Hello February!

I’ve been bad… I’ve not updated the blog as often this winter as I had hoped to!  But I’m going to take the time to give a pretty thorough update today.

We haven’t made any improvements this winter on the house.  Scott’s job is from 8am-5pm but with the extra hour of drive time (and errands he runs for me too) he doesn’t have much time after that.  But the days are getting longer and we are looking forward to getting our electric wiring and plumbing all ready so we can have real electricity and running water this spring!!!  Try going without running water for almost a year (will be a year in April) and just imagine what it’s like!  I’m not complaining…. I’d much rather live like we are right now, if I had to, but just the thought of finally getting to take a real shower or to flush the toilet every time gets me excited!

We’ve had a lot of people ask us how the weather is out here!  It has been a very mild winter for us!  Most of the time it’s somewhere around 20-40 degrees.  We’ve not had any snow accumulation since I think early December.  Now it does get pretty cold at night, usually in the single digits or teens unless there is wind where it may go just under zero.  But the interesting part is with there being very little humidity, when it is cold outside, it doesn’t feel that cold.  Scott only wears a light weight winter coat and I’m even worse… I usually only wear a sweatshirt and a fleece jacket over that.  We definitely can’t complain about the weather – no freezing rain, no snow accumulations, and bearable temperatures. 

We always get asked about the wind out here!! We have been pleasantly surprised that we don’t have the high wind days very often.  I would say just a few days a month we will have high wind through part of the day.  And otherwise, it’s pretty calm here!  A light breeze occasionally, but it’s been wonderful here!

An update on our wood stove!!  This one is a fun update!  Back at the beginning of October, we purchased all our wood bricks (and our wood stove).  We initially spent $300, then twice, while I was in town, I purchased an additional $30 on 2 occasions.  In total, we spent $360.  Just this month, we have dipped into the second stack of them! We’ve used just over half of the wood bricks we purchased!  Now we’ve supplemented with cut up wood pallets (mostly for our kindly/fire starters).    But from October – February, we’ve only spent approximately $45/month to heat our house! 

A few exciting/interesting things… This one was funny for us!  Our neighbors cut down a Christmas tree for us just after Thanksgiving.  We put it up right away and kept it well watered.  Well, we anticipated it dying, but it never did!  And a few weeks into January, it actually started sprouting new stuff on its branches!!  But I was ready for the extra space in the house, so one night we decided to get it out.  Our concern was making sure none of the cats escaped (it was dark out).  Scott’s idea – ‘Lets chuck it out the front doors!!’  And I was like, ok I guess!   And that’s just what we did!!  I realize this probably isn’t very funny to most people, but to us it was hysterical!  Once it warms up a bit, I’m going to cut slices in the trunk to make decorations and/or a Christmas ornaments to always remember our first ever Christmas in Wyoming and our first real Christmas tree.

The cats are all doing great! We never did figure out what made Tuffy get so sick, but he’s back to normal, being as crazy as ever!  And, even though the Christmas tree is no longer in the house, the tree stand just had to remain! All the cats decided they didn’t want to drink out of their cat bowl anymore!  The two big cats only drink out of a mug in the shower stall while the two little ones drink from the tree stand! They crack me up!  There’s always something interesting going on with them!

Last weekend, our wonderful neighbors Rich, Jackie and Brian, treated us to dinner at Bearcreek Saloon which is maybe 25-30 min from our house just across into Montana.  It was incredible!!  Even I tasted Scott’s steak and it was really good! (I’m not normally a steak person)  The fun part, during the summer tourist season, the Saloon has pig races on the weekends! It’s such a hit that you have to have a reservation to get in. 

Scott’s job is going great! He is happy with it and doesn’t even mind the drive at all (only about 30 min).  But each morning and each night, he gets to see herds of deer and antelope, not to mention the prettiest sunsets I’ve ever seen!!

Now our Bronco decided a few weeks ago to not start anymore… Scott’s been working on it every weekend with no luck.  I was driving it to get the mail and as soon as I got to the mail box it completely died!  Well, I tried restarting it and it wants to start, but it’s as if it’s not getting gas.  Yes, it had plenty of gas; yes, it had ‘spark’ to the spark plugs…. And all the research Scott did suggested it had something to do with some of the sensors.  Well, he replaced them all and still no luck.  Luckily, after I had gotten the mail that day, our neighbor Jackie had just pulled in the drive.  She sat with me for about 15 minutes to see if we could get it started and when it wouldn’t, I went back to her house till Rich and Brian got home (Scott had to stay the night in Billings for a work thing).  Rich and Brian actually pulled the Bronco back to the house!! And they insisted I stay for dinner with them.  So that Friday night I treated them all to Pizza Hut for their hospitality!  I have to say, all our neighbors are amazing!

OH!!! I keep forgetting! I’ll have to get a picture to post of it soon, but in October, I entered a custom drawn belt buckle into a contest to try to win for Scott for Christmas.  The belt buckle looked like a combination of a few of his coins.  Although it was supposed to be a surprise, I wanted to be sure that #1 I drew it correctly and #2 that he would like it – so he did help me design it.  However, for weeks I put in the time to get as many ‘votes’ as possible!  And thanks to everyone who ‘liked’ the photo on Facebook, we won!!!  We got just over 1,800 votes!  While the next person had about 400 votes.  Well, the exciting thing, just about a week or 2 ago we were surprised to receive the buckle in the mail! And let me tell you it is STUNNING!  And Scott was speechless!  He loves it and is excited to wear it this summer.  I’m just so happy I could do something for him for Christmas!

Ok, Ok!!  Now to the baby stuff!!  As of today (2/4/15), I am 12 weeks and 2 days pregnant!  I’m almost out of the first trimester!  Last week I had my first OB appointment and it went great!  The doctor went through all my family history, did an exam and I had to get my blood drawn (I hate that!!).  But here’s the kicker… he used a device on me (no clue what it’s called) and I heard the heart beat!!  It was so surreal!  There are days where I feel pregnant, and days where I don’t, so having that opportunity to know ‘for sure’ that something’s going on in there was really fun!  I’ve been asked a lot if there was just one heart beat or 2…. Well, as far as I know there was only one.   The doctor didn’t have any concerns with the pregnancy.  Although he said I am not allowed to gain any weight.  It’s one thing to not be pregnant and be trying to stay the same or to lose weight, but try being pregnant and not be able to control what your body does and be told NOT to gain weight! AHH.  But I guess the good thing is, I really don’t have much of an appetite.  I’ve actually lost about 13 pounds now (not intentionally) but I guess that’s better than gaining weight!  However, I have gained 12-13 inches around my waistline (it’s getting pretty evident that I’ve pregnant!).  I haven’t had an ultrasound yet.  The doctor told me that between 16-20 weeks they will schedule my first ultrasound.  My next appointment is when I’m at week 15, so I’m sure that I will be scheduling my ultrasound then.  Now unfortunately, Scott wasn’t able to go to my first doctor’s appointment because of work, but I’m really hoping it works out that he can come to the ultrasound!  If not, I’m going to do what my sister-in-law did and have then put the sex of the baby in an envelope so we can find out together. 

Now, because of all our circumstances this year (finishing necessities in the house, Scott’s new job, and now being pregnant), we won’t be coming back to OH in 2015.  However, we have so many wonderful people in our lives that we want to celebrate our exciting news with, so I’ll be sending a baby reveal to all our friends and family!  And some other exciting news!  We’ve finally agreed upon a boy’s name and a girl’s name!  But you are all going to have to wait! 

I hope you all have a wonderful February! I’ll try to post another update or two this month, but if I don’t, that just means all is well and nothing exciting is going on with us!  We miss you all!