WE MOVED :)

We ran out of picture space on this blog, so we are moving on to:

http://abigaildietrichewing.blogspot.com/

See you there!

This happened....

So, Dietrich's been feeling under the weather all week. It's becoming apparent that working at a homeless shelter in colder months lends itself to easy colds and flus. Hopefully we'll figure out a flus hot for him soon. We did go to the Sea Wolf concert on Tuesday, but we were both tired and didn't feel like dressing up in costume. However, Wednesday my co workers voted for a dress up day, so I bravely joined four others in being YWCA super sheroes.

Here is my desk mate, Hattie, in her W glory.

I loved Mario and the unicorn...so much creative work.

And here we are in all our hero glory; empowering women and eliminating racism.

I wasn't so excited about wearing only tights and granny underwear, but it ended up being hilarious...and comfy.

Halloween was pretty chill at home. We watched two movies in a row and then went to sleep. Hopefully Dietrich will feel better soon.

Fall and Winter

Fall is quickly ending and Winter is edging in on our territory. Although the idea of Montana Winter is intimidating, the snow makes the mountains here much more aesthetically pleasing. It's as if, to make the Winter less awful, God made everything yellow. Then when the snow comes, one is able to welcome its beauty more easily. Maybe. The week began with rain and cold winds.

We spent an evening carving pumpkins at our friend, Hattie's, House Sunday. Her Cardinals were losing, so she was MIA, but there were other folks to meet. Here is the devastation after the carving...

I like to think this pumpkin was the one I carved. It wasn't. I don't even have a picture of mine.

Here is Dietrich's. Not. haha

And here are the beginnings of Winter outside our window...

We're working on our costumes today. Tuesday we're going to a concert in the evening and we're going to dress up as YWCA super heroes with two other people. Pictures to follow.

Fall Walk

We went on a Fall walk last week and took some pictures of our neighborhood and we're going to share them with you all!

Looks like there was a Maple-planting  party a while ago

See the squirrel?

See the Dog?

See the smiling lady?

The Plastic Challenge

This is our plastic challenge week!  We saved up our plastic that we used for two weeks and here it is!!

Find out more about it at:  http://myplasticfreelife.com/showyourplastic/

Mostly soft drink and milk...

We also went down to the river to make some rafts to float

Abigail's Vessel

Mine never really materialized

This is what mine ended up looking like

SNOW!  It mainly was on the mountains; it was just wet down here

That's all folks!  We may be going to a Hot Springs tonight in Idaho with some friends.  Also, we are graduates of the Advocacy Training as of Thursday.  We had a pizza party to end on.  We are still going to go to one more Childrens Advocacy Training on Monday.  It's been a really good and helpful training, but pretty emotionally draining.  We finally have a free weekend and we're going to enjoy it!!

Much love,
Dietrich and Abigail

The Great Smoke Escape

The month of September in Missoula has been full of smoke. The end of August we saw glimpses of smokey days, but eventually the breeze would clear the air and it would be beautiful again. It's been a hard and unexpected adjustment to spend the majority of our weekends indoors. Biking without a handkerchief over the mouth and nose results in wheezing and chest pains. Everything in our house smells like a campfire. The smoke is coming mainly from two wildfires. The Mustang Complex Fire (just over the Idaho border). This fire has consumed over 300,000 acres of forest. The other fire is an hour south in Hamilton. They have been waking up to 2 inches of ash every day.

This month we worked hard to make a bunch of cycling caps, bags, and baby clothes for the People's Market. The market coincides with the weekend Farmer's Market and nearly a hundred vendors sell their homemade wares. You can enter a lottery to sell for just one weekend. Last weekend was our last chance before our busy training weekends and the season's end. So, we braved the smoke and put out our wares. Unfortunately, Missoulians weren't willing to sacrifice their health for shopping (what is capitalist America coming to?).  We didn't sell a darn thing and by the end we both felt exhausted, nauseous, and frustrated from the smoke. We do, however, now have a surplus supply of goods if anyone is in the shopping mood.

Below is Dietrich at our little space. It's hard to tell from the photo how awful the smoke is, but remember this 1. It's not foggy. 2. We have zero humidity. 3. Missoula is rarely cloudy. So the haze is pure smoke.

Sunday we decided to escape Missoula and head north looking for blue skies. We drove along the Mission Mountains, past St. Ignatious and Arlee towards Flathead lake. 

 This church was built in the 1800's as a Catholic mission in St Ignatious.

 The Madonna and Christ   and Christ depicted as local natives

The original mission sleeping quarters

Here is Flathead. The smoke still present, but way better than Missoula.

We had church on the lake.

There aren't many designated swimming areas but ladders to the water are all along the shore.

 Dietrich showing off his cute smile and furry pits.

Our neighbor says we should count the smokey sunsets as a blessing.

Goodnight from Missoula.

Crafting and Hempfest

We have a few events to give an update on.  First of all, Abigail made a delicious supper of Shrimp scampi and Caprisi salad (the mozzarella tasted like sharp cheddar for some reason).  We took the food as a picnic to the Sacajawea park just across the street and also dressed up in some pretty awesome outfits!  

This is my cool wife

This is me lounging with Thai mat and mahlong

We also did a little crafting.  We covered balloons in lace and yarn respectively.  They were coated with a glue solution and when the dried.... 

And this one became a lamp cover!

Notice the dried flowers - an anniversary gift from Philip and Betsy  

The Hempfest went down on Saturday.  Just so you know, it was based on a movement to legalize industrial hemp.  Here is a website with incredible facts about Hemp: http://www.globalhemp.com/1997/10/north-american-industrial-hemp-council-industrial-hemp-facts-sheet.html

Self-explanatory

Take note:  These "Autism blankets" were sold at the Hempfest.  Not sure what the connection is.

We are the poster children for legalizing industrial Hemp.
No! we are not high because marijuana and hemp are not the  same thing.
It would be like comparing sweet corn to field corn or something like that.

And these people are just a leeetle more hardcore than us

Germanfest!!!  Here are some pictures of the chicken dance, German alpenhorns, and old guys sitting around in their lederhosen(?) and drinking out of their expensive steins.  They had a full band and one of the information tables had a German scrabble game going on in which I played "DIETRICH", one of the only German words I know.