One year ago...construction commences

...this was the view from our kitchen window.

We lived and dined al fresco for the majority of last summer. For the most part it was lovely, taking us back to our Costa Rican roots, but there were a few dramatic rain storms and some very very hot summer days spent 6 inches from the swamp cooler. Wouldn't you agree dad (Glenn)? Nonetheless, it was a great summer. We loved having my dad stay about 6 weeks with us, it was a privilege to work alongside him, learn from him, and just get to hang out with him. WE LOVE YOU! And we couldn't have done it without you.

The house project consisted of (well, who am I kidding - it continues to consist of) remodeling and re-doing the existing house and adding about 500 sq ft with master bedroom, bathroom, sunroom, and deck.

Not only did we rope Glenn into helping us but somehow we got Steve to join as well! They were amazing: raising walls and trusses, pulling 12 hour days, fighting the clock so their first grandson didn't have to come home to this.

Glenn and Steve = The dream team

They did a little relaxing but not much.

Dad hard at work

Coming along!

WOW! So that is what skilled labor can do.

The boys missing Steve.

The first casualty of the summer = Glenn's finger. Somehow it got in the way of Colin's extremely powerful, bone-crushin hammer swing one of the very first days n the job...needless to say, Colin was almost the second casualty of the summer and Hudson was almost born fatherless...

I guess he doesn't seem too worse for the wear.

The house before (yes, it was Salmon Pink).

During

More pics of After to come soon!

We're BACK!!!!!!!!!

It has been over a year since our last entry. Sorry about that. BUT what a year it has been...selling our first house, remodeling and then adding an addition to a new house (dedicated blog entry to follow) and HAVING a baby! Phew. But we are back and better than ever. We are going to do our best to have regular posts and share a little bit more of our lives with our friends and family. We miss you. Wyoming is too far from pretty much everyone :(

Since a photo is worth 100o words, I think a photo tour might be the quickest way to catch everyone up...

Baby Shower in AZ. Can you believe GG is going to be 90? What a looker!

SISTA- VISIT! Dancing to the Craft Bros at Eatons.

Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Sailing/Kayaking in Croatia :)

Venice, Italy

Hard work pays off! Colin and I had decided that we better use some of the proceeds from the sale of our first house to do some pre-Hudson (P.H.) travel... Lets just say two weeks in Croatia made the months of scraping wallpaper, patching plaster, refinishing floors, roofs, kitchens, and bathrooms, seem very worth it.

More Croatia

Jessica comes to visit. Can you guess which is a watermelon?

Thank goodness for Glenn and Julie. They were so much help while we patiently waited.

He's here!!! Better late (12 days to be exact) than never.

Finally, something worth blogging about!

WE ARE EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Graduated!

Emily finished her masters in secondary ed in December and is ready to have a job...really ready...

The Metcalf's Make the Blog!

These are our friends the Metcalfs...they rock. We're still unsure of how they haven't made it onto the blog before now, as they are our oldest surviving friends here in NE Wyoming...we've had a lot of good times together!



Adam, Mandy, and Abigail born last June!


Adam is actually related to Vanilla Ice and did some dance training with him as they were both members of their middle-school dance team? As a result, he is the best white dancer I have ever met. He also has some amazing stupid human trick type talents and its not even funny how good he is at Guesstures...

Seriously though, we love you guys!

What happened to winter?

Greetings all devoted blog readers, while, maybe reader. It's been awhile since our last blog update, figured it was time for a comprehensive update and the addition of some new photos for kicks.

Christmas 2009

After trampsing up in the mountains for a Christmas tree, we found this perfectly symettrical specimen which as always looked so much nicer out in the woods...we set the bar fairly low with this one so next year as long as we cut something down within the evergreen family it should be an improvement.

We headed to MN to celebrate Christmas family-style and although we were missing Bjorn, we definitely enjoyed the time with family and all of the snow!

We did a few snowshoeing trips, some xc-skiing, and lots of good eating! Lake Superior is never a dissapointment either, lots of steam and beautiful sunrises...so much fun to wake up at the lake!

We snowshoed and then skied into the Manitou land while we were home...the second time in my dad and I burned a slash pile that had been stacked up since 2006. He got a nice wound in the process of moving logs and breaking branches...another inch lower and he'd probably be a pirate!

Here's the whole crew, minus our Gambian brother, who was probably enjoying some rice and peanut sauce in 90 degree weather when we snapped this photo...it wasn't the same without you Bjorn! Notice Brian's pre-dinner arm-flailing excitement...Linnea doesn't feed him beef too often at home...

January 2009
Erik and Kiki make it out!

Erik and Kiki were able to take a quick respite from law school and work and drive out for some skiing at Redlodge and quality time in Sheridan...the weather cooperated and we had about 12 inches of new powder for our day on the mountain. Snowshoeing was great as well, with deep snow and steep terrain. The only downer on the weekend was Emily's uncanny ability to crush the rest of us in repeat games of Catan...Erik and Kiki, thanks for letting her win, I'm sure you can now understand why I do the same with most games we play...you should send us some of your pics when you get a chance!

Halloween

I had to include this pic of Emily at school on Halloween...she's on the left. If you click on the picture, it might blow up larger, just like Emily. Check out the girl sitting on the left, her face says it all....

Misc. House Pics Oct. '08

Here are a couple of random pictures, just FYI.

Emily relaxing on the porch...we enjoyed a great fall this year...
General pic of the new house paints...I'm working on putting in a new door before the serious snow flies.

1 of 8 windows that has since been replaced!

The infamous door fence, since these pics were taken it has received another coat of paint and some caulk in the holes....finished as far as I'm concerned. Much cheaper than the home depot lookalikes...although I value my time at about $1 an hour to come out ahead of the game...

Acklin's Bring Bad Weather (Again!)

Glenn and Julie were nice enough to come for yet another visit, and although they brought the first real snow and cold of the season, we were still able to enjoy ourselves. This was supposed to be Glenn's fishing and hunting trip, unfortunately, the temp was in the upper 20's with about 4" of snow falling in Sheridan, so we nixed that idea.

We opted to brave the trek over to Thermopolis WY to soak in the hot springs which turned out to be a lotta fun. We hit up Star Plunge, one of 3 options for hot spring experiences in Thermop.

This turned out to be the same place where my family and I visited during a family vacation to Yellowstone...I don't think anything had changed, except for the hi-tech crash detection system which had since been "installed" on the tubular waterslide, consisting of an old tower affixed to a rope, which you would pull once you got to the bottom of the slide to signal all clear (or in Glenn's case, signalling that the slide was still intact)...as rudimentary as this was, it was a great improvement. I can still remember how scared I was on our family vacation when I tried the same waterslide for the first time...no one told me that you needed to arch your back to move, so as I slowly inched my way down the slide, pushing for dear life, I clearly remember the gung-ho screams of the person coming down the slide after me....I started pushing even more frantically, after I realized that he was somehow going about 5x my speed. My claustraphobia didn't help the situaion either. I did not have fun on the waterslide on the family vacation.

16 years later, I was the slide master. Who am I kidding, Glenn was the real slide master, and he let everyone at the pool know this by barreling down the 4-story waterslide causing the entire structure to wobble and make other sounds of general instabilty. He realized that there was a posted weight limit after the first run, and we were all suprised that the pool authorities did not require him to "weigh-in" immediately after. He figured if it could hold him once, it could hold him again, and he definitely got his money's worth on the slide. I think the owner was probably wincing everytime he saw Glenn go back up for another trip down. Glenn also earned Eskimo honors by sunbathing the longest on a snow-covered recliner. Julie didn't quite make it out of the hot springs for this challenge.

However, Julie deserves an honorable mention for her watersliding. She tried the slide without really understanding the full details of the enclosed, dark, sulfurous, and bumpy tubular ride which gave you quite a jolt at the end if you were going fast enough (lawsuit-scale spine twisting) Emily was the lucky one at the bottom who got to hear Julie's screams and see her face when she finally came out down below. Glenn and I cheered when we saw the white towel of the crash detection system move, signifying that she had safely made it down...or at the very least, Emily had pull the rope thinking that if Julie was stuck, Glenn would be able to "help" her down.

We all seemed to have a lot of fun over the 4-day visit, and all learned a thing or two about each other, as we usually do on these family get-togethers. Julie learned that Wyoming hot springs smell absolutely horrible. Emily learned how to drive in the winter without the aid of windshield wipers. Glenn learned that weight limits for waterslides are not necessarily accurate, and I learned that no matter how much fun I think it is, pulling into Sheridan with a gas tank as close to empty as possible after a snowy drive over the mountains is not fun for anyone but me.

If anyone else is interested in visiting, let us know!

First big snow of the season...I heard 24" at 12,000 ft. It melted about 3 days later...

Julie, Emily, and Glenn checking out the new stream improvements in the park.


Tensleep Canyon on the way to Thermopolis...although you couldn't see the mountains, there was still plenty to see...sorry, no pictures of the hot springs...

Summer 2008 in Retrospect

Grandma Betzler passed away in July after a long struggle with alzheimers, and ultimately an infection that she fought for several weeks before leaving us for heaven. I haven't lived in MN for several years, so I wasn't there for the toughest, last years of life, but at the funeral there were many wonderful stories shared about all the best years of grandma's life. The picture below should expand if you click on it, Bjorn, I was mostly thinking you could use some of the memories of grandma's life over in Africa...she would be so proud of you over there!

The funeral service was really a celebration of grandma's very full and very long life which was defined by her love and encouragement for everyone she knew...it was a family-reunion of sorts, and we had a lot of fun remembering grandma during her more vibrant years prior to the more difficult years of advanced alzheimers. Her feisty spirit and honest reflections on life are truly missed and remembered by all of us. Her strong faith in Christ was something that she lived out daily, and her atttitude was truly worth emulating. We love you and miss you grandma, but with all the memories that you created with us, and all the time that you spent with us, we're are blessed by your life!

Emily ran an 18-miler down the Tongue River...I rode my bike the last 5 miles with her to tell her exactly how far she had left...I won't be doing that again anytime soon, apparently runners don't like to know how much farther they have to go every minute...she did great though, and all of her training paid off!

Emily worked this summer managing the icecream shack across the creek fro our house...I don't think that I have ever been sick of icecream in my entire life, but this year, with 6.4 waffle cones (4 scoops) per week, I actually did get sick of icecream...unbelievable.

We did several trips to the mountains this summer, had some great hiking, fishing, and star-gazing. The pic above is on the north-end of the Cloud Peak Wilderness, with Blacktooth (13k+) in the background, with Jed and Aimee Kirklund, who are some good friends that were married this summer! Our other great friends, the Metcalfs had a beautiful baby girl, Abigail Rae, but we didn't have a picture of the entire family together yet, so we'll have to add a pic later, no offense Metcalfs (who am I kidding, no one but our parents look at this anyway!)

We had another great trip to the mountains with Emily's cousin Clint, and his buddy Sam. They came up to job shadow, and went home knowing that they did not want to be a City Planner in Buffalo WY. Their loss. We had a great time with them, this is a pic from Lost Twin Lakes on the southern-end of the Cloudpeak Wilderness. Superb fishing, good food, and lots of fun. Thanks for visiting guys!

Emily with a nice golden!

We were back at home in MN visiting twice this summer, Knife River is looking great, and in July the daisies were in full bloom...a very pretty place.

And, randomly, here is our house this morning...10-11-08 with 3 fresh inches of snow on the ground...it has come a long ways, and the final steps include putting in a new door (red) and new windows on the whole house...come visit, it is now nice inside and out!