Hey everyone! Welcome to the first blog post on Far, Far Away! My plan is to do updates on our life in Wyoming so that all of our friends and families who live so far away can get a little glimpse of our life without actually having to travel all the way out here. (Although we’d really rather have you come visit us for real)! I might throw in some recipes, etc. here and there…but I’m not making any promises!
But then again, if you do come visit us, we probably won’t have room for you…at least for now. Yeah, our house is tiny. I thought our first house on Sleepy Hollow Lane was tiny…but this is way smaller. Somewhere around 720 square feet! Katie’s room is just big enough for her crib and a dresser. Our room has enough room for our bed…and we put the dresser in the closet! Thankfully, there’s a closet and a built-in dresser in each bedroom. Joe’s boss has an airplane hangar where he’s graciously allowing us to store stuff, so we only brought in the necessities for now! Despite the smallness of the house, my kitchen is actually better (more cupboard space) than our first two houses. I’m learning how to use a gas stove, and how to wash dishes ALL the time since there’s not much counter space for dirty dishes to languish. There’s a woodstove in the living room, so the only other stuff we have in there is our recliner, a rocking chair, and a big chest for extra seating. It’s actually quite cozy…and I think that once I get some decorations up and some of these extra boxes out of the way, I’ll enjoy the simplicity in the smallness…hopefully! J
Yesterday we went for a long Sunday afternoon drive. I took my camera along and tried to capture the beauty of southeastern Wyoming.
Laramie Peak
This is for Joe’s dad…I hear he wishes he had some cattle like this!
I could stand to look at this every day! Oh wait, I can! We actually don’t have a great view out of our windows…but if we go outside we can see it all!
This is a pretty typical scene. There’s a lot of farmland here. When we got here a week ago there was no snow…except in the mountains. We had a little snowstorm the other day that gave this to us. I was pretty surprised that there wasn’t a lot of snow here, especially this time of year, but it’s so dry here that we really don’t get tons of snow at all.
We drove about a half hour north to a huge reservoir and had a look around. It was so pretty…can’t wait to come here in the summertime!
We took the long way home and found some real Oregon Trail wagon ruts. Since moving out here, I’ve been thinking about what it must’ve been like for those pioneer wives long ago. I can’t imagine bumping along at an unbelievably slow rate of speed in a wagon with no shocks and being pregnant at the same time. I thought I was miserable in a three day car trip!
Joe and Katie on the Oregon Trail! Just look at that huge rut!
And then, as I was about to get back in the car, I noticed these…a whole bunch of them. I should’ve put my foot down there so you’d get a little perspective on the size…but I’m pretty sure they were about the size of my hand. Gave me the heebie-jeebies! I had to look around to make sure that kitty cat wasn’t still prowling around somewhere!
Then we stopped by a popular stopping point along the Oregon Trail…Register Cliff.
The rock is really soft, so it was a great place for travelers to carve their names.
I wonder if this Hoover who came through in the 1860’s was a Mennonite!?
My two loves!
(Yes, if her dad had a coat on then she should’ve too…but I’m a bad mom that way)!
So…what are our plans for the future? Well, we’re hoping to find something larger to live in before Baby #2 arrives in July. There’s honestly no room for a bassinette in this trailer! Right now we’re scouring the real estate magazine and driving all over the place looking at properties for sale. Pray that we could find the right place for us…at a good price! Joe is brainstorming all kinds of ideas for making money…so hopefully we can figure out what we’re supposed to do and what will be successful! Early in the fall of last year, I was complaining to Joe that life was pretty humdrum and that I didn’t have anything to look forward to right now. Well…I guess God heard my complaint and decided to spice things up a bit. Life is anything but humdrum now!
-Janelle
