Happy Engagement Anniversary

This is a little late, but I've not been too timely the last couple weeks. Coming home to my husband after two weeks away made me remember how we did NOT like dating 720 miles apart and for four days at a time every 3 1/2 weeks. We saw each other 9 times before we got engaged. And 18 times total before we were married. That may seem wary to some folks, but we knew we were going to get married within 10 days of knowing each other. Our first official date happened a month after we met- and we picked out a ring. It took a looooooong 6 months to know if I'd ever see that ring, but I finally did. February 14th, 2011!

We were heading into town to pick out snowshoes for him.
Dustin says, "I'm so happy you're my Pre-Finance." He'd been calling me this for some time.
I asked, "When am I going to be your Real Fiance?
"When do you want to be?"
"Right now." At this point we were driving 65mph up Kila Hill which is the last hill going into town.
"Right now? Are you sure?"
"Yes." We had crested the top of the hill, he whipped into some random driveway, jammed it into park, raced his way around the hood yanking open the passenger door and asked,
"Carmyn will you marry me?"
I shrieked. Blubbered. Laughed and bawled. Blubbered and cried again.
"YES!" .....as the traffic screamed by and we noticed we were standing in the remnants of a mud puddle.

We are so not the roses, weeping violins and fine china dining type! (although it has it's place I keep telling him!)  Give us happy and simple any day :)

Happy Anniversary Dustin! Thank you for the best year ever!

Home, Friends, Chocolate = Fun Times

  My cousin just moved back to Ashley Lake from Virginia with his adorable wife and 2 and 1/2 kids. We are so happy they are here, but I WISH they had gotten this idea about a year or more ago and then I could be hanging out all the time. I went to visit for lunch and this is what the schedule was. Auntie Laura this is for you who really DOES have the cutest nieces in the whole world! :)

We played games and terrorized the cat because we could, who promptly left and proceeded to ignore us.

Then we played ni-night:

And of COURSE we went shopping because Ummm.... we caught them trying to give the cat a haircut. Guilty little parties aren't they?! But they found their purses of which Madison pointed out she didn't have any money. I asked why and she said that Emma must have it. I asked Emma if she had any money and she said no, but pulled out a pencil instead. Both of them agreed this was acceptable to go shopping! We drove to the mall on the bikes. Blankets included, purses forgotten.



























Somewhere along the line we met up with a lime. And we couldn't part with it to go shopping, but we did find a rabbit which was tried on as a scarf, then we went up to eat lunch. It was so fun to be with these cuties! I didn't get any photos, but Tess and I in the meantime rearranged the living room! (See Elizabeth?! It's not personal!) It is great now we think.



Then, I met up in town with my mom and sisters and a few friends to attend the Chocolat Affaire which is so cool! On Main Street in Downtown Kalispell the businesses get together and host a caterer who makes extrodinary chocolate somethings for Valentine's Day weekend. Everyone hits the streets, jabbers, chatters, and in general keeps in holiday cheer.  :) Even though I didn't get much chocolate pieces photos, we can attest that ALL was well and if you did make it to all 28 shops, your stomach would probably reject you over that much chocolate.

Yes, even my stomach would have....

What a fabulous way to go though right?!

The hats were awesome! I wish we could wear them all the time.

We met Lily and Jen with her girls. We found a great old telephone that doesn't work to call to we found out. Instead it calls the front desk. oops. Such a disappointment! The old clawfoot was interesting done in a mosaic.

                                                     The Leaning Tower of Tea Cups.

What a day. and it wasn't over. For we got home and gave gifts. This was for mom -a cute sponge holder and another bike for her collection. Dad got a huge popcorn bowl and when you get to the bottom it says, That's All Folks! It's great. Plus, he got a hat which is a pretty neat hat I think. His pride and joy though still stands in his calculators. He got these at thrifts stores of all places! One here, and two in Washington. We don't understand except he says he needs them and likes to see the numbers. HAHA only my dad. I miss them all when I'm not around!

East, West, Hame is best...

Someday. Maybe. I'll call Wibaux home. I love my husband and he's there and it's home in that regard of course, but it's not Home like Ashley Lake Home. I miss it much. It's natural I'm sure, but someday we hope to feel home where we can wallow in the homey-ness of the very word, home. Perhaps it'll be there, but who knows. We're happy and thankful. That's what matters.

The purpose of going home this time was to see my best friend Sue and help her with the kids while her husband is at work. I stopped via Ashley Lake first because we got a great slide show from DP and we had to make the baklava and turkish coffee which has cardamon in it. I can guarantee this is the strangest coffee you've ever seen made, but it is SO good!!

We made 6 batches of baklava resulting in a little over 300 pieces. Lets just say it's amazing even though I didn't and couldn't eat any, it was good. I know this on smell alone and the fact that the sampling by others was in the double digit surplus...

You see me using a paint roller. This is not a trick! It is the best invention ever- our USDA Food Grade paint roller for butter! Each phyllo sheet is separated and buttered, with a nut/spice layer for 3 layers and 5 phyllo sheets, then an entire package buttered and layered on that. I think there are 25 sheets to a package. It's time consuming but again, worth it!

This is what 6 batches of baklava looks like! We had such fun doing this. It was a great day!

Then we had to go for a walk because we're on our feet all day. And we needed fresh air. So we went around the road through the meadow and happened on some ice! Which was great ice for skating and we wished we had time to shovel snow. But we didn't, so we saw some sights, of which this was impressive!

Here are bird tracks to the left, an eagle or hawk wing imprint and then the fascinating 'knuckles' of a birds talons imprinted clearly in the snow. I have never seen this in such detail! It was incredible!

Then we went home- see?? It's Ashley Lake in all its winter, cow feeding grounds glory!!

And this is who went with us on our walk. She was so tired and curled up on her favorite perch. Little Whiski loves walks, but really she loves cuddles in a warm house!

Baby Days

What a wonderful two weeks! I've been out of blogging land because I've been spending time with wonderful friends and their sweetest kids -a 2 year old and 3 month old twins. I have fallen in love, taken all the night shifts except two in the last week and have loved even 4am crying. After all, we know that's when they always have the best smiles! 

They picked me up at the train station in Edmonds, we went to Sunday morning meeting with these dear folks, the Scholls and had a wonderful meal. That was the start of my week and it was a wonderful start for I saw friends there I hadn't seen since I had lived in Seattle 13 years ago. Oh how the time goes....

This was my train ride. There really is nothing more beautiful than the pacific northwest. I'd live there again in a minute, but perhaps not too close to people. It is funny how I was amazed over the MANY people, but started feeling clausterphobic. Does this mean Wibaux has made me a Wibauxite yet??

I had to laugh when I left because Dustin asked if I had my sunglasses. I said, I bet I wouldn't use them the whole 2 weeks I'm gone. And I was right! Even though it's beautiful, it's rainy a lot. And while I can stand the rain, I can honestly say I am VERY used to the sun in good ol' Wibaux. Of course 45 verses 0 degrees isn't too hard to figure out either.

But this is what I came for. Sad of all sad stories, I'm missing a baby at the moment but trying to find photos that I accidentally deleted, so hopefully I will have all of them in a week or so. I will be heart broken if they can't be recovered because I fell heaps over in love with those three sweeties. I honestly thought of sneaking them back in a suitcase!

Saturday Morning

I love Saturday mornings. The only thing that would make it perfect is if Dustin didn't have to work on Saturdays. I get up and get my coffee inserted by IV.... (something I need to take some serious thought to) make my husband his roast beef sandwich slathered in my homemade hot mustard and piled with veggies. Then I sit, have a read, dream up a huge breakfast then make it and eat it. After that, the day is Saturday.

Saturday's are magical. You can get away with any food on Saturday. Any diet, any thoughts, it's a free day!

This Saturday though started out entirely different. Dustin got up, flicked on the light and zero happenings. Power was dead out. I remembered that there was a saturday yogo class in Glendive, so I got up. But no shower. no COFFEE AAAAHHHH! No breakfast. No sitting in the morning sun. But to yoga I went.

Besides Saturdays, i LOVE yoga. Always have, but this is the first class I've taken in a long time. I felt brutalized afterwards but stretched, mentally alert, stabilized and ready for the day. Later in the day I found this photo. I want to be able to do this someday.

Lots of people scoff yoga because they say it hurts you. Well yes it does! Hello! Because your body isn't used to that kind of flexibility! Yoga makes you limber and very strong IF the poses are done ccorrectly. If you cannot breath into the stretch or ignore listening to your body, you WILL hurt yourself- most often the joints. But when you are doing yoga correctly, it takes so much more stamina than running, I am instantly hooked. Again. It's hard work, and so rewarding. I love the way I feel when I'm doing yoga and I love how I feel after yoga.

I've had an offer this week to go to Costa Rica and get 100 credit hours of Yoga Instructor in April. It would be awesome.