Happy Memorial Day!

Um... yeah. So this happened.

Front Yard

 Back Yard

This happens every year. Why do I always forget?

... SPRING STORM TO BRING RAIN AND SNOW FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY...

A STRONG STORM SYSTEM WILL DEVELOP OVER THE WESTERN UNITED STATES THURSDAY AND FRIDAY WHICH WILL BRING SIGNIFICANTLY COOLER AND WETTER CONDITIONS FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY.

ON FRIDAY... A WEAK DISTURBANCE WILL BRING ENHANCED PRECIPITATION TO WYOMING. SNOW LEVELS FRIDAY MORNING ARE EXPECTED TO BE 6500 TO 7000 FEET THEN RISING TO 8000 TO 9000 FEET IN THE AFTERNOON. MOUNTAIN SNOWFALL OF 3 TO 6 INCHES WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS IS POSSIBLE ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS OF WESTERN AND CENTRAL WYOMING.

ON SATURDAY AND SUNDAY... A WARM FRONT WILL PUSH NORTH ACROSS THE AREA... BRINGING ADDITIONAL WIDESPREAD PRECIPITATION TO THE REGION. A COLD FRONT WILL THEN PUSH EAST ACROSS THE REGION SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY. THIS COLD FRONT WILL DROP SNOW LEVELS TO NEAR VALLEY FLOORS. AN ADDITIONAL 3 TO 6 INCHES OF MOUNTAIN SNOW WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS WILL BE POSSIBLE SATURDAY AND SUNDAY... WITH THE HIGHEST AMOUNTS EXPECTED IN THE TETONS. MOUNTAIN SNOWFALL COULD BE HEAVY AT TIMES AS THIS COLD FRONT PUSHES EAST.

CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED TO IMPROVE LATE SUNDAY AND MONDAY AS THIS SYSTEM MOVES NORTHEAST INTO MONTANA.

TRAVELLERS AND THOSE WITH OUTDOOR PLANS SHOULD MONITOR THE LATEST FORECASTS FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ON THIS POTENTIAL SPRING STORM.

Study

While Mom was here, she helped me pull the heat deflectors off the wall. Other than a pile of hair and dust (the gray strip on top of the baseboard), this is the... lovely(?)... color we found.

I took advantage of the momentum and spent Tuesday night (after teaching Turbo), covering the yellow and the peach with all gray.

It's so pretty! And look at my new rug!

Trash Pickup

I have a hard time saying no to people. Especially good friends (Becky, I'm looking at you) who have good causes (cleaning up the highway). So, even though I had planned on just vegging after a fantastic night of Fur Ball partying, I agreed to help do some highway pickup. It was a long, beautiful, tiring day. And I felt smug for helping the environment. Notice, though, that, while Trudy is busy actually doing trash pickup, I'm mugging for the camera. Oh well, it happens.

Fur Ball

Every year the Stafford Animal Shelter throws a fantastic “ball” to raise money. There’s a silent auction and a live one with great items that are donated. Last year, the food was fantastic, the lines were short and the wine flowed freely. This year, they sold more tickets and expected that folks would move around as they ate so that people would circulate through the seats. I don’t know who thought that this would be a good idea or even feasible but it made it a little less enjoyable. Also, the food just didn’t have as much pop. I splurged on a martini and it was okay but not fantastic. Hopefully Vicki will be on the volunteer board again next year so we’ll get to hear what the plan is but I’ve got to say, if I’m spending $75, I would hope for something a little better than what we were given. I want good food that I can eat in one to two bites. They did a fantastic job in 2010 and I hope it gets back to that.
Other than that, over twenty people from Gardiner came, which was a huge percentage of the town and a great percentage of the number of people that actually showed up. A great chance to reconnect with some folks that I don’t normally get to see and probably won’t get to see with the business of summer coming up.

Fancy eyeliner from Birchbox. Pretty but it itched after awhile

Me and Pat

Laurel and Leigh Anne

Heidi and Leigh Anne

Leigh Anne and me

Bike to work

There’s a week in May that is devoted to biking, Internationally. One day is all about women bikers, one day is for just getting out, and one day is international “Bike to Work Day.” So, on May 15, I got to the North Entrance just before six o’clock to join eight other people who were also biking “up the hill.” It’s a five mile, (something like) eight hundred foot rise. The road sucked. It was soft, squishy, and I spent a lot of time walking my bike up hills. I just couldn’t do it. I’m in pretty good shape right now but was totally ashamed to have to stop several times and just get off my ass so that I make it up the hill. You could argue that it’s a different muscle set than I’m used to using. You could argue that my bike is a hybrid so the tires aren’t as good for going uphill as the folks that I was with. I might argue that I still need to get into better shape.
Still, it was a beautiful morning, and for the most part, I was following Heidi, Vicki, and Carrie up the hill, so I got pictures with them. Rachel, Lynn and Stacey came up soon after. So did another woman and her husband whose names I am forgetting. Dagan and Brandon rode up the road since they both had skinny tires. Riding on the road scares me. Especially during tourist season. Those people are generally Nuts. However, there was no way in hell that I was going to ride down the Old Road by myself, so I did take the main road back down. Only five cars passed me, in two groups, and I was able to get to a pull-off both times. It was a freaking exhilarating ride. I made it up the hill in about 50 minutes and down the hill in about 20. I think I was screaming “Wheeeeeeeee! Wheeeeeeeee!” just about the whole way down. It was fantastic and something that I’d like to repeat. Maybe in September when there are fewer wing nuts on the road.

Donkey Basketball

Making the T-Shirts

Okay. You all know that I’m weird. Strange. A little off. So when an ad appeared in the Gardiner newsletter for Donkey Basketball, Heidi and I discussed whether we wanted to play. We both thought it sounded like fun but weren’t too sure about writing. So we caviled for a little bit but finally decided that it really was too cool to pass up. How many times do you think you’d have the chance to play Donkey Basketball (and raise money to help a local with medical bills)? Um, like, none. So to pass this up would be the height of utter foolishness.

Going to get the Donkeys

I called and signed up. Or tried to anyway. Unfortunately, there were already the maximum number of teams. So I went to Plan B and joined the National Park Service (NPS) team. Except that the point person for that team didn’t want to play, she was just trying to be helpful and have a team. Since I was the first person to respond, I became the default captain. Oh, yeah. I’m the CAPTAIN. And that was my nickname. My first email was to scout prospective teammates. We gathered a pretty good team. My next decree was that we all should have nicknames (the only team to do so). I also decreed that we would wear white t-shirts and wear brown pants (Carhartts or Red Ants Pants). That second one was dumb. Have you ever tried to get on a donkey wearing stiff pants? It just doesn’t go well.

Playing

The big night came. You may have noticed that I already have a post for Park to Paradise on this day. “But, Jessi,” you might wonder, “You set up the food for P2P, you ran 5 miles that day, did you actually go and play Donkey Basketball as well?” The answer is “Yes, and I even fit in a memorial service for a former boss as well.” It was a long-ass (see what I did there?) day. By the end of the night, I felt like I blinked and 15 minutes passed. I’m pretty sure I was “this close” to hallucinating.

Bringing in the donkeys

But, this is not a post about exhaustion, it’s about Donkey Basketball. It was fun, it was fantastic. For the whole two minutes I was on a donkey. I got off to retrieve a ball and COULD NOT get back on. My pants were way to stiff and I just couldn’t manage it. At that point, I had been on the donkey, my mission was accomplished, so I called a teammate over and had him jump on.

The whole team

Taking a shot (I missed, but I tried!)

Yep, this was necessary

Back Fence

This was a huge one. For years, it's been a pain in the ass to get in my back gate. It was wedged up against the garage and it took a good hip bump to open the damn thing.
Check it out. It opens!

Home Repairs-Stone Fence

My house is from 1926. It's old. It needs some help. So this is the year to do some major repairs. First things first, the stairs on the front of the house. It really appeared that the rocks were ready to start falling out. I needed to not be the one house bringing the neighborhood down. The mason was awesome and my wall looks beautiful. Now, I can sit outside and enjoy the sun without getting up with crumbling asphalt sticking to my legs. Best part? Josh had left some rocks that he wasn't going to sell so they got incorporated into the wall, on the ledge between the upper and lower areas.
It's so pretty!