How do you

My grandmother is dying. She only has a month or two left to live in this world. She and my granddad have been married for about 64 years. I have no idea what he will do.

My grandmother and I have butted heads over the years, (we are too much alike is the problem) but there are many things that I respect about her. She built a life with my grandfather for over 60 years. There are few people that have been married that long. She has had multiple surgeries over the years, but she always decides that she is going to get through this and not give up.

She keeps up with fashion and style better then me. Once in high school, she took me Christmas shopping at the Gap and talked about how all the magazines said lime green was the color of the season. I just stared at her. We bought a grey cardigan at my request. She redecorates her house every 10 years (and I inherit her cast offs and am glad to have them).

She wasn't too happy with my choice of A&M at first and wanted me to go to UT. I told her burnt orange clashed with my skin tone.

She adores my husband and is so happy for me. She is so glad that I am where I am.

She was raised on a dirt farm in Oklahoma during the depression. She was born into the Polk family and is proud of their heritage and roots. She loves football. My brothers go watch football games with her, and my husband says she know the game better then him.

She loves parties and throwing them. She truly is a Sothern belle.

Here is a picture of her dancing at my wedding with her nephew.
This is before I walked down the aisle.
I love this one.

Not on the run

For those of you who are unaware of some thing about my personal life, I have a confession to make. I am always constipated. I have been constipated my whole life. Some people are rushed to the emergency room as a child because of broken bones. Not me! I have never had a broken bone, just abdominal pain which took me to the ER.

But I have finally found a positive side to this problem. I can eat all the cherries I want! It is cherry season up here in the Flathead Valley and most people have to limit their consumption of this sweet, delicious fruit. I can eat a whole bag and go about my daily life in complete comfort. I can eat all the cherry crisp that is in my fridge. I can snack on them throughout the day, since my husband picked a bushel of them a few days ago and I am not motivated to learn to can. In short, it is nice to know that after years of pain and GI distress, along with threatened surgeries when you are 4, that there is something nice that I can get out of the experience. I am not sure it's worth it, but I try to look on the bright side.

Holiday

A few weeks ago, we went to Canada with a couple we know here. (Pictures pending). I had never been to Canada before so I get to add that to the list of exciting places I have visited. And a stamp on my passport.

Apparently it was a holiday weekend for Canada because everyone said it was a holiday, but no one knew what the holiday was. We asked about 10 people and they had no idea. They just knew that they didn't have to go to work on Monday. When pressing for information the National Park employee said that it was some sort of civic holiday. Really answered our curiosity. We had him call the visitor center and the visitor center had no idea what holiday it was. As my husband muttered "Too much land, not enough history."

Finally while waiting in line for a shower (we were camping), I found a lady who knew what holiday it was. Heritage Day. Apparently the national government tells the province's that they have to have a holiday that weekend, but leave it up to each province what holiday they want to have. So each province is running around making up a holiday and the calendar makers just put civic holiday on the day rather then list each province's holiday.

Panic Attack

A short story of my own sappiness. We went camping with the aforementioned brother and his family the weekend that they were here. We drove out Friday evening after work and on the way, I fell asleep as I usually do when riding in a car for more then 20 miles.

On Sat, Lonnie drove me back into town and I worked my 4 hour shift. The plan was for me to drive back in my car after work. Well, first I took a shower and grabbed a bite to eat after work. Then I drove out to where I thought the campsite was. After driving the same 3 miles several times and discovering 2 other campsites, I stopped to ask directions. The whole time I am thinking "what will I do if I can't find it? I could go back home, but I would have to sleep by myself! I haven't slept by myself in 6 months. I don't know if I could stand it" Turns out that the site is on the next lake, about 6 miles down the road. At this point it is over 3 hours since I got off of work.

I find the campsite only to discover that my dear hubby and his brother took off to try to call me. I pull out my cell phone thinking that perhaps I will pay the roaming fee this once. Huh! My phone doesn't even roam out there. Just searches and searches. So I use a pay phone and use a calling card number that I used in college that I had memorized at one time and had not used in 5 years. I have no idea how I remembered it. Called Lonnie's brothers cell phone and left several messages and finally got ahold of them. Turns out that they drove all the way back to town in order to get a signal. When they finally come back, my husband admits to me that he missed me and didn't want to sleep by himself either. And the next day, there were several sweet messages on our answering machine from him. So we are a sappy couple, I know.

And just because we are on a David Hasselhoff kick of bad music videos:


David Hasselhoff - Jump In My Car

4 small children and one crazy aunt

I am going to attempt to catch up on what has been going on up here for us. We have had lots of visitors and going places.

First Lonnie's brother, sister-in-law and 4 kids came to visit us for a week. Lots of fun, but those kids can really wear you out! "No, you can't feed the animals in a national park. No, you can't pick the protected wildflowers. You really don't want to see a bear." You get the idea.

Here is a picture of Lonnie and his nephew, Isaac, at Glacier.



Here is a good shot of a gorge we like to visit.

A shot during our hike to Hidden Lake. Lots more goats, but our camera ran out of batteries.

Home of the strange

So a few days ago I pick up the local newspaper and read this. Now there is a follow up article. What gets me is not so much the fact that there was an alligator in Montana, but the way the situation was handled. Gotta love it.