Christmas Eve at Mom & Dads

Our fresh cut Christmas Tree!

Merry Christmas!

Dec 14 – 31... Another 2 weeks are gone. It’s been below zero for almost the whole time. It never quite made it to -30 below but it was definitely in the -20’s! The daytime highs for the most park didn’t make it above zero until the last 4 days. We now are in the 30’s but the wind is blowing (a bunch). We have received 29 inches of snow this month, way more than normal! We are hoping for a break or it’s going to be a loooooong winter! The Christmas shopping got completed for another year. Mom had 2 more chemo treatments and continues to experience minimal side effects. We are very thankful for that. Christmas Eve was spent attending church and dinner Dixie made with Mom, Dad, Doug and Fran. On Christmas Day Danny and Lexi arrived from California and Denita, Steve & boys came from the farm. We all had a wonderful Prime Rib dinner at Doug and Frans! Denita, Steve and Shay stayed overnight with us on Thur and Fri. We had a family photo taken the day after Christmas. The weather is constantly changing...the snow is melting one day and the next it is snowing more – making for some icy road conditions. Mike had a follow up Dr. appt from his Bone Density scan where he found out he has Osteopenia. Having this makes you a high risk for Osteoporosis. He is having further blood tests and xrays. We had a New Years Eve dinner a night early at Mom and Dad. We feasted on Lobster and Crab! We intended to drive to the farm today, the 31st but the weather didn’t cooperate – the roads are icy and we didn’t want to get snowed in! We hope to go to a small club/restaurant this evening to listen to a band...they play from 6p-9p which just the right time for us!

A view out our front window during the snow storm on Saturday! This was taken early in the day.
Notice that most of the Christmas lights had already blown up onto the house gutter.

It's Winter in Montana!!!!

Here's 2 weeks worth of blogs!!!!

Dec 8 - Dec 13 – Happy Birthday to Dad on the 8th. We had a wonderful dinner at Doug and Fran’s to celebrate. Mom had her first chemo treatment and is feeling pretty good so far. We trimmed our fresh cut tree on Tue. Dixie worked at Fran’s on Wed. On Fri. we took a drive with Doug and Fran to Helena to do some shopping. Along the way we drove some back roads that had beautiful mountain scenery. We went to a ghost town called Marysville on the way to the Great Divide ski run. Once in Helena we had a nice lunch and walked through the old downtown area and drove by the State Capital and the old Governors Mansion. Since we are expecting -31 degrees below zero on Sunday we decided to move the motorhome to an RV site where we could hook up to electricity. We got that taken care of Fri evening before the snow began during the night. SAT - It’s snowing in Montana! We woke up to 2 ft snow drifts at our door. It continued to snow and blow all day! We ventured out in the afternoon as Denita and family are in town, coming especially to see “Sesame Street Live”. Four year old Shay was very excited & thought Elmo was pretty neat! Sun we woke up to ‘no water’...the pipes were frozen. After several calls the builder and the plumber arrived – the empty condo units next to use caused the problem. The heat tapes had not be put on the pipes in the empty condos. By early afternoon we had running water once again! We spent most of the day at Fran and Doug’s where the girls made cookies and such. After all that we had a wonderful dinner there. Stay tuned to the next blog to find out how ‘cold’ it really gets tonight. The forecast is for below zero every night this next week – also more snow!

A photo of the tree we cut down. This is before we drug it down the hill!

This was one of the 8 creek crossing we made on our 'little jount'!

A trip to the Highwood Mountains

Nov 28 -Dec 7 – We went with Mom on Tue and Wed when she had an endoscopy & colonoscopy – both were to rule out cancer in these areas. We received good new from both of them . On Thur we met once again with the Oncologist. He feels that Mom most probably has what is called a Intrahepatic Cholangio Carcinoma -- a tumor inside the liver ducts, covering a large portion of the right lobe. He intends to treat it with Chemotherapy – IV and pills every other week. On Sat., with Doug and Fran, we decided to drive about 40 miles to the Highwood Mountains in the Lewis & Clark National Forest. The purpose of the trip was to find and cut (harvest) a Christmas tree for each of our homes. We obtained the proper permit and tag from the Forest Service and headed out. The weather was unseasonably warm at around 45 degrees but there was still some snow and slush on the ground. After searching for the “just right” trees and climbing up the side of some very steep hills, we found what we were looking for. We had a good time and the view was superb! We continued our drive and once we got back into town we met Mom and Dad and all had Chinese food. Sunday we made a trip to the emergency room with Dixie. She was in a lot of pain with a bowel blockage problem. She is feeling much better but continues to treat a fissure. Stress is getting to us all!