The Pollan Post: 2017

See the blue trim on the top and the brown trim on the bottom of the windows. I have been working hard to get all the trim painted around the property. The blue trim drives me to madness. There's entirely too much blue around here.

Ally working on her halloween costume. I am totally impressed with her creativity this year. Thank you pinterest for the fun idea.

So Tyler and Cole both came to the halloween party as Dwight....the question then is, Who Dwighted better? I think Tyler's parted hair throws him over the top.

Donut on a stick game was a bit hit. Ally's gumball machine costume is so cute!! Isn't she an adorable gumball machine.

I was driving around our new neighborhood and discovered an elk ranch. The sunset is gorgeous in the background. It is seriously beautiful here.

The barn by the boat launch. It is an old red barn and I adore it. Wish I drove down this road more often.

So, this is what Penny does if she beats us to a package delivered to the front porch. She got Carter's phone when it was delivered....luckily she tore into the instruction manual and left the phone untouched.

Doesn't she look like an angel though? She ate that rug she is sleeping on and we ended up tossing it.

I looked out my window and it appears my husband has turned into a woodsman. Looks like the aspens in the yard need to watch out.

Another beautiful driving photo. It's hard for me to get around without stopping to take photos. I'm driving my kids crazy.

Soccer in Montana looks like snow covered fields and freezing cold games. Sometimes we try to park where we can see from the car because it is just so cold to sit there or stand there and watch. The girls a little better as they are at least running around but Ally hops in the car pretty cold sometimes too.

Taking home a trophy at their tournament this weekend. It feels good to go home with a first place.

I noticed in the paper today they were showing the Princess Bride in the local theater....The Princess Bride on the big screen. I dropped everything I had planned tonight. Unfortunately Byron wasn't able to ditch his meetings but Ally and I raced off to see my favorite, all time favorite movie in the actual theater. It was awesome and amazing and I loved it. Ally had fun too.

My folks came up for a visit. We showed them around Whitefish and did a little antique shopping. My dad likes to tease shopkeepers and waitresses. Usually they have no idea how to handle his antics. It's pretty entertaining.

Copperleaf Chocolate shop in Whitefish is always a win for everyone but the person footing the bill. Grandma knows how to keep the grandkids happy though and lets them load up.

We decided Cosmo was a little intense with his glass eyes staring down at us during dinner. We hooked him up with a BYU cap and some sweet blue shades. He's much more laid back now.

Moving to Montana means we are no longer doing our diabetes study visits in Utah but they are flying us out to Seattle for the bloodwork. We have decided this is awesome. Free trip to Seattle. Tyler and I tried to fit as much in as we could on our first visit. We took a bus out to the Boeing Museum and went up the Needle. We went through the Chihuly glass museum which is phenomenal. We fit a ton into our first trip.

The fish market is awesome. Scary looking fish though.

Conference Weekend with puppy Penny. She loved that we all just hung out with her all weekend watching tv. We still have a lot of training to do for this cute puppy. Conference with older kids is much easier than with younger ones. I don't know how we used to survive.

Ally is definitely Penny's biggest supporter. I had no idea how much this puppy would shed. It's driving me crazy having dog hair in all my food and on every surface of the house. We need some serious help.

Par for the course with this shredding puppy. She's like a mulching machine.

Working on getting the blue changed over to brown. This is my last and final garage door. I'm a little happy to be finishing up with this project. Also, they look so much better!!!!!

Marching band. This is something the kids didn't participate in before Glacier High School. We didn't have a marching band in Utah so it's all new to the boys. They weren't able to make it to band camp this summer when they trained so they are just jumping right into the whole playing while they march business and sometimes that means we get to laugh at our kids a bit while they are learning. It's okay though since they are so good at everything else they are doing it's nice to have one thing we can giggle about. They both did quickly figure it out and only looked like a newbie for the first time out. Don't tell Carter but Tyler caught on quicker but not by much.

Crosstown game....the whole town goes out to watch Glacier take on Flathead.

Um, what you got in your hair there, Ally? Oh, a plastic cup....why? Seriously, sometimes I realize I am not a twelve year old girl. You can see the work going on in the garden though behind her. I am building a garden, with a big fence so the deer can't eat my plants. I hear that's a problem here....lots of hungry deer.

More photos from our trip to Seattle.....we had a great time.

Top of the needle photo. Tyler got his haircut during the middle of this trip. You can clearly see which photos were pre-haircut and post-haircut. The guy did a great job. I really loved how it turned out.

awesome glass!!! love the colorful glass and the gardens were incredible with the glass displayed throughout.

Trip out to a cool lighthouse....we tried to sneak one more thing in before we left town....the only trouble was our taxi driver could not find us....seriously could not find us.... as we were supposed to go straight to the airport to catch our plane from this pick up point it was creating a big problem. My phone was down to 2% when we were finally able to meet up with the taxi driver. So frustrating but a serious blessing that we were able to connect before I lost power completely. We were being protected for sure. We also made our plane just in the nick of time.

First Day of School photo for Carter though I'm sure it's probably the second day or third day....lets just call it first week of school photo. Senior year for this one. Don't talk about it or I will start crying. We are just going to live in denial for the entire year and pretend he's not going to grow up and move on with his life. Why would we want him to accomplish the goals we have been reaching for his whole life, that would be madness. Senior year though....why did you have to come so quickly.

This girl and her soccer...she can't get enough! I can't get enough of her...isn't she just delicious. The air in the photo above is pretty hazy due to the crazy amount of fires we have been having around Montana and California and Idaho and Canada....it's been a bad fire year. They even cancelled an Idaho tournament because the air was to bad to exercise in.

After a few games in a row during a tournament weekend she ends up not being able to walk....it's tough on their little bodies....Ally is trying to walk down the sidewalk here and is struggling.

Brandy and Ally running the high five tunnel after their game.

First Day of School for Ally....Penny doesn't want her to go off and leave her all day. I walked her out to her bus the first day so Penny could go out with her.

You can barely see her bus behind her.

Working on making this house more to our style. Wish I had a bigger budget but spray paint will have to do for now. Shiny brass magically sprayed into a satin black color. Like I said, it'll do.

Jessi's x-ray with all her new hardware. Rough fall for this pup.

Byron and I have been working on a new garden this fall. He is building our raised beds and is doing an awesome job. I can't wait to get things planted in. Sometimes if you knew how hard a project was going to be you wouldn't have started it in the first place. This definitely falls into that category of project though now things are starting to look like a garden and I'm really glad we did launch into this one.

Glacier National Park day....we found the cutest wooden spoon shop at the East Entrance. Oh my goodness...wooden spoons for days.

How beautiful is it in Glacier Park?

Our ward took a temple trip to Cardston and Ally isn't quite old enough yet to participate. I sat outside with her and sketched while the boys got some work done.

Even though Ally didn't get to go in the temple she did get to go to Canada which made her really happy. First trip across the border for this one.

So, I have been painting the interior of the house. It was a light blue and I have been updating it to what they call at Sherwin Williams; woodsmoke. It's a light green olive color. You can see I have the bottom portion of this area painted and I propped the ladder up to see if it would reach the top of the room. It's excessively tall in this room. So, yes the ladder will reach but no I am not brave enough to go up there and move around while painting. I have decided to hire this portion out to a professional.

Ally giving my paint a stir. She has been a good helper while I have been painting.

Smoky fall in Kalispell this year. It is much cooler and summer has definitely shut down due to the smoke in the air.

The sprinkling in the clay is the worst. So dirty! When you finish you have three inches of clay stuck to the bottom of whatever shoes/boots you were wearing. I cannot wait to finish up with the sprinkler work for the garden. We are trying to get all the sprinkler heads pointing away from the garden so we only drip water where we want it and we will have less weed growth in there. That's the theory anyhow.