Until Next Time Grams

This last week, I went down to Portland to attend the internment ceremony for my Grams who passed away this spring. It was a beautiful sunny day, and a touching small service as we gathered to remember my Grams. While it was a somber event, it was great to get to see and spend some time with family members that I don't see very often. We all had dinner at Macaroni Grill together, then went over to Uncle Bob's house. Uncle Bob is my Grams' brother, so really he's my great uncle, but we all call him Uncle Bob. He's quite the character, and just so much fun. Here is my cousin and I with him:



And another one of just my cousin Heather and I.




We'll always remember and love you Grams! I think this is the only digital picture I have of her, all of us at Heather's wedding... I'll have to get on scanning some others in:

Hallway Painting

A few weeks ago, we decided to tackle the hallway. I chose a light tan-ish color since I didn't want the small enclosed part of the hallway to feel too dark, and needed something pretty neutral to complement both the green in the living room and the buckskin yellow in the kitchen. The challenge with the hallway is the entrance where it is the full two stories tall. So, Noah was my brave hero and painted all of the high spots while I held the ladder for him praying that it would all go smoothly... and luckily it did! Now that it is all finished, definitely don't plan on re-doing it anytime soon!

Here is it before (sorry the pictures don't really accurately capture the colors, but it looks great!):























And the after:
























And Noah in progress:























Sorry the colors are hard to make out and that is only a piece of the full hallway, but it's kind of impossible to show the whole thing... so y'all will just have to come visit to see the rest :-)

Also, as my anniversary gift, Noah made me the entryway bench and cubby set that I have been drooling over. There's a blog that I read occasionally, and she posts plans to build different designer pieces of furniture. So Noah made this for me; it fits perfectly in our entryway... LOVE it! I wanted some baskets with cute colorful liners, but was having a terrible time finding any, much less some that would fit into the cubby spaces. So I found some baskets that would fit, and then went to JoAnn's Fabric and found some baskets that had plans to make your own liners. The sizing was a bit different for my baskets, so I took the basic idea and modified it to my baskets. I don't have a sewing machine, so I just bought some of that glue that bonds material and just used that to seam the fabric together. It worked fantastically since you don't really need the size or seams to be perfect for this project. Here is the whole thing:

Golf and Nature in Big Sky Country

Wow, so summer hit just after the 4th, and we have obviously been out enjoying it seeing as I haven't updated this in over a month! So, I'm just going to rewind, and catch up in a series of new entries.

The weekend after the 4th, we packed up and drove to Columbia Falls, MT and met up with my family to spend a week at the Meadowlake Golf Resort. My family has history in that area going way back before I was born. In fact, my Dad lived in Big Fork in the 70's after he graduated from college. One morning, we had breakfast at The Buffalo Cafe in Whitefish, owned by one of my dad's old buddies from back in the day. It was while we were there that Charlie (the owner) told dad that a bar in Big Fork still had a picture of their group of guys at the "Not Enough Chicks Party". The story goes that apparently it was only guys that stuck around for the winter, and all of Flathead Lake froze over that year. So the guys got together and had a huge party out on the frozen lake, but it was all dudes, so it is forever commemorated as the "Not Enough Chicks Party". So after breakfast, we all trekked down to the bar in Big Fork to take a look at the picture. Here it is:



















Dad is right smack dab in the middle, with a mustache, flannel shirt, and aviator shades. You sure were rockin' it Dad! :-)

A couple years after this picture was taken, dad left Montana and went up to Alaska to teach. Which is where he met my mom, and they got married 3 months later! They spent 10 years teaching in bush Alaska, but the year that I was born, they bought some land back in Montana on Swan Lake not far from Big Fork. That year they took sabbatical and built a cabin on the land. It was at this cabin that I spent many of my childhood summers when we came back from Alaska on summer break. On the trip this summer, we went back to the land, and much to our surprise it was still there! Here's what it looks like today:































At any rate, enough with memory lane... we also went up to the magnificent (there really isn't any other word to describe it) Glacier Park, golfed a lot, and even did a bit of fly fishing. Apparently that part of Montana isn't the greatest for fly fishing, but Noah and I at least got some expert instruction from my brother. So hopefully we can try our hand at it over here in Washington in the fall. Here are a few random other pictures from the rest of the vacation.