Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Christmas Survey

*Wrapping paper or gift bags?
For Chirstmas I do wrapping paper and ribbon too. I like doing all of the ribbon once a year.
*Real tree or artificial?
This year I have a small artificial tree because it was given to me. Last year I was very upset when my mom boughts an artificial tree. Although this year she says we are going to go buy a real one again when I come home!!
*When do you put up the tree?
Well at my moms right befor Christmas, but I put mine up a few weeks ago. Right after Thanksgiving
*When do you take the tree down?
At my parents we took it down the day after Christmas, This year mine will come down when I return from Oregon after the first of the year actually
*Do you have a nativity scene?
No I don't this year. I have to work on that.
*Hardest person to buy for?
My dad
*Easiest person to buy for?
This year Kyle has been pretty easy.
*Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Gosh I don't know...i can't think of anything
*Mail or email cards?
Mail they are mostly out already. Just have like 3 more to do.
*Favorite Christmas movie?
The Polor Express!! Christmas Story is always good
*When do you start shopping for Christmas?
I started in September!!
*Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
No not that i remember
*Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Chocolate Pie
*White lights or colored on the tree?
I love white lights, but this year I went with multi colored. They were cheap.
*Favorite Christmas song?
Silent Night, Jingle Bells too.
*Travel for Christmas or stay at home?
This year I am traveling home to my parents house. First year ever traveling home. Usually I was already there.
*Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's?
Probably half then the other half later cause it will bother me till i come up with them all.
*Open the presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?
We do Christmas Eve at my Dad's parents and open one present there, from santa, then Christmas Day at home with my parents and then go to my mom's family for the afternoon for more Christmas fun!!
*Most annoying thing about this time of year?
I think the Christmas traffic and people!!
*What I love most about Christmas?
I think this year it will be just seeing my family

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Past few weeks




So that past few weeks have been pretty crazy. My financial education class filled up already. We don't start calsses till the end of January. I was supper excited and then reality hit me that I have a lot of work to do before it actually starts. All the little things have to be done. I can do it though.

I have 20 or so people that are interested in taxes. I hope to get like 10 to come to training. Half is good and will make us operational. But again a lot more work to get done!!

Past few weeks Kyle and I have been doing a lot of hanging out. Last weekend we went to Libby. It snowed and was really pretty. Friday night we went and hung out with some of his friends and played pool. I really enjoyed it!! Saturday we went back and played some more pool. It started to snow some more and Kyle said I beat we wake up to a foot of snow and sure enough Sunday there was a foot of new snow. It was really pretty but it took us a long time to get home.

This weekend we went for a drive and did a little Christmas shopping. Took it nice and easy this weekend.

Here are some new pictures that I took.

Friday, November 30, 2007

7 Degrees

So it is 7 degrees today. It is really cold. And it didn't know. Normally if it were this cold in Oregon there would be snow. Actually it never gets this cold. I am actually wearing my coat today, so I don't get yelled at again. I keep getting in trouble cause I don't have my heavy coat on.

Last night I went to a social for the young professional club. It was speed networking. It was a ton of fun and I meet a lot of people. It seems like there is mostly just Realtors or financial people so for me that was fun!!

Still waiting to see if Kyle gets his truck back today. He is very ready to have his truck and wants to go to Libby this weekend just so he can drive it.

I need to take a picture of the mountains with the snow. It looks really pretty and get is posted. Maybe this afternoon it will be clear and I can get a good one.

That is it for now.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was my first one ever not going to one of the grandparents house or at least being with my family. I stayed in Montana and spent Thanksgiving with Kyle's mom,brother, Aunt, Grandmother, and cousin. We went over just for the day. Kyle had to work Wed and Fri and were both very long days. Kyle's mom's boyfriend went hunting that morning and came back just in time for dinner with a huge dead elk. We still had turkey for dinner though.

I spent the rest of the weekend pretty much relaxing. Since Kyle worked Friday I actually got to sleep in. Till noon actually. Skipped the whole early morning shopping trips. I didn't think I needed to go shopping with all of the Montana drivers that can't drive on a normal day. We did end up going out later that night and getting some Christmas lights and a few decorations so I could decorate my apartment. I have lights in the windows and after tonight I will have a Christmas tree. One of my co-workers is letting me use her small 4ft tree. I am not really sure where I am going to put it but will find a place for it.

It is getting very cold. It has been in the 20s for a high and down into the single digits for a low. It snowed the other day only about a 1/2 an inch. Don't know when we will get more but it is just really really cold.

I have made train reservations for Dec. 21 and coming back on Dec. 28. Although I may not be taking the train now if my cousin Katrina is coming to visit me. Plans are still being worked out for that and if my brother will also be coming to visit.

As for work the financial education course is almost full. We have 13 families or spaces reserved. It has only been a few weeks with registration open!!

I finished my first class for my masters degree and got an A. So i have a 4.0 at University of Montana so far!! Now I just need to actually get into the unversity for the program.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Yesterday night it snowed and stuck a little. The ground was a little too wet, but my car has snow on it. So I drove to work with the assistance of Kyle. Not sure what assistance he was besides laughing at me. He said are you scared. I wasn't but I did have both hands on the wheel. He informed me there wasn't even snow on the road. I didn't care I was practicing!!

Kyle is letting me use his computer now. We set it up at my house because mine is just not really working. It needs help!! I don't know what to do with myself though, it is so fast! I could download music put it on my ipod so quickly, o and do five other things at the same time. Although lets just see how long it takes me to kill his computer.

I am going to Kyle's mom's house for Thanksgiving. Not sure if we are heading over there tomorrow night and staying there or just going for the day. Probably depend on how bad Kyle's day at work will be. Today he had to go in at 2am. He had over 600 cases of beer to deliver. Tomorrow will probably be just as bad. Putting four days of work into three and he usually works 12 hour days anyway. He might be getting his truck out of the shop this week so I won't have to take him to work anymore. No more 5am or this morning 2am.

Friday, November 16, 2007

First Snow

Yesterday we had the first sign of snow. It snowed while I was driving to work but it didn't stick. Maybe this weekend it will come and stick. It is cold enough for snow (at least I think so). Usually in Oregon if it was in the 20's it would snow but their is just not moisture I guess!!

This week we started advertising for the financial education classes. We opened up registration three days ago and already have 5 families signed up. Banks want to start telling customers but we are a little nervous about telling a whole lot of people because we feel like we are going to fill up pretty quickly this first class. We have habitat wanting to make it mandatory their families go through it and CASA wanting to send the kids aging out of foster care to it. So I think it is going to be pretty successful.

I am going to be teaching the children's education classes. Although so far I am not teaching anybody. Everybody that has signed up has little little kids. We wanted to have 8-13 years old in my class. We are shooting for like 15 families somebody has to have some elementary school kids.

I recruited 5 more volunteers for the income tax sites. As of right now I think we have enough volunteers to actually make some operation but I want more!! I have proved the people from the credit union wrong already. She even said she wished I was on her team. I am going to put fliers up around town and see if I get anybody that way!! We have till January before training starts.

In other news besides work. Kyle and I went to Libby. We almost had a nice big turkey for Thanksgiving. There was a huge Turkey and he jumped up on the guard rail and then flew into the road. We almost hit him. It was huge it would have hurt my car. On our way home we went the long way up to Eureka which is about 5 miles from the Canada border and back into Kalispell through Whitefish. We also went up to Big Mountain. There is a whole town up there for the ski resort. There was just a little snow up there but there is probably more just from the cold this week. It was a really pretty drive. I kind of want to go to Canada some time. We will see.

Not sure what the plans are for this weekend but maybe do a little Christmas shopping. Have to figure something out for my brother and Kyle? Although still has to be kind of cheap cause well I am poor!!

Friday, November 2, 2007

No Snow

I forgot to add that there is no snow here yet!! We actually had snow on the mountains a few weeks ago and every day it seemed like it was getting closer and closer to town. Although the mountains are clean with NO SNOW. So my prediction of it not snowing here is going great. Everybody said it snows on Halloween so I was pretty nervous this week but it didn't!! I really need to learn to drive but I don't want to yet!!

New Month

Another month has gone by and now the start of the holidays. Halloween was pretty uneventful here. We went over to my boss's house for a gathering of people. They had one of my co-workers boys hanging from the tree, putting on quite the show for the hanging. I guess at some points they had quite the audience. We went over towards the end of the night, but it was quite the place to be. I actually thought I may not remember where the house was with out seeing the house but no worries there you just followed the people.

One of my neighbors had her little boy all dressed up and he was quite cute in his duck costume. He is probably a year old but it was quite cute with his little tail wiggling across the lawn.

They got some of my test results back from last week. We are now confirming if I have a gluten intolerance. If I do it will be quite the learning experience but will have to take out everything with gluten in my diet. This includes wheat, rhy, and barley. And well everything has a splash of gluten in it. It is quite the filler in everything. Going to make shopping a little more difficult and more expensive so I will be planning ahead a lot to try to make my 160 a month go a long ways. If you have suggestions email me!! Will have the confirmation probably next week. The first test says early onset celiac disease. Not sure yet what the early onset means but we will see.

I went to the community college yesterday and recruited volunteers for my income tax sites. Looks like I have probably 10 volunteers. Which is a great start and I still have a few more months to get more people. Next week I will probably send out all of my letters to the billion of people I have lists for and then put up signs around town. I have some people I need to prove wrong that we can make these sites in Kalispell productive. Which just makes me work harder so I guess the challenge was a good.

This weekend should be pretty uneventful. A friend is moving so I will probably go over and help her tomorrow with moving. She is getting a two bedroom place which is great so she can finally get her daughter up here living with her. She moved here over the summer from Texas.

That is probably all for now!!

Monday, October 29, 2007

Another week gone by

This past week was in reality pretty uneventful. I had yet another meeting with the group that I am working with for volunteer income tax sites. Have some interesting new obstacles to work through but hopefully won't be as difficult as they could be. But I have 8 mentors signed up for my financial education program and 3 new people signed up to do taxes. Off to a good start in that area.

My mom came again to help me get through some medical tests. They went great. Besides the bruise on my wrist where they tried to do the IV. They had a small issue with getting me to go to sleep. But I did finally go to sleep once everything was over and I was home. Slept great with the amount of drugs they gave me. My mom and I didn't do a whole lot. I slept a lot, watched tv (a lot of home and garden shows) and relaxed. She left on Friday night so I then had the weekend to myself.

Kyle went to Libby to go hunting and work on his truck. He thought I should go with him and I informed him I would just yell run deer run. So he decided my presents was not needed.

I spent the weekend with some friends because besides hunting season is a women's holiday!! No deer was brought home, just a broken down truck. Have to get up way to early tomorrow and help Kyle get to work. He doesn't have a working transmission anymore.

Sunday was a real lazy day of doing my laundry, making banana bread and watching some TV. I have to write a paper that I was going to write this weekend for school now before it is due on Tuesday. Turned in my first paper last week. Don't know how well I did, but it didn't take me long to get back into the procrastination ways.

Monday, October 22, 2007

My Weekend

This weekend was very relaxing. Saturday I spent the day laying on the couch and trying to sleep. Kyle was watching a movie but every commercial he seemed to find the need to wake me up. He didn't think there was a reason for me to be sleeping all day. Saturday afternoon I cleaned up my apartment. Something smelled horrible and we think it is actually coming from the apartment upstairs where the girl moved out and left everything. So I masked the smell in my apartment with as many cleaning and smelly stuff as I could. While I was cleaning Kyle decided to rearrange my living room. It looks pretty good!!

Sunday I did get to sleep in which was nice. Kyle was over again and we both got glued into watching Law and Order SVU. It was a marathon so we watched it for a lot of hours.

I didn't get to go to the pumpkin patch which is what I really wanted to do. But I still have a little time. I will try to go this week some time.

My mom will be here tomorrow. I have some stuff to do with the doctors and figured my mom could come take care of me. I didn't think Kyle and I had been together quite long enough to put him through it.

So it was a good restful weekend for my upcoming week of doctor visits.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Short Blog

I thought I would post a short blog. I have twenty minutes left of work and that isn't quite enough time to start another project. Lil (my boss) has been gone this week and she left me with what we thought was a list of stuff to keep me busy but I only have one thing left on the list to do.

I have been recruiting volunteers to be a mentor for my financial education course. I thought this might be a little difficult but in the one week I have been talking to a few people we have 7 volunteers and that has been very little effort on my part for recruiting. So now I just have to get participants and work out the details of grant money and we should be good to go!!
We have a bank that is willing to back up our new accounts and the line of credits that we are offering customers so the details will get worked out with that here soon.

Now if I could just get enough volunteers for my income tax sites so I don't have to step foot in them. It sounds like a grand idea at least!!

This weekend I hope will be a lazy weekend of doing nothing. Since before I left for Colorado I have been going places every weekend. We have been to Libby twice and then to Oregon. I realized that since I meet Kyle I haven't had one Saturday or Sunday where I watched lifetime movies all day.

I wrote two posts in one week Sharlee. Now it will probably be a month again till the next!!

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

A trip to Oregon

Well Kyle and I took off for Oregon on Friday afternoon. It made for a long trip but Kyle drove a good majority and while he drove I was awake and talked to him. Then we switched about Tri-Cities and he went to sleep and I had to drive in the quiet. The last leg was long. We finally got to my parents house about 2am.

Saturday morning we got up and were lazy for awhile. Adam came by before heading to work for the day. Kyle and I went over to my uncles to see how the things are going with his new house. Talked to them for awhile and then drove out to Silver Creek Falls. We felt like being lazy and didn't really feel like doing the hike. So we just looked at the falls from a distance. Kyle was more interested in trying to find the elk that my dad said were out there. Although we couldn't find them.

Saturday afternoon we went in and saw my grandpa. He is now in rehab. Slept most of the time we were there but when it was announced that dinner was served her woke right up!! We made the rounds in Salem and saw my aunts, uncles and grandma. Kyle meet a good percentage of my family and it wasn't that bad.

Saturday night spent some time with my brother. We went into Salem and went to a bar. Kind of weird when my brother can go to the bars with me!!

Sunday we got up early and headed to the beach. We drove to Newport, then down to Lincoln City. To go to the beach that just means shopping to me. Although Kyle actually seemed to enjoy the shopping also, he bought more then me. That could also be just cause he has more money then me!!

Sunday night we made a quick trip into town to see my friend Shar, Alex and her daughter. Ali did a lot of dancing but still didn't do the cutie dance!! She wore Kyle's shoes which were a little big but she didn't seem to mind!!

The drive home was long, but we stopped off and saw Kyle's dad and then got home pretty late to just unpack the car and crash into bed.

The next few weeks for work will be busy with all the work that needs to be done and looks like I might be out of the office for a few days to try to have a few tests done for some more medical stuff. But hopefully it will help me in the long run!!

Friday, October 5, 2007

Traveling to Colorado



Well once again things have been pretty busy here. While everything is going on it doesn't seem like it is really that busy but then I look back on the past few weeks and realize where I have been and it is crazy.

First off I am 23 now and thanks to everybody who called, text, or left me message on myspace. My birthday didn't amount to a lot in the beginning. I spent the day in Denver finishing up a conference and then the night on a plane home. Although if nothing else I was very ready to be back in Montana. Kyle picked me up from the airport and when I got home I had roses and a gold heart necklace.

I spent 9 days in Colorado. My first stop was in Steamboat for a conference for four days. It was a conference for our area community action agencies. It was a great conference and I learned a lot. I also meet a lot of people that will be able to help me in the future and also meet some people from Oregon community action agencies. I also won the grand prize of 40,000 air miles. Where should I go?

At the end of this conference I had to go to Denver for another conference that started the next week. I drove over with our executive director and we went through the Rocky Mountain National Park. I will have to post a few pictures. We went up for 12,000 feet high. Felt a little like I was on top of the world and it was cold up there with the snow. The only animals I saw were some elk. One was actually sitting in one of the towns that we went through. He was just sitting in somebodies yard. I didn't get a picture so you will just have to believe me.






I found out the I am not made for big towns on my own. I had three days to run around in Denver. I couldn't really figure out the bus system. I figured out one bus that would get me to the 16th street mall so I could eat and look in stores because I didn't have a lot of money to buy things. This conference was on the volunteer income tax sites. It was a good conference but left a little overwhelmed with everything that I need to do in the future months to come.

Before leaving for Colorado, Kyle took me up to Libby. Saw so many turkey's even some baby ones. I will post some pictures. We went to some falls that were there and a suspension bridge that scared me pretty bad.

For the most part I think that is what I have been up to. I think I might actually be coming home next weekend if the weather holds. All day today at work everybody would come by my office talking about if it was snowing yet. I think the snow is on its way, it sure is cold enough for it. I am not quite ready, but I don't know that I will ever be very ready for it. I knew coming here it would snow so I guess it is time to face reality. So I will probably be seeing snow this weekend. It is already on the mountains and seems to be coming down closer and closer to the valley.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

The past few weeks

The past few weeks have been pretty busy. I guess you can tell since I haven't updated my blog in awhile. My mom came and visited me for a few days. We took a long weekend and did some traveling around Montana. We took off from here and headed to Great Falls. We took a tour of the town and then took off to go tour Butte.

I have been there so many times but haven't had a lot of time to see the area. We took an underground tour which was very cool. Saw their old jail that was underground. Evil Coneval was even housed there at one point. We also saw some of the speak easy. Was a very good tour. Also took a town tour, saw all of the neat buildings and took a tour of the mansion.

After visiting Butte we took off for Phillipsburg. That is when my mom had the grand idea of going up to a ghost town. It was up a dirt hill and went up pretty high elevations. Well when I got to the top my car overheated!! So we spent an extra two hours up there waiting for it to cool down. After finally getting off that hill we went and got some bags of rocks to pan for some sapphires. Not sure if we actually found some but if not we found some cool rocks.

When my mom left I had to head down the Big Ski for another conference. We stayed up at the resort so it was a great hotel and very relaxing conference actually. Learned a little but had a good time up there. I then spent the whole weekend in Bozeman with some friends. It was nice to get to hang out with them for the weekend. It was a long drive down there so it was nice to make a weekend out of it.

After getting back I started back to work and started out again busy. Had a couple of days to myself and then my friend Tia came to visit for this last weekend. We spent a lot of the weekend showing her around the area. I convinced my boyfriend to drive us to Glacier park. We picked a great day to go because it was closing that night. With the Autumn leaves and everything is was great up there. We also took a day and drove around the lake.

Overall the next few weeks aren't going to slow down much. I found out yesterday that I got the grant that we applied for to support the volunteer income tax sites. I am also very excited because it seems we have also found a possible credit union to support my financial education courses. That takes a load of pressure off. This next week I head to Colorado for two conferences. The first one is it Steamboat for the poverty conference, the second is for the volunteer income tax sites. I will be in colorado for a full nine days. Coming back to Kalispell really late on my birthday!! I will have some time to hang out though in colorado and see Denver so if anybody has suggestions of places to visit please let me know.

That is pretty much my update for now.

Monday, August 27, 2007

A trip for shopping

Well this weekend was pretty uneventful. Friday I took the afternoon and did some reading and really that was it. I had the urge to go shopping so I went to the so called Mall here, but that was pretty uneventful and found nothing to buy. Went to Target couldn't find anything to fix my urge for needing to buy some things.

So after finding out that a few friends has Saturday off and no plans we took off Saturday morning for Missoula. At the time I thought this seemed very reasonable, 3 hours to Old Navy was a great idea. But yes, that is 3 hours each way. We made a great day out of it and Old Navy was having some great clearance sales so I fixed my urge for needing to buy things!!

Sunday I slept in and did some laundry and really did nothing nothing at all.

Monday was a Monday at work. Spent the day actually doing some research. Found out what kind of fees the different payday loan companies charge. Although it does pay to shop around. Some would charge as much as 60 dollars or more. That is 60 dollars for a 300 dollar advance.

A lot more work to be done this week and some more meetings. My mom gets here Wed and the plan is to take off maybe Friday and do some new site seeing. I can't wait to see more of Montana.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Northwest County Fair and Butte

Well another two weeks have gone by and it doesn't really feel like it. Two weeks ago kicked off the county fair which made for me working ALOT. I spent five days straight at the fair. We handed out over 1600 canvas bags. Those bags are quite the thing at the fair. Everybody knows that we will have them so it is one of their first stops. Although just so everybody knows they aren't as nice as last year and some men divorced their bag so they didn't need another one. Those were the two comments that always made me laugh.

I spent a lot of time talking to people about what they would like to see in a financial education course and got some good ideas.

The fair had some good parts. Ate some of the fair food, went to the rodeo and saw the Indian Relay races. The rodeo was great nobody got hurt and they have some really good riders around here. Alot of them are like in the top ten of the rodeo circuit. I am pretty sure that is a good thing. Now for Indian relay races. DANGEROUS!! To try to explain them the Indians ride bare back around the track once then as they come around they basically jump off that horse onto another. They do this for four laps. They don't even really slow down to jump off. Now if everybody stayed on the horse this would be entertaining. Although this boy feel off his horse and got ran over by a horse. Completely horrifying. He was seizuring. He went away on the ambulance. I hope that is was okay. That was the only race i saw and felt I didn't need to see anymore!!

The fair wore me out and I slept a lot after that.

This week I went back to Butte!! I really like going to Butte, some people don't really understand why, but I like it. I had some more AmeriCorp training there. Basically the different steps in starting my project. Lil went with and we got some new good ideas of some more directions that we should start taking with the project. We did a poverty simulation and I have decided that I don't want to be a single father of three kids. I was the father of my family, my 13 year old son was selling drugs, my 8 year old daughter didn't go to school, my 3 year old son went to work with me cause I couldn't afford day care, I couldn't feed my kids every week and almost got kicked out of our house. I didn't do very good living in poverty with three kids. But I am doing much better living single with the poverty thing just so people know.

For a night activity we took a bus up to the Our Lady of the Rockies. This was very very neat. She is 90 feet tall and has a white gloss paint on her to make her shine at night. It is a dirt road all the way up. You go up 3000 feet, and 14 switchbacks up and down. The lady driving never stopped on the way up. She was a great driver. We saw the richest mine also on the way up. The story was a man lost his job so while waiting for his retirement to come in he started mining a little. He had to have diesel brought in to run things, well he got behind on some of his bills so the person that was delivering went into the mine looking to collect money. He saw some glowing lights and figured that was where they were. Although he didn't find them or any gold he found marijuana plants. The owners got arrested. They had quite the supply of pot. The moral of the story was lock your mine doors and pay your bills.

Up on top they have a chapel where they hold weddings, the view is great from up there. I want to have my wedding there just for the view. No pictures in front of the Berkley pit though. My camera died so a friend is suppose to send me pictures. So when I get those I will post more pictures then what I have from my camera.

This weekend is just going to be a lazy weekend I think. My mom is coming on Tuesday will get here Wed. May find some place to go for the weekend. Any suggestions let me know. I want to try to go somewhere I haven't been yet!!


Sunday, August 12, 2007

Been here for a month

Well I have been in Kalispell for a month now. My job is in full swing and is going five different directions. Which is a good so it is keeping me busy.

In a month I have done a lot already. My job has already doubled the work load. Originally I was going to be working on starting some financial literacy classes. The goal of these classes is to teach people some basic financial skills. Now added to my work load is starting a volunteer income tax assistance sites (VITA). I am really excited about this because there is some great community support for the sites and hopefully bring what the community has already done in the past and work together.

Besides working in the office I have had some time to see some different areas of Montana. My first adventure was down to Helena for my pre-service orientation. I learned a lot about what the goals are for AmeriCorp and meet some of the other Vistas from the area. We had some adventures out in the evening after some long days in class. Before I left I did a little site seeing. I went to the cathedral there. It was very beautiful with some unbelievable stain glass work. Driving to Helena was a beautiful drive. I passed so many lakes that it seemed like I turn a corner and there was a new lake.

After my time in Helena I went to Missoula on my second day of work. We had some training down there but mostly I toured the area. I wanted to check out the campus as I try to decide where I want to do my Masters at. I took a quick tour of the campus. It was very beautiful campus and much bigger then I am used to!! I also looked around town and did some window shopping in the downtown area. Missed the fact that there was an old navy in town found that out later. Might have to make a trip down there here soon. I need flip flops.

My next adventure was to Butte America. I had a two day training on ROMA there. A few people from my office went down to that. We did some site seeing as usual at night. Saw some very beautiful mansions that I would love to go back and go inside of them all. Some of the areas can be a little rough around the edges but there is so much potential in some of the homes. I enjoyed this area and had some really good Italian food.

My next adventure was suppose to be to Billings. Although my boss got sick and with all of the forest fires she didn't want me to drive by myself. About those forest fires. They are really disturbing my view of the mountains. Some days you can't see anything while other days it is clear. The smoke is starting to get to me causing me to have a headache. Everybody around here says it is not like this every year and it really isn't that hot either. So I am not sure if they are telling me the truth or just trying to make me stay here?? There is a new fire that started just over the hills from my apartment. The helicopters flew over my apartment all night last night. Although to be honest I am not really that worried. If it comes over the mountain it will be in town. And plus there are quite a few homes before me!!

I have been meeting people. Thank goodness for the gym. Went in there one day and had meet a gal that works there and she has taken me under her wing and has introduced me all around. We have been going swimming when it is hot, hanging out at night, and then on Sundays we all seem to end up at her parents house for a dinner!! So Sundays I always eat well. With meeting Elena has also lead me to my new adventure. I meet Jessica who just moved here from Texas. She was camping and is currently looking for an apartment. She has been staying with me for the past few days as camping was getting old. She starts her new job tomorrow and she hopefully have her place tomorrow also. Been nice to have a little company the past few days. Although I still like having my own space.

So this has been pretty much my last month living in Kalispell. Sharlee convinced me to keep a blog of my time here. Now she is probably smart cause now everybody can keep up with my life here. Now I just have to remember to write on it.

This next week brings some new adventures of some classes, kiwanis and the Northwest County fair, rodeo, and Indian relay races. Should be some fun times this next week.