The Return Of Nolan (a.k.a Swirly Beard)

Goodness, it's been awhile since I blogged. Thankfully, Laura had a few things to say in my stead and blogged a few weeks ago. I've been so busy lately that I have only had my computer on a handful of times in the past few weeks.

For starters, we picked up a last minute landscape job and we have been trying to get as much done as possible before the weather ends our season. So, up until today we had been working sun up to sun down - about 9 hours a day. When the sun doesn't show up until 7:30 and it's gone around 5:00 it makes the day short and the nights long. Due to the fact that I have no daylight time to do stuff around the house, I have been getting home around 5:30, grabbing a bite to eat, and then checking off chores from the long list of "To Do." What was there to do? PACK our bags!

We made a trip to Nebraska, and took our first load of things back with us. We bought a trailer to move our things - we won't be taking everything in one trip this time. For some reason, we seem to be accumulating things as the years go by - imagine that! The trailer was a great investment, and I suspect it will get a lot of miles put on it. For starters, we put 2500 miles on it last week, and we will do it again next month. 5,000 miles right off the bat is a good start!

As for the trip, we left after my stained glass class on Wednesday night - around 11:00 p.m.. Switching gears for a moment, the window is coming along nicely. We finished our last class this previous Wednesday - I still have some work to be done on the window, but I have the knowledge of what will need to be done now. The picture I snapped of the window really doesn't look very good, but you can at least see how it looks for now.

Back to the trip - we drove into the night Wednesday and into Thursday morning, only stopping in Columbus, MT, Sheridan, WY, and Casper for gas. We reached Cheyenne at noon on Thursday and grabbed some McDonald's before hitting the road again around 1:00. We made a stop in Brule, NE to pick up some stuff for my brother and then another quick stop in North Platte to pick up Gram's computer for a much needed overhaul. We arrived in Kearney a few minutes before 8:00 p.m. on Thursday evening - 20 hours after leaving and 1,150 miles down the road. It wasn't too bad though - I worked sun up to sun down on Wednesday, had an hour between work and glass class, then made it home a few minutes before 10:00 p.m. to put the final things into the truck and tie down the tarps. I slept combined total of 20 minutes on the drive back to Nebraska, but I didn't require any extra sleep on Thursday night - I just woke up early as usual and started the day...

Friday was spent with family and getting my semi-annual haircut. Followed by wedding rehearsal. OH! I forgot to mention, that was reason number two for venturing back to Nebraska. My good friend who ran with me in high school and college got married, and I was part of the festive group celebrating the occasion... So after the rehearsal dinner we spent a few more hours with family before getting some sleep before the long day on Saturday.

The wedding was a great time, and a lot of high school friends were there. Few live around Kearney these days (including us) so it's rare to see them, and even more rare to see everyone together.

Sunday we rolled out of Kearney in the late morning and made our way back to Cheyenne to spend Monday with Laura's parents. After a quick stay in Cheyenne it was back to Missoula on Tuesday to get back to work on Wednesday and pay off the $500 we spent on gas for the trip! Can you believe that! We were a little disgusted by the price of gas, but decided that money is just money and family and friends are hard to put price on. Either way, the trip was great and we will do it again next month.

Work is still going strong. We are planning to work until the snow starts flying, and then we will put our work gloves away for the season. Hopefully I can get a few pictures of the project before the snow gets here, I really want to show off the work. As far as this weekend, we don't have much planned. A day at home getting caught up on our lists, and then maybe a day of hunting on Sunday. Either way, it's a short week with Thanksgiving on Thursday and I am planning on doing some hunting on Thanksgiving morning as well.

Until again

-Nolan-