Thursday, June 28, 2012

Finding my inner woo!

     The Dobsons are all moved in to their new house down in Stevensville, thanks to a very helpful weekend from the Robson crew!  They all showed up last Thursday night with two trailers full of stuff and were unloaded and headed East again by Saturday!  We had a great time seeing all of them and we can't wait for our next get together!
     In an effort to carry on with some of the things Dan and Donna loved about Glendive, we decided to have a weekly dinner together, much like the ones they would have back home. So last night we went down to the new house so Dan could bbq us some steaks and Kelli and Donna could put their design caps on trying to drum up a plan for the living room.  WHile unloading some boxes they found a bunch of stuff of Kellis for her to go through, one of which was a large stuffed bear holding a valentines heart.  I remembered that I had given her the bear on our first valentines day together in 2005 and she said "yeah that was back when you still had game, now we're married".
     I immediately attempted to defend myself, bringing up different things that I would consider "game" and the more I tried to defend my romantic side the more i realized she was right!  I have lost touch with my inner woo!  For those of you who don't know, woo is just another word to describe the charm we use to spark the interest of our lady friend:)  My woo used to consist of stuffed animals sitting on a rose pedal covered bed and candles everywhere, now it has faded to taking Kelli to a movie of her choice and maybe a dinner.  Of course things like this are a nice thing to do for my wife but she easily deserves much more!  I often tell Kelli that she won the matrimonial lottery but I think it's time I step up my game again and show her why I say that!  
     So don't do like I did and throttle back your woo just because you've won the girls heart, you won her heart for a reason and she deserves to see that reason as often as possible!   I know I'm going to tap into my memory bank and attempt to sweep her off her feet every single day!  Thats the least I can do for my lottery winner:)


Remember, find ways to make her feel like the most important girl in the world!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Welcome home Dobsons!

     It's been a while since I've posted anything here because time has been flying by lately! It seems as though we never have enough time in the day, and these are the longest ones of the year!  Alot of really cool things happened in the last week, starting with a visit from our favorite foursome from Spokane, they played through on Friday of last week on their way to Belt and then Glendive to visit Ryans family and attend a wedding in Billings.  They spent the night at our place and we went downtown to the carousel park and walked across the bridge for pizza.  We had a ton of fun in a short amount of time and we were sad to see them leave on Saturday morning.
     Our sorrow was short lived however as Dan and Donna also arrived on Friday for their last visit to Missoula!  They officially closed on their house in Stevensville Monday and have been staying there all week.  Their kind of roughing it for now with a couple of camp chairs, a bed and the tv hooked up to rabbit ears, but this will only be the case for a short while.  The Robson crew is hauling over two 24' trailers tomorrow with all of their belongings.  We had them up to our house for dinner tonight, we're making an effort to carry on some of the things they did in Glendive like a weekly dinner get together, and they seem to be adjusting quite well.  They've met most of their neighbors, explored much of their new hometown, and their even starting to learn their way around our messed up traffic system!  
     Every time we are able to share in the company of our family I am grateful for where we live.  I think about the places we have called home and when I do I realize nowhere else has ever felt this good.  We are conveniently located right in between both of my siblings, less than three hours form my parents, and now Kellis parents are 40 minutes away!  I don't think it's even sunk in for me yet, I keep waiting for them to tell us what day they plan on leaving for home.  What I do know is being able to have them over for dinner and hanging out on the patio is something that I don't think either one of us will ever get tired of!  I do find it rather convenient that Dan has somehow timed this move out so just when they get all settled in all of the rivers in the area will have calmed down and the fishing will be phenomenal!  Maybe thats purely a coincidence but I'm betting not:)
     So regardless of where your family is located in relation to you I hope you fins the time to get together as often as possible, wether thats once a week or whenever time will allow, nothing in this world is more enjoyable than spending quality time with the ones that we love!  


Remember, like the sunlight feeding the blades of grass, your families love surely will help you grow!

Monday, June 11, 2012

I could get used to this!

     Thursday afternoon brought a close of my time with Manhattan plumbing and opened a new chapter in our lives, one where I have the luxury of spending each night in my own bed, a concept completely unfamiliar to Kelli and I.  The only time we have had this privilege before was my time spent in the service department up in Great Falls.  We know from those memories that this new job will be a refreshing change from the traveling we have grown used to, one we are both looking forward to!
     This last weekend brought with it many good things as well as we finally poured the concrete patio in the footprint of the cabin we demolished!  Im pretty happy with how it turned out, now I have turned my personal designer loose on filling up our additional space.  Saturday we tore down form boards and started a fire around 8 am to burn them up rather than fill the garage with excess wood, our friends Bryant and Hailey have been involved with the cabin project from the beginning so they came over to roast hot dogs over the fire and check out the finished product.  We put out the fire around 4 and headed into town for a documentary on the Yellowstone river called Where the Yellowstone Goes.  This was a fascinating movie as the film crew floated the entire river, all the way to the confluence with the Missouri!  They chronicled some of the people who live along the river and as we watched it I couldn't help but think about my childhood and all of the memories I have from this river!  I highly recommend everyone to check out their website as they are showing this movie all across the country in the coming few weeks, got to wheretheyellowstonegoes.com to find all of their dates.  Even if you have no connection to the Yellowstone river at all you will enjoy the movie for all of the heart warming stories along the way!
     To cap off our amazing weekend my parents stopped by yesterday and visited for a while on their way over to Butte.  They are on a week long trip over to North Dakota to visit family and friends, stopping in Glendive along the way to play in a golf tournament memorial for a very good family friend of ours, Connie Balcer.  We shared a really nice visit as they had lunch and then they headed out to spend the night in the new hunting camper over in Butte.  And last but not least, as we were winding down for the weekend, the doorbell rang and upon opening the door there sat a gnome cupcake!  Hailey had made cupcakes in the form of gnomes and knowing how much I love these little creatures her and Bryant snuck one up to our doorstep!  It was quite comical, but more importantly delicious! 
     I only hope that each of the weekends to come will be as enjoyable as this one was, I don't know if it is because of the excitement of a new job or the fact that I didn't have to get up at 2am today, but it sure was a fun weekend!  If the coming weeks even come close to this past one, I know I could get used to this!


Remember, when nothing seems to go right, go left:)

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Oh how time flies!

     On Monday June 4th, 2012, a milestone was reached at our household when Duchess Shelby Lucky Girl turned ten years old.  If you've been lucky enough to know my baby girl than you understand how hard this is to believe as she still appears to have the energy of a puppy!  Duchess had been through more difficult times in her life by the age of three than most dogs do in an entire lifetime!  Roughly eight weeks after she was born I took a trip down from Conrad to Billings to hang out with my sister for the weekend.  I'd been thinking about getting a hunting dog but hadn't really gotten serious about it yet.  While reading the paper on Sunday morning we spotted an ad for black lab puppies and decided to go check them out.  I took my friend Josh with me as he had owned a couple labs as a kid and just in case I decided to get one I wanted his advice on which one to pick.  We got there and all six of Duchess's brothers and sisters were acting as eight week old puppies do, bouncing all over the place with more energy than their tiny little bodies could handle!  Duchess was sitting in the corner all by herself just looking at the others as if they were crazy, the moment I saw her I knew Josh's advice was not necessary, she was the one.
     All ears and tail and with a face that could melt even the sourest of hearts, she was coming home with me!  Duchess's tough road began almost immediately, while on the way out of town my pick up broke down and I had to leave it in Billings to get repaired.  I had to get back to Conrad for work so I borrowed Jill's Honda, which had an air conditioning issue so I had to make the whole trip in late July with windows down blowing in warm summer air!  Duchess didn't seem to mind, she was just happy to have a home!
     Her attitude towards life has always been one that I have admired.  I have put her through some situations that are barely imaginable and she just keeps trudging along.  For those who don't know our whole story I will spare you the details and just give you the highlights of Duchess's crazy life.  Watched her dad nearly die from a horrible addiction, moved from Conrad to Butte, Butte to California, California to Billings, Billings to California, California to Great Falls, met and fell in love with her mom, Great Falls to Whitefish, met and instantly bonded with her adopted sister, Whitefish to Great Falls, and finally Great Falls to Missoula!  Thats right, if you counted she's moved 8 times!  And each time she just grabs her tennis ball and heads down the road with no complaints.
      Any one who has been lucky enough to hunt with Duchess and i knows how passionate she is about life.  She simply will not give up on a bird, even if it's a goose thats moving down the Yellowstone faster than the ice chunks!  She has made my heart skip a beat more times than I can count!  I simply don't have enough time to tell you about all of the great times we have had together and with our family, all I can tell you is that it seems like it was just yesterday I was driving down the dusty road south of Laurel with my new baby girl in my lap.  I only hope that I have filled her heart with as much love as she has mine.  Heres to another ten years of bringing back geese and filling your dad's heart with pride!  
Remember, cherish each second you have with everyone who warms your heart!

Monday, June 4, 2012

Here we go again!

Over the weekend Sir Eldrick Woods, or black Jesus as he's commonly referred to, won the memorial. This is Jack Nicklaus's host tourney and every one seems to think he's back! All it took was three other guys playing poorly on a very tough course and tiger chipping in on the 16th for every golf analyst in the country to believe again. What's funny to me is the fact that nobody mentioned the fact that this was Tigers fifth win at Jacks place and Murifield is clearly one of his favorite courses in the nation. This win is the equivalent of Action Gannon winning the men's invite at CCC, I would be happy but not surprised as he knows that course like the back of his hand!

Now everyone has Tiger picked to win the Open in two weeks, flashback time people, he won at Bay Hill two weeks before Augusta and struggled to make the cut at the Masters finishing in a tie for 40th! Bay Hill by the way also happens to be on his list of favorite courses having won there like 6 times I believe. When Tiger finishes in the top five of a major we can talk comeback, until then Tigermania just better sit tight!

Let's not forget about the fact that this man scarred one of the most traditional sports in the country unforgettably by acting like a fool! Am I the only one who hasn't brushed the fact that he is still a basket case who needs serious help under the rug? This is not the man we need kids looking up to, regardless of how good he is! It bothers me that a guy like Phil gets chastised by the media for withdrawing due to fatigue and a guy like Tiger gets adored for cheating! Forgive Phil for being tired, in case you haven't noticed he's had a rough couple of years off the golf course!

On a side note my heart goes out to Spencer Levin, the poor guy suffers from Mooley Gannon syndrome, the inability to perform in the clutch! He's blown two leads now this year and with his latest in Sunday he had a 7:30 tee time this morning in Columbus at a US Open qualifier. Here's hoping he figures out how to close out a tournament and makes it to San Francisco!

Remember, even the perpetual optomist gets to complain when Tiger wins:)

Saturday, June 2, 2012

It's going to be a great summer!

     Now that Memorial day has come and gone, the summer months are officially upon us and with them they bring big changes for just about everyone!  Before I talk about these changes I better touch on our holiday weekend, I haven't had time to post anything about the awesome time we had over in Spokane.  
     The weekend was filled with tons of loving on our new nephew, Jax had both Kelli and I wrapped around his tiny little finger as he is quite a handsome little dude!  With as much attention the little man has been getting Kelli and I decided to treat Tatum to a special day of her own just to let her know that she is still loved.  Naturally we kind of overdid it a bit and spoiled her rotten the entire day!  We all had the most amazing time as we rode the gondolas over the Spokane falls, rode the carousel, took a pony ride, hit up the rides in the downtown park, then capped it all of with the playground at Manito park.  The day was best summed up by Tatum as she was riding on my shoulders back to the car she hugged my head and said, "I love you, this is the best trip ever!"  Your aunt Kelli and uncle Mooley couldn't agree more T!
     My two favorite girls!
Fake pony.......
followed by the real deal!
capped off with a captians chair on the worlds largest caterpillar!

     With as much fun as we had last weekend between cuddling the newest member of Ryan and Jills family, hanging out with the T-bug, and spending quality time with my parents, we weren't expecting much out of this weekend.  That all has changed very quickly however as I accepted a new job with a plumbing company in town!  The new job will be mostly service work with some new construction and the best news is all of the work is here in Missoula!  No more traveling across the divide!!  Naturally we are both completely thrilled as we have been looking for an answer to get us under the same roof again!  I still have a couple weeks of traveling as I will give my current employer a notice, but now we can see a light at the end of the tunnel!  
     Along with my good news of an upgrade in my working situation, Ryan has made a huge career change also as he has quit Cummins to go to work for the same crop insurance company Dad works for.  He's going to be a full time adjuster for them and I know he is extremely excited for the big change!  It is a very good career to get into and i think he will be quite good at it!  Kelli's parents have good news in the month of June also as they have closing dates scheduled on both the Glendive house and the new one in Stevensville along with a move in date of the 16th!  The irony of this date is that is the same weekend I will be moving back to Missoula:)  Don't think we forgot about the Butte crew, the good news on their end of the world is Hannah starts drivers education this month!  Even though that makes me feel extremely old, it is an exciting time for them I know!  Let's hope Curt doesn't teach her how to parallel park the same way we learned, parking between two straw bales out in the yard! 
     So as you can see, now that summer is officially under way, good things are starting to happen!  The way Junes already started I can't wait to see what the rest of the summer is going to bring!  All I know is I am very eager to get back home and enjoy every single day of it!

Remember, good things truly do come to those who are patient and wait:)