Backyard Expansion - 2023

Over the last two months, I have been working on a backyard expansion.   I started the first week of April and just finished (end of May).  

Left (south) side of the back yard

Before: In 2018 we put in the first stage of the backyard in April of that year and I also built a garden off to the left side completed in June of that year.    You can see what was left natural.  




Here is the new expanded south side completed.

Right (North) side of the backyard

Before: We had a small rustic fire pit with log that got overgrown as you can see in the second picture




Here is the new right/north side of the backyard:


Some pictures of the project at various stages 

Abbie’s Competitive Cheer- 2023

Abbie does competitive cheer as her sport and loves every minute of it. She had four cheer competitions this year where we got to travel to. Her competitions were in Tacoma, WA, Bellevue, WA, Las Vegas, NV and Portland, OR. Her team won two 1st places, 5th place and 3rd.


When we got to travel to Las Vegas we stopped in Orange County first and went to Disneyland with Aunt Jennifer and Olivia. It was a surprise and we had so much fun. We then drove with Lulu, Auntie Erin, Aunt Jenn and Olivia to Las Vegas. It was a memorable weekend. 

Cafe Racer Project

Hunter and I drove to Washington yesterday to pick up a ‘project bike’. It’s a 3 cylinder 82 Yamaha 750 with a shaft drive (vs chain). It’s not running now so first part of the project will be engine work. 

Below are some pictures of what people have done with these bikes to get an idea of the finished product. 

Quick visit to central Montana

Hunter is registered to attend the Montana Wilderness School of the Bible in the fall is 2023 so we wanted to do a visit to the campus before going. The campus is located on the edge of the Bob Marshall Wilderness in central Montana. 

We flew into Helena Montana  - the capital on Wednesday and visited the capital building and surroundings.

From Helena we drove 1.5 hours north to Augusta Montana - the closest town the the school. Augusta has around 400 people. We stayed at an airbnb on the edge of town and grabbed dinner at a local diner  

Thursday we visited the school. Sat in on the classes and toured around. It’s a beautiful spot at the end of the road in a canyon.  There is a river flowing through the campus.  We stopped by a frozen lake at the entrance to the canyon where the kids go skating  

Lots of beautiful open country even in the middle of winter. 

Friday we travelled north to the coolest little ski hill called Teton pass. A true locals hill open open Friday to Sunday. It felt like you were transported back to the 1960s. There might have been 40 people skiing this day. 

Saturday we drove back south and stopped by a semi ghost town call Marysville.  From there we had lunch at Costco in Helena before heading to the airport. Helena is a small regional airport but seems pretty new. Very nice inside. 

If all goes well we will be back to this area late summer to drop off Hunter for school.