7th Trip Outside - The first week

It has been a little over 2 years since we moved to the far north.  Although some days seem very long and this 2nd winter seemed to last forever, the time has really flown by and we are already looking forward to that time when we will return to the lower 48.  It is hard to think that I have made that long trip down 7 times now.

I had started planning my spring trip last October.  First, I thought I would go in February but because we went down for Christmas, I then decided I would go down and see Mom for her birthday then go and spend Easter with the grandkids.  I hadn't figured out yet how that would all work out as I also wanted to spend a weekend with Val and cook dinner for some of her friends.  Then one day while I was talking to Jill, she said the girls really wanted me to come for spring break.  Since they usually go somewhere during that time - CO or MT, I hadn't considered that an option but it was a wonderful idea and I immediately booked vacation time and started making plans.

Of course, John had plans of his own.  While I was in Idaho, it only made sense that I would go on up to MT and start looking for a retirement home - just to get an idea of the areas.  We knew we did not want to move back to the same area we had lived in before so had been looking at homes all over the state (well - our attention was really focused on the western half of the state so if the kids are still where they currently are, the distance from us to them would be shorter).

On March 23, John took me to the airport for my 1:20 a.m. flight to Boise.  I was somewhat concerned as I had been dieting and exercising and was really afraid that this trip would mess with my weight loss.  I knew that I would eat healthy in Idaho but main concern was that after flying all night, I would be getting into Boise, ID at 9:30 with a 2 1/2 hour drive ahead of me - how was I going to stay awake for that drive if I didn't have a super-sized dr. pepper (filled with caffeine) for the drive.

I had read that it was best to drink water to stay awake so determined to give it a try.  After landing at the airport and getting my rental car, I stopped at the c-store and purchased a large bottle of water and a package of Jack Links jerky for protein then headed east to Burley.

I actually did not feel tired at all during the drive and soon, I was getting hugs from my granddaughters and a very cute smile from a little grandson who hasn't a clue who I am.

We went for a nice long walk after I arrived.  I was amazed by all the green, since at home it was still all snow and ice.  The girls rode their bikes, ST rode in the stroller and little JW was at home with Daddy since he was sleeping.

On Sunday morning, we got up and went to church.  Then back to the house and jumped on the trampoline a little, vegged and made plans for the week.  Monday we bought Easter dresses for the girls and groceries for the two older girls and myself for our 2 day trip to Montana.  We were going to stay in the Rainbow Valley Lodge where we had a nice little 2 bedroom with kitchenette.  That way, we could do our own cooking and wouldn't have to worry about allergies.

Early Tuesday morning, JM, MS and I got up and headed north to Montana.  It was over 4 1/2 hours to Ennis where we would meet up with the Realtor.  I had planned to be there by 9:30 but it was closer to 10 by the time we arrived.  We talked a bit more about what I was looking for and then we 3 piled into the realtor's truck and headed out to look at houses.  The wind was extremely annoying and after living up here where the wind rarely blows, I began to wonder why I wanted to move back down there.

Nice view from one of the houses we looked at.

Several of them had shops.

Of course, MS thought we should buy every one we looked at.  She just wants us to hurry and move back down.   She also wanted to know if we were going to look for horses to buy too.

This house helped JM realize just how bad houses smell when there is a lot of smoking done in them.  It did have nice nickory cabinets.

The loft area seemed to have been added as an after thought - very tiny space up there.

"Is someone sleeping in that bed??"

Upstairs in the loft area - not even big enough to put a bed up here.

This house was my absolute favorite.  It was set up for horses and the house was gorgeous but not much land and higher than my price range.  Not sure why when you tell realtors how much you want to pay for a house, they think they should add 20-40 thousand to your upper limit and show you houses in that price range.  I had to practically beg to see a house that was at the lower end of my limit.

I really loved this paint job in the master bedroom - it was only on this one wall.

The whole front room is surrounded on 3 sides by windows with views of the nearby mountains.

Finally finished with looking at houses for the day, we decided to try a little geocaching.  The first one we went to was titled Ennis Rest Stop.  I thought of course this would be at the little wayside park as you come into Ennis from the north but nope - turns out it was at the Ennis Cemetary.  After re-reading the description several times and not being able to find it, we read the hint so knew it ad to be somewhere on the chain link fence.

JM found it inside this end pole.

She was happy to find it - we had a little trouble getting it out as it had sunk a little lower than the top but I found a wire nearby to pry it out.  MS wasn't so happy as it was a tiny cache which meant there wouldn't be any treasures inside.

Another cache was in this area but despite spending a long time looking for it, we just couldn't find it at all - will have to save that for another time.

We bought some ahi tuna steaks to cook for dinner to eat with our avocado tostados and went back to the hotel.  MS was extremely happy that everywhere she looked she saw her name - even on the pictures inside our room.  We had to take a couple of pictures.

We cooked dinner, watched "The Labyrinth" on my computer (thanks toVal for turning me on to Netflix), then went to sleep.  In the morning, we got up and ate breakfast then drove around a little before meeting up with the realtor again.

If we move to Ennis, this is where I will go to church.  Definitely only a branch size building.

It was cold down by the Madison river - but a nice place for a picnic on a hot day.

There are large painted fish all over town - this was one of our favorites.  We wanted to get more pictures but too quickly, it was time to meet the realtor.

When we went in, he had 3 houses lined up for us to see.  I also asked him for information on a couple of places in Whitehall so we could at least drive by them.  He immediately called a friend to see if we could by chance get in to see them that afternoon.  Then we went to see the one house that I had wanted to look at and 2 others.

The first house had a very nice living room but was extremely small.  The girls loved the fire place because it was cold on the morning of March 28 especially with the wind blowing.

Way too small - I couldn't even fit my bed in the bedroom. On to the 2nd house.  This one had intrigued us on the internet because of the barn and the price.  Of course, we found out that the well was only putting out 5 GPM but at least wanted to see it.

MS liked the ladder to the hay loft in the barn.  It had 3 stalls and a work shop on the left side of the barn.  It also had a small room with a bathtub for washing your dog.

The view was nice but the house had nothing special about it and with a very poor well.  The third house on his list was even smaller than the first which apparently has been a hold up since one note on the listing that caught my eye was this "it would be easy to turn the attached garage into more living space."  No way did I even want to waste time looking at that one.

We went back to the office and he gave me some papers.  His wife offered the girls some bags of skittles - the day before she had offered them tootsie pops but that's not something MS can have so apparently, she had called her daughter who teaches kindergarten to find out what a safe candy is for kids with allergies - very nice of her.

I set the kids up in the back seat of my rental car with their lunches and my i-phone to play angry birds and we headed to Whitehall to meet up with another realtor there to see a house on 40 acres.  The living room was big.

 But I sure did not like this staircase up to the loft - it was free standing with no railing on either side.  Not a good choice for old people or children.

The loft area again was rather small.  Room for a bed and dresser but kind of short.  The downstairs smelled awful and absolutely no storage space inside.  There was a 12x24 shed outside but we would have to build another outbuilding.

The view wasn't so spectacular but it backed up to the forest so all we would have to do is ride out the gate to a numbr of trails and head off up the mountain.

Also, there was this small pond that was stocked with fish and the rights to 3 springs to fill it with.  But with a too small of house, I thanked the realtor and we started to leave.  She said there was one more house she could show us that day without notice and it was in the same area so  we drove to it.  Again, it was on 40 acres and was completely fenced.  The property was rocky so they had used the rocks to build fence "posts".  Again the house was too small - we wouldn't have been able to fit our bed in the master bedroom.  The only possibility would be to turn the downstairs family room into a master bedroom which wasn't too exciting.  So, the girls said hello to the 3 calves in the loafing shed and we headed back to Idaho.

On Thursday morning, Jill took the two little ones to the library for story time.

ST with her pigtails.

JM decided she wanted to go too.  She loves to read and was ready for another book.  While they went to the library, MS and I went to the CAL Ranch Store to look at the baby chickens.  They were so cute and MS really wanted to take one home with her.  Instead, I bought her a tiny toy cat.  Then we went to kiwi loco where she had mango tango sorbet and I had some absolutely delicious fat free coconut frozen yogurt.

Back at the house, it was time for lunch.  JW was having fun playing with these glasses and trying to fit them on his face.

After lunch, JM, MS and I discovered there was a geocache nearby so we walked down the road and around to the other side of the canal to find a geocache inside a pipe laying along the bank.  We realized after we found it that it was one we had found before.  We drove into Twin Falls and had sushi for dinner on Thursday night.  It was delicious.

When we got back from sushi, we set up sleeping bags on the girls bedroom floor so we could have a slumber party.  We watched a movie on the computer and then tried to sleep..  It took forever to get the littlest girl to settle down - since she wasn't in an actual bed, I guess she thought she could just wander around a lot.  Once I got all of the girls to sleep, I snuck into the bed which was definitely softer than the floor.
Friday morning was a little rainy but the 3 girls and I took a long walk to find another geocache.  It was one we had tried to find 2 days before ST was born in 2009 but we hadn't had any luck.  This time, it didn't take us too long to find it which was good because it was too far to walk and be disappointed.

Since it was wet, we went back to the house and left ST, then drove downtown to 2 caches we had found before.  Sadly, one of those caches was missing so we weren't able to find it.  Then back to the house to drop off MS so I could take my oldest granddaughter to lunch at Dairy Queen.  We had a nice lunch then returned to the house to spend the afternoon with the family.

Friday night, we watched a Hansel and Gretel movie on netflix then had to get to sleep because early Saturday morning, I snuck out of the house to get to the airport for the next leg of my journey.