Tiger Cruz

I know I'm out of sequence and the next picture should be Thanksgiving or Christmas, but this is my favorite Halloween picture of my nephew. I think he's really roaring, not yawning.

How Brave am I?

HEY, No Laughing! Here I am, 26 weeks done. I thought I'd be brave and post "me and my belly" in honor of completing our second trimester. I had an appointment last week and everything looks right on schedule. He's kicking like crazy and apparently growing as well.

Our "Little Bean" on October 3rd, 2008

As if you could tell what this is, but it is a picture of our little bean who just happens to be a little boy. He's still due February 14th, and weighs 1 pound. The ultrasound was last Friday, and we got to see fingers, toes, organs, a spine, and all the other parts that the doctor could identify but just look like a face to me. I've watched the video four times now, and I'm still in disbelief. I think I can feel him moving, or my guts have a mind of their own. It'll set in after the nursery is done. Right now the room is completely empty (we just had carpet laid, pictures later). All the old wives tales predicted a girl and out of frustration, I finally quit doing them. According to them we had a 93% chance of having a girl. That's the last time I try that for predicting the sex.

Meet Cruz Dale

This little guy is our first nephew. He was born September 22 at 4:12 pm, weighing in at 8 lbs 1 oz, and 21 1/4" long. We haven't seen him yet but we will get to soon and I can't wait. It might be hard to leave without taking him with me, but it won't be too much longer til we get to see ours on the big screen again (Friday Oct. 3 1:00pm).

The Nesting Begins

We had to take out the carpet in the living room. It was pretty gross and I wasn't about to leave it for my kid to crawl around on. So we took out the carpet in the living room, hall, and one bedroom (the rest of the house is government VCT tile, commercial type stuff). This is what the floor under the carpet looked like. It would have taken a zillion hours and a ton of work to refinish the floors, especially since it was two different colored stains. So we laid laminate flooring on top with the help of Jeremy and Jen. It only took a day, starting at 10, with breaks, done by 6.
You can see the two different colors. Our house was one of the last homes owned by the Town of Fort Peck, and it wasn't really taken care of. But when are rentals taken care of?

And after. We did the livingroom and dining room. I ordered the carpet for the hall and three bedrooms last week. Our flooring projects should be done by the end of next month, with the exception of the bathroom and kitchen, both of which will take much more than just flooring.

The Dog Days of Summer

I can't imagine a tougher life. A few weeks ago Cindy, Mesa, and I went to Billings for a "girl's weekend" full of shopping, lounging in the pool, stuffing ourselves with Mexican food...Mesa took advantage of a weekend at the pool without Abby and Landon. As you can tell from this picture, she really enjoyed herself. What a lazy bum.

The Moment You've All Been Waiting For

Finally, I have a reason to post (besides hunting or fishing). Yes, I am indeed prego. The little "bean" is 16 weeks 6 days old today. I'm due February 14, 2009, or any other day two weeks before or two weeks after that date. These ultrasound pictures are from week 8 and not the clearest. My next appointment is October 3rd. Until then I'm looking for wives tales for determining the sex, so if you have one, post it. We haven't decided if we're finding out what the "bean" is, so if you have a prediction, post it.

More Fishing Of Course

You might wonder why I put a picture of Landon swimming on our blog. You may also notice he is swimming with a shirt on. What you can't see is why he is swimming. He is swimming because Mike tried to net a fish and he needed to extent the handle to reach it. Well, the net didn't click together right and the net end went flying into the water. It is aluminum and was starting to sink. It was such chaos in the boat that Landon, not willing to lose a net, jumped in after it. The water was about 70 degrees-cold enough that I would have had to buy a new net. It's always comical to me what he will do for one of his fishing things. Last year Mike even went scuba diving for a rod Landon and his dad, Dave, lost in a tournament. Now that's dedication.

Landon's mom, Karen, and Mike came over for a weekend o' fun. We went to the play and went fishing. Landon let us catch all the fish, these two at the same time (they're lake trout for those of you who haven't educated yourselves with the previous fish identifying post). Don't worry, both of the fish lived. We only kept one out of the five to eat.

Too Lazy to Find a Bigger Patch of Shade

I had to take this picture of Mesa. She had been laying in the front yard most of the day, moving with the shade of the teeny tiny tree. If she would have just moved to the north about 20 feet she'd have been in the shade the whole day-without moving. Or she could have moved to the shade in the back yard, or to the other side of the house with shade from the neighbors tree. She just has to be in the front where she can see everything that is going on. It think it was about 90 degrees that day, which normally she likes and would lay on the black rug on the front steps. Dogs sure do wierd things.

My Very Thoughtful Husband

My husband, by all accounts, is a 27 year old adult. He is responsible, dependable, honest, dedicated, and mostly recently he has let his thoughtfulness shine through. Why, just last night as we were sitting at the table, waiting for the dishes to do themselves, he tells me that there are frogs in the tupperware in his lunch box. He found them at work. WHAT POSSESS' A GROWN MAN TO BRING HOME FROGS IN HIS LUNCH BOX? I'll tell you what-fishing. At least he was thoughtful enough to tell me they were in there BEFORE I started doing dishes and found them myself. Thankfully, he took the frogs and Abby and left before they got loose. He will most likely bring more frogs home tonight-there is a catfish tournament on Saturday night and frogs make good bait. If all his fishing and hunting wasn't putting meat on our table, I would have gone crazy by now. All I can do is shake my head and hope these "lessons" help me when we have kids.

Stinky Pete

Meet Pete. He's a stray Westland Terrier that was found in a raceway at the Fort Peck Multi Species Fish Hatchery. Landon felt sorry for him and brought him home. He was really matted and smelly so he had to stay outside. Then the cold weather came back. I told Landon he could come inside but he had to have a bath first (notice the hot pink gloves). So this is Landon giving Pete a bath. He had to wear rubber gloves because Pete stunk so bad and we weren't sure what he had for bugs.

He cleans up pretty nice. We had him on Tradio and the Dog Gone Show for about 10 days before someone took him. We never found his real owner, but did find someone who wanted him. I told Landon we weren't keeping him and if we did that he couldn't have another lab until we were down to one dog. And since we all know that small dogs live longer than big dogs, he would have ended up hunting with a Westie or a Chihuahua and that didn't sit well with him, so Pete had to go even though we were attached. I'm afraid our kids may inherit the "bringing home stray animals all the time" gene from Landon.

More Fish Work

This link will take you to the Billings Gazette Outdoors section (I think) with the article about Pallid Sturgeon and a picture of Landon with a fish he caught. http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/05/15/features/outdoors/28-sturgeon.txt

The Ground Is Just Not Good Enough

I guess the hammock works the same if it's upside down. She was sleeping until I got the camera. She just doesn't like laying on the ground, but she'll run through the smelliest mud to retrieve a duck, what a weirdo.

This is what's left of Abby's chair after one year. She just sits in it like a human, so we're not sure how they get destroyed so fast. She'll sleep in it all night if we let her (using the arm rest for her pillow)

If You Can Call It Work

This is a really good day for them. These are adult pallid sturgeon. They get really old. I asked Landon how old and he said, "If I knew that I'd be a millionaire." They estimate that the adult sturgeon they are catching are between 50 and 100 years old, but scientists don't know for sure how old they get.

Landon works for Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks in the Fisheries department. He's a fisheries technician for the Pallid Sturgeon Population Assesment Project. He tried to explain it to me, but he spends most of his day netting fish, measuring them, tagging them, and occasionally performing surgery to implant them with tracking devices. They go out on the water as soon as the ice is off and work til October-ish in almost any kind of weather. Some days they don't catch any pallid sturgeon.

Species of Fish in Fort Peck Lake

This is the prized Walleye. Really tasty breaded and fried, or filled with crab meat.

This eel looking thing is a Burbot, or Ling. Looks disgusting but is really good in chowder.

This is a Chinook Salmon.

Small Mouth Bass

This is the first fish, a Drum, that I caught with the pole my Uncle Dewey made me. It's purple and pink, for girls only. Drum have little white rocks in their head that you can burn to tell how old they are (if you're a scientist and know how to do that kind of thing).

Lake Trout

Since We Don't Have Kids Yet...

We have dog friends over for play dates. We dog sit for some friends (two belong to them, the other two are their son's) every once in awhile. Abby loves to have friends over. 5 Labs is a little much though, especially when it comes time to clean up the poo. We've grown quite fond of the two we usually watch, Boone and Belle-two of the chocolates. If we didn't already have two dogs we'd definitely get another lab.

Our 2 Muts Being Human

This is Mesa's chair. She can sit in the sun and look out the front window. It's hers and hers alone. Abby is NOT allowed on it (Mesa will attack to defend her turf). On occasion, usually after a really long walk, Mesa is too tired to fight and Abby gets to peek out the window for a few minutes too.

Mesa

I thought I'd better put a picture of Mesa on the blog so she didn't get jealous. I don't have a lot of them, I'll have to take some more. She loves to go fishing too, mostly just to lay in the sun. Sometimes she goes swimming when we stop on shore. She doesn't like to be left on islands, she'll swim out to the boat if we leave her, which isn't safe with the giant northern pike we have in the lake-they could eat her!

A Little Bit About Fort Peck

This is the spillway, in case the lake it too full. It hasn't been opened since 1997. It flows down into the Missouri River.

These are the power houses. There are two that supply electricty to the southern United States, not all of it obviously.

This is the lake side of the dam. The water level is pretty low, the lowest it's been in years. This picture was taken from the road on top of the dam. The water level has been right up to the rocks at the bottom of the picture in years past. From the picture, the power houses are behind and to the left and the town of Fort Peck is right behind.

There is a wildlife refuge across the road from us. There are about a dozen each of elk and bison. Most mornings and evenings they come up on top to show off. We can see them from our front porch when they aren't bedded down in the trees.

Sometimes it gets hot, really hot. This is in our living room in about the middle of July. Obviously we don't have central air yet.

The town doesn't have a police officer anymore, but in the summer we have Harold. He watches out for speeding tourists. I guess the "POL" fell off.

The Hunting Never Stops

When it isn't hunting season, it's fishing season, but on the off chance the weather doesn't permit either, out come the DVD's. Abby is just as addicted to hunting as Landon.

More Abby

We really aren't such bad parents that we don't give our dogs beds-Abby just gets creative when she's looking for a place to sleep. We didn't have any straw bails yet and after a long day of duck hunting Abby needed a warm bed for a quick nap. Luckily, we hadn't finished the raking yet. I felt sorry for her and she got to come in even though she was wet.

From Wedding to Hunting Season (AKA Grocery Shopping)

This is my deer for 2007. We had been elk hunting and were on our way out when we saw him. We had to do quite a bit more hunting to fill the freezer for the year, but this was one of the better pictures of our success in 2007. I had to revise this post to suite Jane from England, although she'd rather have had me delete this blog all together. Her entire comments can be read by clicking on "Jane" and then scrolling down to "Carlisle Lass" and visiting her blog. Feel free to comment on our behalf.

The Deck

I think Abby enjoys the deck more than Landon and I do. It gives her a pretty good view of whats going on in her town.

We built it all by ourselves, and still got married. It's 16'x20', gray composite decking with 2x6 joists on 12" centers-so it's not going anywhere. It took us about a month and a half to build in our spare time.

The guys from work (I work at a lumber yard/construction company) took out a window and put the sliding door in. We lived with a 4' drop off for about a month. It drove Abby crazy that she could jump up and see in but couldn't get into the house. Mesa stood at the door and laughed at her. Abby had to learn to wait for the door to open before coming in the house. Hopefully we only have to replace the screen once, or twice if we get another dog.

The Proposal and Wedding

On September 15, 2006 Landon forced me to go for a walk down with the dogs down at the park, in the drizzly, 40 degree, ugly fall weather. We stopped at this bridge to throw the dummy for Abby and then he found the courage to propose. I, of course, said yes and immediately started planning our wedding for 09-08-07. (It's a math nerd thing) We had to have a couple pictures at the "romantic bridge"

The theme was fishing (of course) and "Accidentally in Love", hence Accidentally the Holtes. These two boys, my cousins Dalton and Wyatt, were quite entertaining. I said they could wear whatever they wanted to the wedding, they just had to be there early to direct people and hand out can coolers. I guess my Aunt Mickey took "whatever they wanted" seriously. They were great sports about it.

We got married at 4:30pm at the Flat Lake Boat Ramp in Fort Peck. Cindy stood up for me, Casey, Landon's brother, for him (in clothes he bought the morning of the wedding because he left his in Bismarck, which is why he doesn't match the olive green and baby blue theme). We had a childhood friend of mine, Aaron, marry us. Andy, my brother, made my bouquet about 5 minutes before pictures; everyone brought their own chair, or stood. It was a beautiful day, but the weather was too unpredictable that weekend and we ended up having the reception in the basement of the post office. I know that sounds awful, but as those of you who've been to Fort Peck know, it's not so bad.

Abby Cuss Holte

Abby was born on June 20, 2006 in North Dakota. We picked her out when she was just a few weeks old. Landon’s mom brought her home on August 18th, Landon’s 26th birthday. We named her Abby about 3 years ago, long before we even planned on getting a dog. Her middle name, Cuss, came from calling her abacus (it’s a math nerd thing) as a nickname. Then it just stuck. So now she comes to Abby or Cuss.

Landon started hunting with her right away and now she's addicted to hunting and swimming. This is one of Abby's first retrieves at about 4 months old. Landon was pretty proud of her.

Occasionally Abby helps me garden-either by digging holes for me or by holding down my bag o' gardening fun. Puppies can sleep anywhere.

The Move

On April 30th, 2006, I sold my house and Mesa and I and moved to Fort Peck to be with Landon. We bought the house Landon had been living in and started our long list of improvements.

The Falling In Love Part

The fishing trip was fun, but I didn't really think I'd see Landon again. Then it happened. He kept calling, coming to Billings, spending time with my family, and falling in love with me. I kept answering when he called, letting him stay with me when he came to Billings, letting him spend time with my family, and returning the falling in love part. We fished, we hunted, and we fished some more. Years passed, we traveled between Billings and Glasgow a lot (280 miles one way), and things just kept getting better. (Notice the bobber earrings. We were ice fishing in North Dakota for New Year's with Landon's family. Scariest moment in my life so far-Driving on ice IN A TRUCK! I've never prayed so hard.)

How We Met

I guess we're followers, cuz we've jumped on the blogging bandwagon-thanks to Krissi. I thought I'd start somewhere near the beginning, like how we met.

In June of 2003 I helped my best friend, Cindy, move to Glasgow, MT to take a fisheries job with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks. She spent the summer up there working and falling for her boss, Ryan.

Enter Landon.

Ryan and Landon worked on different projects but were fishing and hunting buddies. Over the next year jobs changed, and Cindy moved, but continued seeing Ryan. All the while I was in Billings working at FedEx and moving into my first house.

The fall and winter came and went, and then it was spring. In May 2004, Landon took Ryan to North Dakota for his annual all boys paddle fish weekend. They caught fish, drank beer, stayed up all night doing whatever boys do, and had an all around great time. Then it was Ryan's turn to plan the trip. On June 4, 2004, Ryan took Landon on his family's annual paddle fish trip to Slippery Anne. Cindy and Ryan hadn't seen each other for about a month, so she went too. And of course, she didn't want to be the only girl, so I had no choice but to go with her.

So, on June 4, 2004 I backed my fishing bag and headed north. We got there at about dark, when all the boys were feeling pretty fine. We had two tents; one for the girls, one for the boys. That lasted about 5 minutes. I didn't care where I slept, as long as I had an air mattress and didn't have to sleep on the ground. Cindy did care though. Apparently absence makes the heart grow fonder, so Ryan moved in and I got kicked out. I had two choices, sleep with Ryan's dad in the camper and listen to a saw mill, or shack up with Landon. Either way, I didn't know a thing about the two of them. I picked Landon and that is how we met.