Sunny Wednesday

It's sunny here after a week of weird weather. Most of it didn't hit Missoula but I-90 just west of us has been closed off and on the last five day due to huge amounts of snowfall. We didn't get but an inch!

This past weekend I was at work and Erik was sick so nothing to report on the outdoors today. I thought I'd just say a quick hello to let you know we're still here and I haven't forgotten about blogging.

Maybe this will give you a smile, if you like cats anyway. So most of you know we had a cat Lagos. He and Rio were good pals. But unfortunately Lagos died an untimely death by the wheel of a car. So Rio was alone for about a year and then we got Sophie. I know I told you about her already but I though I'd show some uncanny photos I have. We weren't going for another Lagos but it looks sort of like we got him back again (as a her).

Here is a picture of Lagos sleeping:

Here is a picture of Sophie sleeping:

This is a picture of Rio and Lagos sleeping on our couch:

And finally this is a pitcure of Rio and Sophie sleeping on the futon:

Yes, they are pretty similar in look and personality. But if you look closely Sohpie is actually what they call tortishell colored. She's got orange patches under the tabby. And look at her nose, half one color half another! How cute ! ;-) So similar but not exactly the same.

This comoing weekend we're going on a downhill skiing trip with Erik's work. I'm scared!! But I'm taking a lesson and I'm gonna try it! I'll let you know how it goes next week. Pray I don't break anything!

X-country skiing in West Yellowstone

West Yellowstone is the town situated on the West entrance ot the park. Population 912 year round and 1500 during tourist season. Elevation 6670ft. (Missoula is 3200ft, St. Paul 702ft) Average snowfall 150 inches at year! It's real close to Big Sky, probably on of the most popular Montana ski resorts for out-of-staters. http://www.bigskyresort.com/ West Yellowstone also has some of the best cross country skiing trails in the west. http://www.rendezvousskitrails.com/ That is where we wanted to go this past weekend. So we went.

We were able to stop and visit a friend and her newly adopted daughter in Bozeman. They recently moved from MN so it was fun to see both of them. We look forward to seeing them more for hiking and skiing adventures. We made it to W. Yellowstone about 10pm on Friday.

Saturday morning we got ready to ski most the day. The trails had been groomed in the wee hours of the morning but it was snowing a little and the wind was whipping the snow around so there was an inch or so covering all the trails but they were still in good skiing condition. However, because of the altitude,(see above) we were literally sucking wind! We picked the Deja View loop 7.3km and read AFTER we finished that it had the two longest climbs of the whole trail system. UGH! But the down hils were FUN!! ;-) Then we came in and had some lunch in the warming hut. After lunch we went back out and went on the Rendezvous loop (6 km) but I turned at the Grizzly cutoff and Erik did the whole thing. I just knew I needed to save a little for skiing the next day!

Here we are in front of the warming hut:

Erik skiing up a hill, this is the second time while I was catching my breath:Here I am by a trail map/sign:My skis :-), I was waiting for Erik after taking that short cut:Sat nite into Sunday it snowed probably 8-10 inches! We did ski on Sunday also but there was even more snow on the trail and we got a really good workout! Then we drove home. The roads were ok, but we had to be careful in a few spots but we made it just fine.

Well, I have to work the rest of the week so I won't be back on here until sometime next week! You all take care!

Snowshoeing

I forgot I wanted to share a couple pictures of my first snowshoeing experience. Erik had gone once before with some friends from church. We went again with the same friends on Jan 13th and had a blast! It was really fun and there is no learning curve you just walk. I suppose for a real novice to winter fun you'd need some coaching on what to wear. We just wore our snow pants and layers on the top. We don't have gaiters yet so we wore tall boots and my snowpants were long enough to keep out any snow.

I just have a couple pics of Erik because I was holding the camera (as usual) and the one pic of me has our friend in it and I want to ask before I post her pic. We don't have photo shop to be able to blur her face either. Ahh, one of these days.

So here's a couple of Erik:

Oops! nice fall!The trail, does it get any better than this!We saw tons of huge moose tracks in the snow and even some areas where they had bedded down! After coming back down I thought of a good picture, have me or Erik lay or sit in one of the BIG places where you could tell the moose had laid down and then take a pic. Wish I would have thought of that earlier! Duh!!

Baby it's cold outside!

OK, so it hasn't been really cold this year at all. The coldest it's been so far in Missoula is about 10 above zero. It's -1 today!!! Yeah, yeah, I know those of you who live in the Midwest are enjoying a lovely COLD snap also! You beat us, but I had to whine a little bit!

One more post of catch ups and then... well, I'm all caught up! Check in tomorrow for pics from this past weekend, x-country skiing in W. Yellowstone.

Today though I will post some pics of the family when we were home for Christmas. I didn't get any pics of the friends or even Erik's family. Oops!

These were all taken on Christmas Day or the 26th when it was snowing! So pretty!

Me and my sister!

Me and Mom, oh and Erik too!

Three Beauties! (Like my Montana sweatshirt? Erik gave it to me for my birthday!)Two snow covered lovebirds:Our pretty barn
Dad snow blowing (can you see him?)Tunnel of winter white trees:Look at the inches!We had a great time at home visiting family, friends, our church and places we like to eat. We miss everyone one!

Fall 2007

Thanks to all of you who replied to my email and said you missed hearing what was going on out here! It's nice to know that some of you are reading this blog and I'm not just posting for myself! Ha! ;-) Thought I do an update today with some pictures from our fall to "catch up" after my terrible lack of posting!

Here's a picture of me on Carlton ridge (approx 8,000 ft). I hiked up there on day with my friend Jennifer and her boys. It was cold and snowing and I have on all the clothes I had with me! (I think I look a little tubby, but then I have to remind myself that I have a puffy vest on under that fleece!) It was fun and the peak you see in the background is Lolo Peak. We have plans to hike to the top this coming year.

Erik's Sunt Ginger and sister Monika visited us that last week of October. We went to Garnet Ghost Town, Phillipsburg (a sapphire mining town), Lolo Pass and all over Missoula. Here's a few pics:

Monika and Ginger at Garnet Ghost town:

The three of us in the Sapphire Gallery trying to find sapphires in a pile of rocks. We actually found about 7-8 karats, most too small to do anything with but a couple that will be .5-1 karat once proccessed. These were for Ginger who's b-day is in September, the sapphire month!

And here's a good picture of the four of us.

Novemeber we mostly stuck around the house, I don't have any real "advernturous" pictures from that month. The week before Thanksgiving we got pounded with snow! About a foot fell and us skiers were really excited until it ALL melted in one day about two weeks later! Green grass showing and everything! Well, it has come back and melted several times since then! Thank goodness the mountains keep the snow so we've been able to ski. Here's just a couple pictures of that beautiful first snow.
The road to our house:
The trail near our house:
Rattlesnake creek:

So that was our fall in a small nutshell! This weekend we are headed to West Yellowstone to do some cross-country skiing. I guess it's the bset place in the west. We're excited. Hopefully we'll get to see some geyser's in the winter and maybe an animal ot two!

Untill next week.........

Our last two days in Germany.

So we returned from Rome, happy and tired. We rested the first day back. Besides Erik was sick so he needed the rest! So far we had stayed at Ulla and Artur's house but we did stay at Ingrid and Zepp's house the last two nights. It was fun to do that even though we can not speck the same language. We managed just fine.

Here's is a pic of Artus, Ulla, Erik and I:

I visited Burghausen with Ingrid. It's a quaint German town with Europe's longest castle. This is a pretty pic of the door of a church in town, just had to throw it in!

Here's me:

This is a picture of the castle above the town. It's only a small part of the castle.
Here's a couple views down on the town from the castle. Don't you love the colors of the buildings!
Well, that ends the pictures and stories from our trip to Germany and Rome! So glad you stuck with us that long!! Now I'll get back to updating you on the fun and joys of living in MT!

Rome Day #5 visit to Pompeii!

Well, on day 5 we hopped on a tour bus and went to Pompeii! It was an easy way to get there but the tour wasn't that great. We would have preferred to explore on our own. But we'll just chalk that up to experience and mental notes for next time!

Pompeii was very interesting. We took pictures but not all of them turned out the greatest so I'll just post a few here.

A main market place:

A temple or government building (I can't quite remember anymore!):

One of the casts of the people they found. Basically when they did the excavations they found cavities they determined were people and poured some type of plaster into the cavities to preserve the shapes.

Here's a ancient Pompeii bar! They served wine out of the pots in the counter.

Here's stone grinder for making flour and in the background the oven.

Here's a view of the roads. The block in the middle was for people to walk across when the roads were flooded with rain and the carts could still drive by with wheels on either side of the block. You could see huge indentations for years of wheels rolling over the stone!And here we are on the bus on the way back to our place in Rome! We had a wonderful meal that night and left for Germany again at 0415 in the am!

Up and Posting FINALLY!

Well, after a much too long absence I'm (we're) back! With the holidays and the incredible amount of time it took to upload photos with dial up I stopped posting for Nov and Dec. I'm sorry it's been so long and that I haven't even finished the pics of Rome/Germany!

So we're still here, alive and well in Montana. We had great visit in MN for the holidays, of course we couldn't spend enough time with our friends or family but it was good what we time we had.

I hate laving things unfinished of I'm going to finish the Rome/Germany pics. I'll try to do it today and tomorrow so that I can catch up you all up on the rest of our life!

So I think we're on Day #4 of Rome.

We had a smaller agenda this day which worked out great because Erik started to get a cold and we were able to get some extra rest in before Pompeii on day 5.

Here's a pic of us in front of St. Peter's. We just had to go back a second time and see it again. Unfortunately, it was so hot and we forgot they have a strict dress code so Erik couldn't go in because his shorts were too short! Ugh!! So I went in for a while.

We walked down Via Corridori to Castel Sant' Angelo. This is a view back down the street to the Vatican.

The Castle was built as a tomb for Emperor Hadrian in a.d.139, then used through the Middle Ages as a Castle, prison and place of last refuge for the popes under attack. This view of it is from the shore of the Tiber River where we were sitting.

Here's a close up of the Angel on the top:

Here's a view of the Vatican from the top. Do you see the wall in the lower right hand corner that is going back towards the Vatican? That was built in the 1200's for the popes to use as a protected way to get to the Castle when the city was under siege. The Vatican was outside City walls and unprotected.

And that's pretty much all we did that day except get a little more gellato!