House pictures

 ~ Here's where we live ~ 

The view of our house and shop/garage from the mailbox / road.

 Deck out the back door. (This may be my most favorite area...so pretty and we really enjoy the sound of the river and the cows mooing.) 

 Laundry area, coming in from the side door.

Kitchen 

Living Room 

 Josh & Sharon's bedroom and bathroom

 Hallway down to the office, Vivian's room, bathroom and Shelby's room.

 Office / sewing room / guest room

 Shelby's room 

Dining area

No picture of Vivian's room as she is sleeping.  Similar to Shelby's, just has a crib and view of the river.

We love it and are all settled in.  Praising the Lord!

Just across the road...

We went for a hike!

Love, Love, Love this picture!!!  Shelby loves to blow dandelions   

Vivian ended up falling asleep at the very end of the hike.

Both girls did great! 

Here is a zoomed in picture of our house and shop/garage from the hike.

It's Grrrrreat!

We are here in Curlew and we are enjoying it!  The landscape is beautiful!  The house is great.  Our landlords are kind.  We are all moved in.  We have met a few people that we will enjoy getting to know.  We have one more church to try but the church we went to last week was good. We have settled into life.  Now I just need to iron Josh's uniforms and we'll be ready for Tuesday!  Here are some pictures from this past month, in no particular order.  :)

The trailer packed to the brim!  And our wonderful packing helpers - Paul, Rocky and Griffin.  Not sure what we would have done without them!  Not pictured, Ashley - another HUGE help! 

Saying goodbye to my dear friend, Sue.  I will miss you, Sue!!! 

Our great landlords, "Glen Blob" and Christine.  We really enjoyed know them.

Dinner at the Griffins'.  Shelby and Vivian had a lot of fun knowing Poncho (the dog) and Ashley and Griffin. 

Saying goodbye to Laila - Shelby's "playdate" friend.  Shelby cried when she realized she wouldn't have another play-date with Laila again.  ;(

Reading a story with Grandma. 

Josh built some steps off the deck here at our home in Curlew.  He did great! 

Matching shoes!  (Grandpa - that was so funny!!!) 

Mud pies!  Vivian ate it, of course.  This was the beginning; Vivian was much messier by the end and Shelby was still clean as a whistle!  So fun to watch the differences in these sweet girls. 

COWS!  This picture is taken from our back door.  We have a lovely deck and yard, then the Kettle River and then a field where cows graze.  Vivian loves it when they "talk" and she talks back to them.  Walter and Janet, thought you would like this. 

The Kettle River, pretty much at it's peak.  It is very high, but by July they say we can play in it.  We shall see! 

Kyle Parmelee and my Mom were able to drive up to WA with us.  I am not sure what we would have done without them!  Josh drove Big Red with the trailer, Kyle drove our truck and my Mom and I were with the girls in our van.  Actually, Shelby switched between all three vehicles at almost every stop.  She talked Kyle's ear off!  It was a fun trip.

We stopped in Wheat, MT and my Aunt Barb and Uncle Ron drove down from Helena for a visit.  It was so fun to see them!  And of course Wheat, MT is a very yummy stop!!!

A Welcome sign!  Greg (our landlord), Christy, Amara (11) and Aurora (7) made a welcome sign for us.   It was very nice to see that as we drove in.  And we have enjoyed chatting with them and playing with the girls. 

 The girls playing on the air mattress where Kyle slept.  They are so silly and had a lot of fun with Grandma!

Kyle was a huge help!  By the time my mom and I and the girls made it to Curlew, the guys had over 1/2 the trailer unpacked.  They worked so hard and at the end of the week were able to have some fun hiking and driving around.  Kyle, thank you for taking time to help us!!!

There are bird houses all over the yard and we put up our hummingbird feeder.  We'll post some pictures later, but we sure are enjoying them.  The hummingbirds will eat with us standing right next to them!  Josh got some great pictures of this.  We will also post some pictures of our house once we get them taken.

We are so glad to be up here in this gorgeous country!

SOLD!

Today we closed on our condo in Colorado and we are very happy that it is sold!

As for our move to Washington, we did find a house to rent.  Looks like it will be a nice place for us and we are excited to see it!  We plan to be up there the first of May.

Here are our silly, sweet girls wearing my hats.

Packing is going well.  We have less than a week until we leave and we are just about ready.  Josh is a great packer and I am very thankful for that.  We are looking forward to saying goodbye to our friends at church on Sunday and some friends here in town next week.  *Hoping the week goes by quickly.*  :)

Playing at the Ranch

We got to spend April Fool's Day (Happy Birthday, Kim!!!) at the Dimple Hills Ranch with some of our favorite people here in Texas!!!  

Walter, Shelby and Josh frying up the fish for lunch. 

 This is a close as Shelby would get to Buster and Hank when we got to the Ranch - they had to be behind the gate for her to be on the ground, otherwise Daddy had to be holding her.

Ty playing with Vivian and Shelby.

DUNE BUGGIES!!!  Oh my was I a happy camper!  And I (Sharon) got to drive - so much fun! 

Shelby having a laugh with her buddies, Red and Walter.  She was telling them that we were going to the Ranch...she thinks the Ranch is where the horses are and she didn't understand that the whole place, including the house, was the Ranch.  We all had a good laugh with our sweet Shelby-girl. 

After some whooping and hollaring by TJ and Janet the horses came to eat some feed while we looked at them.  Beautiful creatures!  Vivian, again, loved the cows; I guess she loves them because they are loud, mooing and talking back to her.

Shelby had a blast on the dune buggies - heck, we all did!  

Shelby on Daddy's shoulders, hiking around a bit. 

After feeding the horses we went arrowhead hunting.  Shelby, Janet and Josh lasted the longest and TJ was the only one to find a arrowhead, which he graciously gave to Shelby.  

And would you look at this!?!?!  Shelby got comfortable with Hank and at the end of the day the dogs were running from her - quite the change from the morning.  

It rained as we were leaving and that made for a very pretty drive from the Ranch to Marathon.  

We are so blessed to have met the Groths!  We love you, Walter and Janet!  And Red & Patty and TJ & Traci & Peyton & Tyson!  :) 

What a fun day - great memories made.

Catching up

Well, I am wayyy behind on blogging, so I'll try to catch up here a bit.  I left off almost a month ago with Shelby's blisters.  We left for Colorado just a few days later and enjoyed some great time with my WHOLE family - that is 12 grandkids, 8 "kids" and 2 grandparents - as well as Aunts and Uncles that came by, cousins and other friends!  Whew - what a week!  Shelby stayed in Colorado for the week while Josh, Vivian and I flew up to Washington to find a house.

 Before we left for WA we had a St. Patty's Day celebration, hosted at my parents' house by Jesse and KELLY (awesome!) Griffin.  Yummy food and lots of fun!

 And since we were all together we had to get a family picture.  It was a little chilly out, but we got one.

 Vivian's first plane ride - she fell asleep right at take off and slept for a good part of the flight.  The rest of the time she did very well sitting in my lap.  She didn't care for the funny feeling in your tummy on take off or landing, but for the flight there and back to CO she did great!

 The drive from Spokane to Republic was breathtaking!

 Heading over the pass on our way to Republic we had a lot of snow!  That was fun and we were glad that it snowed pretty much every day we were there.

This is us in front of the house we DIDN'T get.  :(  We love it and it seems "perfect" but someone got it just before we could.   

However, they sell POP in WA and we are excited about that!  (Here in TX, everything is Coke... "What kind of Coke would you like?"  Crazies.) 

This is the landscape up near Curlew, where we will be living.  B-E-A-utiful!

And we were glad that CO didn't miss out on snow!  Shelby had a BLAST with my family!  They enjoyed the snow in the mountains one day, then when we got back it snowed and the guys made this big snowman.  People were stopping as they drove by to take pictures.  :)  

We picked up the REACH truck and trailer and headed home for the last time.  All-in-all it was a great trip to Colorado, then Washington, then Colorado and back to Texas.  LOTS of driving, but the girls did wonderful.