Vision Forum Drawing

I know that I seem to say a lot about Vision Forum, but we really love the company, AND, I love to let others know about the great deals that they have going on. So, just to let you know, Doug Phillips and Vision Forum are sponsoring a giveaway at inashoe.com to help get the word out about the FREE SHIPPING Vision Forum is offering until Midnight tonight. Go to http://www.inashoe.com/ and enter their drawing after you read this. They are giving away great free stuff. The more people that enter, the better the stuff! Who doesn't like free stuff - especially if it is from Vision Forum....okay, sounds like an ad. While you are at it, use the links in our sidebar to order and get free shipping!

Bozeman part 2

We were in Bozeman a total of three weeks. We met some other homeschoolers, got the city tour, and checked out some surrounding areas. It is beautiful, but we still felt like the NW was where we wanted to be. Some highlights include camping by the Yellowstone River. While Brad was gone, we went camping with the Behrendt's. The area was beautiful. It was our first experience camping at a KOA. They had a pool, laundry room, game room, and even wall paper in the bathrooms (which even had outlets!!). It was the Taj Mahal of camping.

We hiked in the Abaskaro Mountains up to this breathtaking waterfall and had a picnic. We still cannot believe that we live here in this beauty. Everywhere we look we are in awe and everywhere we go is a potential place to live. I don't think we have "met" a place in MT that we couldn't call home (Well, except for Butte and Cut Bank and downtown Browning!). However, I know that the Lord has a specific place for us to give us a future of His choosing.

Also while Brad was gone the kids put on a Father's Day play. They worked on it all day. Josiah came up with a semi-original score. Elias was the bunny - I have no idea how in the world they got him to dress like this!! It must have taken some serious slick talking.

Brad returned in a week and we decided that it was time to move on. You know what they say about house guests and fish, right? That both stink after three days? We wanted to be sure that our good friends remained our good friends! We are a big load of fish! :) We weren't sure exactly where we were going, but we were heading north. This is where the adventure really begins. It was kind of scary just taking off into the wild blue yonder to start looking around, but... "have tent, will travel". We knew that MT was the place, but, you know, MT is a big state!! :) We are so thankful that God moved the Behrendt's to MT exactly a year ahead of us. It made this whole move so much easier. Having a place to start out, get our bearings and then spread out from made all the difference in the world. The Lord is good. Surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

more photos here.

Four Year Old Wisdom

Tonight, I was giving Elisha a trim and Micah was sitting behind me "fixing" my hair (I think she might actually have been trying to rip it out of my head, but she wouldn't admit that). She said "it's hard doing the bun part, it always gets messed up. I am four and it is hard to do lots of things when you are 4. Was it hard for you when you were 4" I told her that, yes, it was hard for me when I was little, but as she gets older things would get easier. She said "yeah, because I'm four and you are sixteen!!". I said "yep, honey, that's right, I am 16". :)

First Stop - Bozeman

Well, our first stop in Montana was Bozeman. Our dear friends, the Behrendt's, opened their home up to us.....yep, all 7 of us, well 8 at first, because Shaun was with us too! They obviously didn't know what they were getting into! Bozeman is beautiful. We spent time driving all over looking at the surrounding areas. We visited Ennis (wow!) and Virginia City. Virginia City is an old historic town. The girls all wore costumes for our trip. Kurt took us to the Madison River where he gave us all a fly fishing demonstration.

While we were In Bozeman, Brad had to be back in San Diego for a week. We drove he and Shaun up to Spokane, WA to the airport. There are closer airports, but the rate in Spokane was $59 and from Bozeman it was $400. We decided that we really wanted to look around in the Bitterroot and surrounding areas, so we took a long drive. Our good friends, Karen and Doug Nelson, offered their place in Corvallis for an overnight stay and suggested some travel routes and things to see. They were not in town, so we had the run of the place. Doug suggested we take Skalkaho Pass across since it had just opened. Well... had I known we were for sure on the right road, and if we had a full tank of gas, and had it not been getting dark very shortly, I would have enjoyed it. Skalkaho pass is a very steep pass through two huge mountains (did I say huge, I meant enormously huge). It is only paved the first mile or so and is 50 miles long (as we discoverd on the other side). As we kept going farther and farther in, I kept getting more and more worried - what if we had taken a wrong road and were headed to a dead end?? At one point TOWARD the top (notice I say toward and not AT the top!), to the left of the one lane, dirt "road" with no side rail, there was a 2000 ft sheer face drop!! There was also an incredible waterfall about halfway through - it rushed down as if it were going to hit the road and then rushed under a small bridge. We (no, I) was glad to be on the other side of the mountains in Hamilton when we got there! I wish that I hadn't been worried, because it really was beautiful. We will go through it again in the daytime, being assured that this is in fact the correct road, so that I can enjoy it.

After staying in Corvalis for the night we went on to Phillipsburg. It was our favorite place at that point. Okay, I say that, but really we have found so many places that we love here that I wish we could live in all of them. Phillipsburg is this great, little, old mining town that they are restoring. Great shops, little restaurants, and the most fabulously large candy store you have ever seen! No, I am not kidding. The Sweet Palace is enormous and has everything you can imagine. I have never seen anything like it. We fell in love with that entire area. We stayed in Missoula for the night and drove on to Spokane the next day. Dropping Brad and Shaun off at the airport was hard. Shaun was really sad because he was going back to San Diego and we were not. He felt like he was losing his family. It was tough for him and for us as well. It was also a disappointing knowing that we wouldn't have Brad with us for at least a week!! View photos here.

The Beginning

Well, finally, here it is. I have been threatening this blog for a long time - since we left San Deigo to be exact. I had imagined writing it as we went along in our nomadic life this summer, but here it is fall and nothing. I was planning on getting everything up to date and then posting - in my perfect little world, I would do it exaclty that way. I have finally realized that if I waited to have it all done to post anything, I would be around the age of Noah before it was finished. Here is how I resigned to blog in my non-perfect world. I decided to keep up to date on the latest happenings at the Dunhams while gradually adding the information about our "big move". The photo links will be forthcoming - I haven't figured out how to get them all organized best to view. If you want, you can subscribe to receive the blog in your email box as I update. I was throughly rebuked by some for not keeping in touch over the past few months! :) I must give my disclaimer: I am a computer dork. If I waited to get this out there until I have it all figured out, well, maybe I'd be OLDER than Noah. So, friends, here we go! WELCOME.

New Vision Forum Giveaway

Once again, Kim is giving away $250 Vision Forum products to three people!! What a great giveaway! All you have to do is come up with $250 worth of exclusive Vision Forum items and post them to your blog. (they have the little Vision Forum logo next to the item)Go to her blog to see the details.
Here is my list of favorites (well, stopping at $250!)

Passionate Housewives: Desperate for God #84332 $16.00
Henty Guide #24402 $10.00
2006 Best of the Christian Film Festival #79878 $35.00
Make Your Own Doll Dress Kit #31580 $19.00
Colonial Jacket and Breeches #10177 $69.00
Jonathan Park: The Explorers Society #35468 $25.00
The Adventure of Missionary Heroism #74642 $24.00
The Coral Island: A Tale of the South Pacific #51704 $22.00
Southern lady Dress #11063 $19.00
Building a Culture of Virtuous Boyhood #68219 $10.00

So, what are you waiting for?

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