Mountains and Deer in the backyard!

Hello my friends!

We had a very quick trip to Montana to see our son and his family. Oh my it's hard to leave our grandbabies to come home. We were blessed with beautiful weather while we were there so Grandpa played lots of baseball with Caleb. Actually it was catching the ball Caleb hit from his T-ball stand. Then we went to the park and played some more! Lots of fun. Helena sits in the Helena Valley and is surrounded by mountains on all sides. B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. But it gets cold in the winter. The first year after Jamie moved there it got below -30F which is very normal. I don't think I could live in that cold. Here are a few pictures of Grandpa playing with the kids.

Here we are with our precious grandbabies, Kyleigh and Caleb.

The drive over and back was beautiful. These were taken at an overlook just below the top of McDonald Pass looking down into the Helena Valley.

These pictures don't even begin to capture the majesty and grandeur of these mountains. Unbelievable gorgeous. In the summertime. In the winter it's also beautiful but dangerous, and I dislike this pass intensely when we're traveling over it in the winter. You can see some snow still on the mountains in one of the photos.

Then, after we got home Sunday evening we headed back to the lake. I think I was home an hour and a half or so. Just long enough for hubby to trim, edge and mow the lawn and I did a load of laundry and repacked the car. Chloe was one happy dog. This dear visited our backyard at the lake last night. I took this picture at 9:20 last night. Look how light it still is outside!

Our camping buddies, Larry and Nita got a new tiny poodle about 3 months ago. Here is Sophie and Chloe playing this morning. They are almost exactly the same color. Sophie now weighs a whopping 4.2 lbs. and thinks Chloe is her Mama. Chloe is very patient with Sophie biting her tail and climbing all over her. She's such a great dog. :-)

I forgot to snap a picture of the blanket in progress that I showed you in my last post. It's about three times the size that it was in that picture. Eleven hours in the car sure helped! :-) That's about all I've been working on lately.

Tomorrow night we're having a potluck for about 18 people here at our house. It's our Bible study group and we decided it would be fun to eat dinner together before study. I bought 30 boneless chicken breasts today and I'll marinate them and then put them on the grill. Yum. We usually provide the meat and ice tea and the others bring side dishes and desserts when we do this. It's always fun.

Also tomorrow we're getting our deck and fence stained by the same painter that painted our house last summer. I usually do the staining since I'm home, but I burnt my lungs two years ago when I did it and now I can't stand the smell. My lungs just close up. Hubby just plain doesn't have time for it. He works about 60-70 hours every week and I don't want him to have to spend several weekends doing that job. He's exhausted by Friday. That's why we started going to the lake, so he could relax. I think I reap more benefits from it than he does though. The painter was scheduled for Friday but finished a job early so he'll be here by 6:30 tomorrow morning. So much for dining on the deck for the potluck. Oh well.

I went to a thrift store at Loon Lake, WA on Monday. It's a tiny town close by our camper. I found a beautiful vintage tablecloth for-----you won't believe this! Fifty cents! It's beautiful. I have it in the washer right now and I'll take a picture of it for my next post. For only $1 more I got four books, a pill holder for hubby's vitamins when traveling, a brand new jump rope, (I gave it to a little boy at the campground), an angel music box that works, a ceramic bowl with the new tag still on it which said $6.99, and a package of thank you notes. All for one dollar! I feel like I stole from them but that was the price I was given. They even threw in a antique metal spatula for free! I definitely will be going back to that store. Lots of fun. Two other ladies from the lake went with me. We giggled and poured over shelves and tables. So much fun!

I almost forgot to tell you that we saw four, yes that's right four, beautiful bald eagles on our drive to and from Helena. And then, yesterday at the lake one flew right at the tree line behind our trailer. Oh my goodness it did my heart good to see those birds in all of their majesty soaring on the wind. I'll be watching for the one at the lake to make another appearance, that's for sure.

Well, I better get busy around here. Take care and I'll be back soon with a picture of my "new" tablecloth.

Blessings,

Betsy