Krista's Wonderful Time at Bethany and Bryce's House.

1.  I love meeting Bentley again. He is not exactly as timid and shy as he was the first time we met. He is wild and playful.  He loves to chew on slippers and fingers and his chew toys. He does get very cute and cuddly if he's tired and he fell asleep in my lap several times.

2. I wake up in the morning and walk up to Bethany's cereal cupboard. I open it and here's what I find: Captain Crunch, Apple Jacks, and Cocoa Puffs. Is that amazing or what. My favorite cereals in one cupbord with out any other healthy cereals. I love it! Breakfast is good here.

3. Bethany's cereal bowls are ginormous!

4.  Another season of The Cosby Show for me to watch. It's one of my favorite shows to watch and I now have a whole season to watch. I can sit back with my Captain Crunch and Mt. Dew (which is always in supply here!) and watch some episodes of the best humor on TV.

5.  The Black Bottom cake we are going to have after supper will be a highlight. Chocolate cake with creamcheese and a pudding layer. Delicious! Happy Birthday Daniel!

6. The massage chair downstairs. I love those things!. They're so cool..

Well, thats all I can think of now, but I'm afraid it doesn't show the amount of fun-ness I'm having. I better get back to hugging the puppy and watching Monk.

Allow me to introduce Bentley

I know that the title may look a little familiar as it was pretty much the same as my last one, but since then we've said goodbye to Remington and have welcomed Bentley

Remy, was unfortunately very sick with the Parvovirus when we got him. After a few days we realized that what we thought were symptoms of just adjusting to a new life, were really symptoms of something way worse. We brought him to the vet where our fears were confirmed. Parvo is pretty much a death sentance for puppies, and he only made it one more day before he passed away. We loved the time we had with our perfect little puppy and were heartbroken when he died.

After about a month or so we decided that we wanted to find another little puppy. We found Bently, a 8 week old labradoodle. Or a lab crossed with a poodle as Bryce would say (apparently that sounds more manly!) He is a cutie and a crazy puppy rolled into one.

Last Saturday Bryce got up early to let Bentley out of his kennel and this is what I came up to see. Just a nice lazy Saturday morning of naps and video games.

His favorite place to sleep was right under our coffee table on the ledge below. He just lays there spread eagle and is the cutest thing ever. We had to take it off now so he can't scratch it all up. But I find this picture just hysterical!

We've had a major breakthough with him. For the last two nights he has gone (well we had to shove him in) into his kennel and just went to sleep without howling and whining for hours!! We were so happy to get a little extra sleep the last few nights. He still has quite a bit of seperation anxiety, but we're hopeful that we will eventually win that battle too.

Allow me to introduce Remington

So we finally found a great puppy that we got to take home with us. As I type this he's laying on my lap, with a  ball right in front of his nose, but he wants to be right here with me.

This is Remington, affectionately called Remy

Yes I am that big of a fan of Remington Steele, that I would want to name our puppy after him

He is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever/German Shepherd Cross, so he is going to be a big boy when he grows up. The humane society is guessing that he is about 4 months. Thankfully he is getting used to walking down the stairs because he is a lot of puppy to carry down to go outside.

He is such a cute puppy, but doesn't act like a puppy at all. Maybe once a day I can get him to chase a ball, for about one minute then he is looking for a lap to lay in again.

While we're loving having such a good puppy that doesn't get into mischief, it will be fun to see him get used to a new house and schedule and become a playful little guy.

On a completely unrelated note, another great gift that my husband got for me are our amazing new coffee/end tables that are filling up our living room and making it look one step closer to a real live house

Just to give you a glimpse of how much snow that western ND got over Christmas, this picture is out my front window at the neighbors house

Some good things about ND

This weekend Bryce and I went out to a national park about an hour away from our house. I was reminded that there are, despite my denials and clinging to my MN status, some good things about ND.

# 1 This guy, who takes me on adventures and is just incredible.

# 2 Beautiful scenery ( you may have to drive back into the central time zone to get there, but it does exsist!)

#3 I found TREES!!!! That alone made my day!

#4 Buffalo. When we were driving into the park I said that was one thing I really wanted to see again, and they were out in abundance. This guy was right on the trail we were on.

#5 Plenty of places for boys who like to climb things to go crazy

We started out on a nice easy nature trail, but soon ended up finding our own way. Way down at the bottom of all  the trees is where our trail was, we just took the more adventurous way throughout the park,

On top of one of the buttes it was just like you were in another world. All you saw was the crunchy rock you were on, the sides just dropped off. We started wondering what would happen if we encountered another buffalo, not a fun thought when your 100 feet from the ground and there is just no where to go but down.

Mapping out our descent

I was pretty proud of myself for making it down from there

We started up by the large rock on the left

Just loving life and the adventures we get to go on together!

Kitchen Redo

So I finally did it. I attacked the kitchen this week, and LOVE the results.  When in the middle of the painting I realized how good the blue that I picked out looked with the green that the walls were painted, its almost seemed a shame to cover it all up. Here’s what it looks like in the process of painting and the final results.

 

This funny guy felt that the walls were getting more attention than he was

I think the blue really improved the look of the cabinets as well.

 

 

Another accomplishment was finally getting well wall decorations up in the living room.

I think I’ve run out of painting jobs around the house, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself any more. I think its time to find a new hobby. Any suggestions?

Windows Weekend

Bryce and I have had the pleasure of having members of both of our families come out for a little while in the past few weeks, and we sure have put them to work! My mom and little sister made the trek out for a few days, and we tackled all the curtains and planned out some decorating. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from this adventure, but I'll try to get some shots of the rooms to show the improvements that they helped with.  They made a huge difference in the house!

This past weekend we (when I say we, it doesn't necessarily include me) tackled our largest project yet. We replaced all 4 windows on the front side of the house. The ones we had were pretty bad and leaked water in bad storms and were quite drafty. Its been wonderful to have the new ones in, and I'm sure we'll be even happier when we see the heat bill going down! The best part was that Charlie and Polly were able to come out and help for the weekend. Bryce's aunt and uncle who also live in Dickinson came over for the day to pitch in as well. The plan was to get all 4 windows done, but none of us were sure if that was possible. The guys surprised us by getting all of them in by 230 on Saturday! That allowed for us to sit back and have a relaxing evening. Here's a peak into our weekend.

We turned the laundry room into a painting assembly line for the trim boards

I had to add a picture to prove that I did do something that weekend!

And here it is, 4 beautiful new windows! 

Thank you Charlie, Polly, Monte, and Selma for all your help and for a great weekend!

The next project...  (this is one that I can do!) Stay tuned to see the results.

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Labor Day Camping Trip

Over Labor Day weekend we got to have some more adventures. Our friends Dan and Karey joined us for the weekend, we had a great time and the guys kept us laughing the entire time!Saturday evening we went out to the Rough Riders Hotel in Medora for supper with another couple and then went to the musical. The Chinese acrobats were there, and were so much fun to watch.

Sunday we went camping at a nearby campground. There were 15 of us total so a big group but a great one too. We went for a short hike, and relaxed at the camp sites, thankfully we got out hot dogs roasted before they told us we couldn't have a fire because of the fire dangers. I never realized how much of an integral part of camping campfires are until we were sitting around the pit in the dark with nothing to stare at.

Dan and Karey

It looked like a lot of fun to ford the river, but those rocks are sharp!

On the way home Bryce and I stopped at Painted Canyon to do a little more hiking.