Busy, Busy, Busy

It's only been about two weeks but as usual, we've been going non-stop. Troy came that Monday and did our texturing upstairs. When he was finished we asked how long it would take to dry before we could paint and he said "By the time you go to town and come back with the paint, it will be dry enough". Woohoo! We were thinking a day or two maybe. So Mom went downstairs and found some primer that we had from a previous project and we got started that afternoon. Painting is my favorite part!! We finished priming Tuesday I think and then it took us two hours in WalMart to figure out what colors we were going to do. We decided on summer pecan and sky blue, with a darker brown to do the faux on the bottom. I'll put some pictures of it so you can just see. I'm painting clouds on the horizon line of the ceiling so there is a picture of that in progress also. We have had tons of fun and Mom and Dad can't believe that we've gotten so far up there! Now all they need is carpet and the master suite upstairs will be finished. Thursday I got a call for an interview in Anaconda for the Horticulturist position. I went and felt like it went terrible (They asked questions like, "What's the best way to take care of poppies", or "What maintenance is required for a flower bed"). My answer half the time was weed, water and fertilize. What else is there to do?! Anyway, he called me later that day and said they gave the position to someone else but wanted me to help him part-time with the flower beds and part-time as the Washoe Park Pool Manager. I accepted even though I'm not too excited about being in charge of the high school lifeguards, but it was a job after weeks of nothing! It was perfect timing because we had just finished the upstairs.

That weekend was Memorial Day and we did our usual Hogge Tradition of going to help Grandma Aldridge clean up her house for summer. We painted and trimmed and mowed and cleaned and all sorts of things. It was great fun! Doug and Heather's family came and Alisa & Chris's also came for a night We camped out in her backyard which is always fun. Grandma didn't have enough projects to keep us all busy for two days so Monday we headed to Chris and Alisa's to fix their back porch. The boys ripped out all the old windows and framed in three new big nice ones. It looked great! Alisa will have to post pictures because I forgot to take some with mine. Meanwhile the cousins had a great time playing together. We also took a trip to the Brady greenhouses and got some flowers, and Alisa and Chris announced that they were having a baby in October!! (We found out later that it will be another boy). It was a fun weekend!

Tuesday, I started work at 8 a.m. and have been weeding flower beds everyday since then. They were out of control! The lady who was the previous horticulturist liked to drink on the job and waste the hours talking to passers-by. So, needless to say everything looks terrible. So me and the full time kid (He's going to Montana Tech and is two years younger than me) have just been digging and pulling to get things looking better. It's great to work outside especially in the parks. Washoe Park is actually a great park right on the creek! I ran cross country there back in the day, but it's a fun place. I never thought I'd like outside jobs too much especially weeding, but I love it. I love Montana! Besides, I've gotten to meet up with Skyler for lunch sometimes which is a lot of fun. Thursday, Aunt Lela and Whitney flew up for the weekend and we had a picnic for lunch which was fun! They came up to ride horses and visit so it should be a great weekend. The best news of the day though is that Becky and Vince finally had their baby this morning! Little Rachel Victoria was 7 lbs 7 oz and 19 inches. They sent everyone a picture of her to our phones! Hopefully they'll be posting more pictures soon so we can all see her.