a boat.



Butte MT, I hate flying into this place when the weather is down or at night. There are mountains all over the place and an 8000 foot ridge 2 miles from the runway. Unfortunately, there's an awful lot of aluminum in that mountain actually Ameriflight lost an airplane going in there on the sweep!



On runway 30 in Bozeman, I just like the way this one looks. Bozeman is a really pretty place!



I took a little detour past the east slope of the Crazy Mountains, can't wait to do some hiking up there in a few months!



Finally back home in Billings, I enjoy the sweep when the weather is nice.