NEWS

I thought I would share a piece of news. It is no secret that Dave and I feel that God has orchestrated everything regarding the house in Montana. From my contacting our Realtor Bill (who wasn't involved in any sort of way with the first house we looked at 4 years ago) to the foreclosure price, to Randy as our contractor, etc. it's all been God's Divine hand guiding and providing. Realizing that, we made the decision that the Mountainview Hideaway was a blessing to be shared with others and have plans to offer it as a "retreat" for ministry. We can be as involved with guests as they like, playing tour guide, etc or as uninvolved as they like, basically being a place for them to crash at night. We want to be able to share what God has provided for us and in the most beautiful setting imaginable.

Needless to say, over time, Dave and I have talked about the practical logistics of our retirement move. As they say, "timing is everything" so there were the questions of, "When do we put our house on the market?" "Will we have to move into an apartment between the closing and his last day of work?" "Maybe the Mobile Home Park would buy it from us and we can stay until we move out?" (We know that we would get less money from them because they want to make a profit but that might be a wash for us if we had to rent an apartment, stay in a hotel, etc.) "How will this play out?" and so on and on it has gone. I have said from the get go, that God has orchestrated everything so far and that I had total peace that He would work that out as well and that I wouldn't stress about it.

Right after Christmas, we had new neighbors move in next door to us. They are a nice couple with 3 young children. He is from El Paso and she is from San Antonio; right after they moved in, he was out in the yard and introduced himself to Dave as he was coming home from work. A couple of weeks ago, I was at Lowes picking up more paint and supplies when he approached me and introduced himself, 'I believe I'm your new neighbor", he said. We began chatting and at the time, he apologized for the extra car parked on the street in front of their house and said that he hoped they hadn't been too noisy. (We look like a used car lot so I told him, if anything, I should apologize!) He said his wife's parents were visiting from San Antonio and that they liked our mobile home park so much, that they had driven around looking at empty lots because they want to sell their house in San Antonio and move up here. I said in passing that I was there buying paint supplies because we are selling our house later later this year and moving. We just looked at each other and said, "hmmm...." During the course of this conversation I learned that they are Christians as well; part of his concern about the noise was that they were having an evening of praise and worship.

I shared with Dave about our exchange at Lowes but hadn't thought about it since. Last week our new neighbors knocked on our door and asked if we had given any thought to an asking price for our home? I invited them in even though we look like a disaster area with boxes and stuff strung out all over the place. I gave them a limited tour of the house and we began talking. In a nutshell, they are serious about us selling the house to their family! We talked about our situation of hoping the park would buy it so we could stay until the move. He does home remodeling for a living and said that we could work out a deal where Dave and I don't do any more home repairs or painting, etc. reflecting that in the price and we could stay until we needed to move. A win/win situation for everyone!

This is an answer to prayer!! Dave and I have began to pray over the selling price, we typically pray individually over big decisions and then come together to see what we feel the Holy Spirit's leading is; nearly every single time, it is identical! So, this is the beginning stage, laying the possible groundwork for what happens in just nine months. I am excited, amazed and thankful over how God works out even the smallest details in our lives. He alone is worthy...

"For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly." Psalms 84:11

PAINTING, PURGING AND PACKING

With only two months left until our first U Haul truckload, we've been in overdrive down here. We painted the Master Bathroom last month and now we are in the midst of purging, sorting and packing. There are boxes and plastic containers piling up and the house is in such a state of disarray but it's only going to get worse before it gets better. We are planning on taking ALL of Dave's Colorado milk bottle collection and "go-withs" as well as the shelves and bookcases he has everything displayed upon. I am looking forward to a time where all of his stuff can be contained in ONE room, his hobby room. With well over five hundred bottles out and on display, it is a lot of work for him to properly prepare everything for a 3 day drive. Better him than me since I have enough on my own plate to prepare!

Once the bottles and shelves are down, we can spackle and repaint the living room. There is another wall with nearly the same amount of milk bottles displayed.

This past month we ordered some new lamps as well. I wanted something different, yet still rustic for the Master Bedroom. I really liked these when I saw them on Black Forest Decor but Bed, Bath & Beyond carried them as well so overall, we saved more than a hundred dollars!

We unpackaged the lamps and put these out on our night stands to see how nicely they would go with our log bedroom set and I am very pleased!

The matching floor lamp is currently out in the living room and I can't wait to see it up in the bedroom!

The plan is to put the floor lamp in this corner in the Master bedroom.

Dave has had his heart set on a log floor lamp ever since we got the table lamps that are out in the family room...

This one, in the lighter Aspen wood will go nicely in the living room in between the two rocking chairs. We've decided against table lamps but we need another light source along with the overhead light.

I purged the curio cabinet which holds my Pink Glass Depressionware pieces; setting aside those pieces that I want to pass on to our daughters. I catalogued those pieces and wrote up a brief summary of the different designs along with their estimated values. Once that was finished, I spent a couple of hours reconfiguring where everything should go, photographing it and then labeling which shelf it went on. I'm anticipating that it will go quicker when I recreate the display once it's up there!

For some reason, packing up the Pink Glassware made me a little sad...

I started packing up the china cabinet yesterday but ran out of bubble wrap near the end. I am putting the china cabinet up in the craft studio once it's finished and I am pretty certain, I will keep special things that were my mother's up in the hutch portion. While wrapping things up, I labeled all of those things too so they can be separated and set off to the side until they are ready to be displayed.

I feel like the clock is ticking...

GET IT TOGETHER

I love organization! I get a thrill from looking at organizational products, planning a project and the thrill of completing something that ultimately, makes my life better. I also love our movie collection. Over the years we have transitioned from VHS tapes to DVD's and then eventually to Blu-Rays. I have accused Dave of being a "Blu-Ray Snob" but even I have to admit, the clarity of some of our movies can't be beat! I was discouraged every time I opened the doors to our movie cabinet and looking at the picture below, you can see why! All our Blu Rays were stored in the bottom with our TV Series' and Documentaries while regular DVD's were in the top section. My Type A personality just couldn't handle this any longer!

I looked on PINTEREST for some ideas; have I said that I also LOVE Pinterest? Electronic hoarding without the guilt and clutter, but I digress! After seeing some options that were on there, I got a general idea of what I wanted to do and what types of products were out there. I found these sleeves on Amazon, they come 25 to a pack and cost less than a dollar per sleeve. Each sleeve holds 2 DVD's or Blu-Rays and you can insert the liner notes from the old plastic cases so you can see what you have and it looks very neat and tidy.

I had an enormous stack of empty disc cases which I threw into the recycling bin. Not all of our movies were transferred to the sleeves, we have some nice boxed sets or metal specialty cases (Harry Potter series, Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, Band of Brothers, etc) that I decided to leave as is. Once the DVD's had been transferred, I purchased 6 photo storage boxes from Hobby Lobby at only $2.00 a piece (on sale) and divided our movies in between them. All Westerns, whether DVD or Blu Ray were alphabetized together as were our Christmas movies and everything else was appropriately organized, including those boxed sets or specialty cases. I took a disorganized, hot mess and transformed it into a well-organized thing of deep, personal satisfaction! Can you believe that there are 300 movies in these boxes?

All of our Boxed TV Series and Documentaries are stored neatly now in the bottom of our cabinet. If I can only convince Dave to discard his old VHS tapes from all the Stanley Cup 1999 playoff games when our Dallas Stars won the Cup... One step at a time!

BE OUR GUEST (Part Two)

In September we drove the van up to the Mountainview Hideaway, loaded up with boxes but my Dad had also gotten us a generator and a log splitter which we needed to get up there. We were joined by our best friends here in Texas, Randy and Lynette. We were eager to share our home with such special people, near and dear to our hearts. The leaves on the Aspens as well as the needles of the Larch were beginning to turn golden for their annual Autumn ritual which is spectacular to observe!

We drove up to Logan Pass where Dave and Randy took a short jaunt up the Hidden Lake Trail for some overviews of the area.

Naturally, we stopped at "The Huckleberry Patch" on our way back!

Our neighbors had invited all of us to come over for their last cookout for the season and we were more than happy to take them up on their offer and enjoy some tasty elk burgers!

There were nice breakfasts to start our day, both at home and Montana Coffee Traders...

On our way to the Many Glacier area, coming back over Logan Pass, the clouds were making for some really interesting photo ops:

We stopped at the Wild Goose Island turnout, which is a favorite spot for photographs.

We had lunch at the Many Glacier Hotel's Ptarmigan Dining Room before riding the boat across Swiftcurrent Lake.

Besides the gorgeous Aspen trees, we saw bears!

Randy helped Dave assemble the second of the two new rocking chairs we had delivered.

Lynette and I are only 3 days apart and we celebrated turning 55 by going to dinner at The Lodge At Whitefish Lake.

You know you're best friends when you unknowingly get one other the same exact card!!

Wonderful memories made with special friends...

BE OUR GUEST (Part One)

One of the things I am anticipating most about being at the Mountainview Hideaway, is having visitors. We have a quiet retreat, tucked away in the beauty of Northwest Montana and we enjoy sharing it with others. A lot of thought and detail has gone into creating a guest bedroom where people can have every possible comfort as well as a peaceful place to just relax and recharge. I've also gathered recipes for hearty breakfasts to start them out for whatever adventure the day might hold.

This summer in particular, the Hideaway saw its most guests yet! In July, our daughter Laura and her boyfriend Jake used it for several days as part of a three week vacation out west.

They left the morning after we arrived but not until after having their photo taken and enjoying a breakfast at one of our favorite spots, Montana Coffee Traders.

Our oldest daughter Jennifer and her family came to Montana after hitting Mount Rushmore on their family vacation. Dave and I wanted them to experience all the reasons why we love this area, so we came up with some ideas to hopefully entice them to come back again. For the grand kids, we set up our 2 backpacking tents and a pup tent so they could "camp" in the safety and comfort of our house. I say safety because there are bears and wolves in the area and we didn't want them to be scared of what might be out there. Everyone SAYS they want to see a bear, it's just that they don't want to see one looking right at them! We also had personalized tee shirts made for them, got them each a stuffed animal "mascot" and little lanterns for them to use at night in their tents.

Dave and I purchased a fire pit from Cabela's which we initiated with hot dog roasting and making "camping cones".

We took them into Glacier National Park and shared one of our favorite hikes, Avalanche Lake.

This past summer saw numerous wildfires and unfortunately, Glacier had one along the Going To The Sun Road which prevented us from going up to Logan Pass where there are mountain goats all over the place. We still had lots of other activities available, one of which was to go to Big Mountain in Whitefish. We rode the chairlift and had lunch at the Summit House Restaurant and rode alpine slides afterwards.

There was swimming at the public beach at Whitefish Lake...

Playing Baggo and Ladderball at the house...

Dave and Corey hiked to the Ptarmigan Tunnel while Jennifer and I took the kids on a white water raft trip...

We enjoyed The Huckleberry Patch numerous times...

The kids earned their Jr Ranger Badges...

We went to the Montana Vortex...

And did family pictures...

Montana is waiting and we are glad to be your guides!