Now we have a Toddler!!

Well I wish you all could have been here to help us celebrate Eli's 2 nd Birthday. But, since you were not available, we will run you through a timeline.

9:00 pm Saturday night, Jessica unloads a Box of pieces hoping they will resemble a horse. She looked for the head for about 5 minutes, it was stuffed inside the body. All of these horse body parts reminded Jessica of an earlier incident we had with horses this year. Needless to say she grabbed a beer before attempting this project. I fell asleep with Eli.
7:00am Sunday morning Eli Calls Grandpa Heil to tell him about his new horse in the living room. We were unable to upload the video, but he got on using the stirrups and throwing a leg over.

Eli was practicing his new operating skills with the Tractor Uncle Josh & Aunt Amanda got his new Business " Eli's Loader Backhoe Digging Express."

We had many visitors over for the occasion. They all enjoyed the cake that Jessica put together. Jessica, I have to Thank you for all that you did to make this birthday special for Eli!

And we will leave you with this image and thought " You can't get any work done without putting your bucket in the dirt."

Update on Family and the Round Up

I suppose I better talk about our family Star "Eli". He is growing like a weed and becoming more adventurous. Two weekends ago we went and help a a co-worker gather his summer cattle outside of St. Mary's. Eli was excited when he saw all the horses being saddled. He stayed at the ranch house and we struck out from there.

Jessica also rode with the group, early in the morning while pushing cows out of the brush she hooked her pant leg on a snag and it ripped her Jeans from her ankle to her hip. She come out from the bushes cussing like a sailor. I thought she was made a the old bag of bones she was pushing. When she caught up she looked flushed, and stayed on the edge of the brush waving at me. I went over and before I got within slapping distance I saw the damages. I about fell out of the saddle! Here was my blushing bride in distress and embare-assed, mooning everyone on her right. Luckily, I had on my shotgun chaps and was able to take one legging off. So on to camp. That was the funny part of our day. Eli got a chance to ride when we got back, below are the photos.



Eli enjoyed this so much, that when we tried to peel him off he would not let go. The little girl with Eli is Joe's daughter Maggie. The Hay-burner Eli is riding, was the horse I used for the day. Unfortunately these are the last photos of this horse living.

We left after lunch and loaded in the stock trailer and we were dropped off three miles from the ranch. We went of a ridge down to check some cows. Once down to the cows they spooked and took off. So, we started making our way back up the. When all of a sudden the horse I was riding started lagging, then stumbling, and fell over, luckily up hill. I did not know what to do I tried to hurry and loosen the cinches. The horse stiffened and gave out a long sagging breath. Once the owners of the horse were informed and came to my rescue I was done for the day.

It was on eventfull day. Once were got back to the ranch it was hard to explain to the kids why the Black horse didn't come back. It was later determined that the horse more than likely had a heart attack.


So we are doing well, even though the events were entertaining. Eli has a birthday coming up. He turns two on October 18.

Glacier Work Update

"BIG Bear!! Big Big ....Bear" John Candy, The Great Outdoors

Well its been along time since we blogged last. I have been meaning to update for a while. It's a snow day today, we have 8 inches of snow reported on Logan Pass and its still snowing. I still have a month worth of work at 6500 feet elevation. Pictured above is me (6'3" in Height) and the bucket is attached to a Cat 345 Excavator. Work is going well but winter is on its way.

Lewy's B-Day Camping Trip

This past weekend, we went on a camping trip to celebrate my hubby's 28th B-day. We camped on a spot on the W. Fork of the Clearwater River that runs between Lake Alva and Lake Inez. It was a weekend filled with good friends, good whiskey and mediocre fishing (could have had something to do with the whiskey!)

This was our first day on the trip. We took the boat downstream for a swim.
Eli was in the "river" every chance he could get. Here he is panning for gold (just kidding)! He really enjoyed picking up rocks, counting to three (actually he just says one, one, one) and then he throws the rock.

Bryan Mauws and Lewy in the boat doing some fishing.

Josh and Amanda Frank fishing in the jon boat. What a good looking boat...

Eli got a little seasick on the boat...actually he was just really sleepy. He passed out shortly after this in Dad's arms.

The happy couple...it was their 3rd anniversary over the weekend. They took a dip in the creek and this was proof they had their clothes on!

Are they playing soccer or making ice cream? The ice cream actually turned out really good :)

Eli attacking a piece of watermelon.

Lewy's b-day peach crisp on fire from so many birthday candles!

Base camp used for cooking, b.s'ing, and eating crawdads (after many beers and whiskey cokes!)

Eli cooking us breakfast...Grandpa Heil would be proud!

Eli and Issac Mauws playing (or tasting) the dirt. It was a dirty weekend for these little boys.

Mama Heil after a long weekend of camping!

This was a warning to all the bears in the area...

Josh and Amanda in Glacier.

Uncle Josh and Eli (who had something tasty on his hand).

New Boat!!

Well it's not a "new" boat, but it is a whole NEW jon boat. I've had a fun couple of days repainting Lewy's jon boat. Now it has several new coats of paint, cushioned seats and rubberized paint on the edges.

Here is Eli in his new lifejacket. In anticipation of the upcoming weekend at the lake, Eli insisted on wearing it around the house.

4th of July

Did you know that it is physically impossible to lick your elbow? Eli tried it out last week...he just had to have that spaghetti sauce on his elbow!

Eli is also on his way to becoming a great sous chef...except he eats everything he makes! We're going to have to work on that. Here he was chopping his tomato in half and then shoving both halves in his mouth at once.

We had a great 4th of July weekend in Chinook. It was an All-Class High School reunion so I got to see many people and party way too much. Next year will be our 10 year reunion...I can't believe we're that old already! We attended the parade in big downtown Chinook (it was surprisingly big!) Eli loved the tractors and the horses (surprise, surprise).

He even scored a frisbee thanks to his darn cute hat! All of the candy he got, he threw back in the street though...


And finally, Eli loved riding his little scooter everywhere on the ranch. It was a good (but tiring) weekend. We even stayed up with Eli for the fireworks, but he had fallen asleep by the time they started. Guess there's always next year!

Garage Sale Dog and Otter Pops

We had a good day today...I stopped at a garage sale at the neighbor's discovered two things. First, I got him a bunch of 2T clothes for $5 . Second, Eli would not let me leave without purchasing ANOTHER dog! Thank goodness he only cost us $1 and he doesn't poop! What a good dog!

Eli was just checking that the dog was healthy. We still haven't picked out a name...I'll let Dad name him!

Ride 'em Eli!!

Man that's one heavy puppy!

It took him several trips to get the new dog in the house.

Once we made it inside, I thought I would give my son an Otter Pop...should have known better....

This can only end badly....

Yup...it ended with nice new green spots on our precious carpet. Thanks Grandma Megan, it used to be a nice rug!!!

Camping with Eli

This weekend was spent with some of our good friends at Deadman's Lake near Harlowton. We had a good time catching up and attempted some fishing. This was our first official camping trip with Eli and he had a blast. We left very late on Friday and arrived at the Mauws ranch around 12:30. Our wakeup call came at 5:30 from little Issac. We then went to the lake and...

FIVE MINUTES later...Eli finds the one mudhole in camp!

This is where he got stuck. That was the first pair of shoes, good thing mom came prepared with 2 other pairs.

Here is Eli's little buddy, Issac Mauws. They are 11 months apart and I have a feeling that when they get older, they might act like their parents and have a little too much fun!

Here is "Uncle" Bjorn giving Eli his first pet carp.

Eli is taking his carp for a walk. He named him Squishy.

I almost thought that Eli was going to give this fish a kiss! He was just saying hi to his new friend. Notice the rubber shoes. Those came in handy when we had to wash off the mud. All in all it was a good (but tiring) weekend spent drinking beer and washing the mud off of our child.

Waterbaby

You would think that I had been one of those hippy moms that insisted on having a baby in the tub (you know, the natural way!) My son LOVES the water. I can't keep him out of it. If there is a puddle on the ground he is going to try to swim in it. So I caved and bought Eli a swimming pool. See below, that is is big enough to hold mom. It was 80 degrees out and I didn't feel like putting on a swimming suit...don't hold it against me. (Maybe I am a hippy...)

See comment above about water births...looks like I'm trying to have another in the pool!
Here is Eli lounging on his floatie toy. He's perfectly content at the moment.
We ventured out to Hungry Horse Lake on Friday. Here is Dad trying to keep Eli out of the water. He also showed his son how to skip rocks...a skill that must be taught by his father, because his mother lacks the coordination!
I'm just trying to keep Eli out of the deep water. It's like trying to herd cats with him sometimes! I wore the wrong shoes on this outing and ended up getting very wet. My wedding shoes will never be the same.
Eli insisted on going in the deep water to fetch this stick. He was pretty proud.

Here's the fun part...dragging my son kicking and screaming out of the lake!

I ended up just throwing him over my shoulder like a sack of taters. A really squirmy, wet sack of taters! I'm just going to give up trying to wear nice clothes...they either end up wet or covered in unidentifiable substances!!