an ode to a husband who rocks

My husband rocks.  I forget so easily how much he rocks.  And then I have a moment like today when I think, wow...he totally rocks!

1. He loves Jesus.  I'm reminded all too often how many husbands are not only disinterested in church but are actually hostile to it.  My husband?  He'd go to church even if he wasn't the pastor.  And he wants to teach our daughter about Jesus too.  Score.

2. He listens to me and tries to understand me better than almost anyone I know.  Other than my Mom, nobody has ever taken that much time to try to know me.

3. He cheers me on in my dreams.  Nobody is more excited than him when I succeed.  Nobody is more sad for me than when I fall down.

4. He's always willing to help around the house and sometimes even does it without being asked.  He often spends precious hours on his day off helping me clean and organize.

5. And today he reminded me of all of these things when I called in a panic having gone shopping only to have my toddler spit up ALL OVER her carseat, self, and neighboring areas.  He met me at the door with sani-wipes and proceeded to spend 45 minutes cleaning up the whole awful mess while I cleaned up Burrito and myself and got her settled down to watch a video. 

He ROCKS.  And I love him!

multitudes on monday (31-35)

Here's what I'm thankful for this week:

31. God bringing me through a few days of anxiety to feeling better and being less focused on myself.

32.  Opportunities to be out in the sun, enjoying God's creation, here in the mountains of Montana.  A (previously never before experienced) urge to hike.

33. The fun of living in a vacation community where I can enjoy for free or cheap things that other people have to pay big bucks for.

34.  The blessings of Christian friends, with whom iron sharpens iron.

35. A week in which Burrito and I got along famously and greatly appreciated being out of the car, with our requisite space and adequate sleep.  Being able to enjoy each other, rather than be annoyed with each other.

What are you thankful for today?  For some inspirational reading, I recommend Ann Voskamp's post today, "The Problem of Evil? The Greater Problem of Good?"

In light of her post, let us all be in prayer for the starving children of Somalia, 30,000 of whom have died in the past 3 months.  If you are looking to help in a material way, Samaritan's Purse would be a great place to start.

Taste of Kalispell

Folks enjoying Taste of Kalispell Saturday night.

One of the great things about living in the Flathead Valley is that particularly in the summer, there is so much going on that you get to choose what you would like to do each weekend.  As if I didn't have enough fun yesterday at Bigfork Festival of the Arts, Taste of Kalispell took place last night at the Museum at Central School.

I love food.  Good food, beautiful food, artful food.  I found it all at Taste of Kalispell.  Add to that: Cocinando, a Latin orchestra provided music for dancin' (which Christopher, Burrito and I did), there was an art display to enjoy in the museum, and door prizes.

But of course the star of the show was the food and wine.

Here are my top 5 favorite tastes of the 20 or so restaurants and caterers providing samples of their fine offerings:

5. Homemade meatball at Bonelli's Bistro--bursting with flavor from fresh herbs and a lovely marinara sauce.  Genuine comfort food.

4. North Bay Grille provided this perfectly summer-appropriate Thai Chicken Salad.  The earthiness of the sesame oil and peanut butter, the crunch of the cabbage, carrots and peppers, the tender strips of chicken, the spicy finish.  It was perfect, particularly with a robust glass of Mission Mountain Winery's Cabernet.

3. Look at Me Cupcakes provided my favorite dessert offering: Pink-glitter sprinkled Lavender Cupcakes with Lemon Butter Cream frosting ("We tried Lavender Cupcakes with Lavender frosting but they just came out tasting like soap!" the baker told me).  Well, I'd say they found the perfect combination now!  If only they were bigger!

2. The surprise of the night: Mackenzie River Pizza Company offered some of the freshest, more flavorful food out of all the food presenters.  I say this is a surprise because Mackenzie River is a local chain, and as a chain, it tends to play to the middle of tastes, sometimes overly salting its food and trying to be too generally appealing.  Their food is good but not great, in my experience.  With previous impression in my head, I was pleasantly surprised to try their zesty Summer Gazpacho, full of chunky, garlicky goodness.  It was the perfect taste on a hot summer evening.  I drank two glasses of it!  Not pictured was their other delicious offering: Thai Chicken Skewers.

1. My absolute favorite offering of the night (and Christopher's too, while I'm at it): A Parmesan and Herb Waffle drizzled with a Cheese Sauce from local coffeehouse/music venue The Boiler Room.  This eggy, crisp, chewy waffle was a revelation!  The fine folks at the Boiler Room told me they age their waffle dough overnight to develop its delicious tanginess.  Depth of flavor meets sweet tooth.  The Boiler Room serves waffles on the weekend.  From my investigation of their online menu, I didn't find this particular waffle variety but hopefully they have added it since posting their menu.  I salute them!

Bigfork Festival of the Arts

This summer, my favorite past-time has been attending the many arts festivals, farmer's markets, and other outdoor markets available in the Flathead Valley.  Each of them has been a pleasure, but the best outdoor market I have been to so far, has been the Bigfork Festival of the Arts.

The location on quaint Electric Avenue adds to the charm (many outdoor markets in the Flathead are on lawns or in parking lots).  The sheer number of vendors makes this arts festival especially wonderful too.  There is good variety of different kinds of art, from metalwork to pottery to handcrafts to woodwork to photography to jewelry, but I saw far more unique pieces of artistry at this festival than at any other this season.  I also saw more vendors from places outside of Montana than I had seen elsewhere.  Walking down Electric Avenue, my senses were overwhelmed with the textures and bright colors and gorgeous smells (from the handmade soaps and food vendors alike!).

There were an excellent selection of food vendors.  I saw stands and food trucks for roasted corn, roasted turkey legs, artisan tacos, sweet and savory crepes, beautiful handcrafted pizza (trucked in hot and fresh by local chef Engjell Vrapi on his motorbike), hand-dipped corn dogs (which Burrito devoured), Szechuan noodles and of course the always popular Island Noodles.  When you filled up with lunch, you could always venture down the street to Sweet Peaks, the homemade ice cream shop that is home to unique flavors like Lemon Sesame, Salted Caramel, Cupcake, Huckleberry, and Avocado Lime (along with old favorites too).  I contend that Sweet Peaks makes the best ice cream I have ever eaten and you're nuts if you don't stop by. 

Here are a few lovely shots from the Arts Festival.  It's ongoing today and tomorrow.   (Most of the photos are courtesy of my husband, Christopher Miller.)

Lunch for Christopher and I was found at the Taco truck. 

I partook of the shredded pork taco, with salsa, cilantro, cheese.  Christopher had the buffalo taco with (yes) buffalo meat, cotija cheese, pico de gallo).  Yum!

Textures.

This was an awesome find...purses/satchels made out of Costa Rican coffee bags.  They looked exactly like the bags we used to reuse for shopping in the outdoor market when I lived in Costa Rica as a child.

Beautiful metal work.

The local theater kids performing and collecting tips in a guitar case.  Love it!

Local artist Eric Thorsen does amazing sculpture and metal work.  I wasn't sure this bear wasn't real, as it rested outside his Electric Avenue art gallery.

Beautiful blown glass baubles.

The streetscape.  Love the crowds of people enjoying the sun and art and food.

highlights from vacation

We did a lot in just two weeks.  Here are a few highlights:

Burrito made her first pie with Grandma Maxine (see right).

We got to see U2's 360 Tour at the TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. I had been waiting for this concert since last year when we bought the highly-prized tickets.  At that time, we lived in North Dakota.  Bono suffered a serious back injury, however, and the concert had to be rescheduled.  We determined we were still going!  I think U2 is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of concert, almost a religious experience (maybe cut out the "almost").  It amazes me to see loads of people who would never darken the door of a church attending and singing songs like "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" which includes an explicit reference to Christ.  People obviously hunger for meaning more than we give them credit for. The concert took on extra dramatic flair when a huge downpour of rain began about 45 minutes in.  We were lucky enough to score seats under an overhang, but others were not so lucky.  Bono and crew gamely kept playing, even breaking out umbrellas and rain-related songs on occasion, such as "Singin' in the Rain."  It seemed as if the rain brought out even more passion from the most famous rock band in the world.  The air was electric (thankfully not from anyone being electrocuted!).

We visited a beautiful garden and read lots of stories with Grandma Pam.

We visited the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota and Burrito got to get a picture with "Corn Guy" (her name for a person dressed up in a suit as an ear of corn).

We stopped by an 1880s town near Murdo, South Dakota.  It had Dances with Wolves memorabilia and a town street you could walk down.  At the hotel, I found this sign (see right).  Apparently, we traveled in the wrong century!  Lodging for 25 cents!  Also, wine was sold by the gallon.

We visited Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota (more on that in a later post too) where I got my 5 cent coffee, which then kept me up that night.  But how can you pass up 5 cent coffee?

We stopped by Mount Rushmore, followed by the Flintstones' Bedrock City where we ate Bronto Burgers at the Bedrock City Drive-In. 

We proceeded on to Deadwood, SD, a place which I had wanted to visit ever since we lived in North Dakota.  It was interesting to see the multitude of casinos in the most famous lawless town of the Old West.  We visited the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane at Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood. 

I took note of the causes of death in Lawrence County in the late 1800s.  Murder was lower than I expected, given Deadwood's reputation.  We also found the spot where Wild Bill was shot and killed and got a quick snapshot of Al Swearengen's costume from the TV show, Deadwood. 

We arrived home exhausted (I'm still unpacking and cleaning) and glad to be home.  We had lots of adventures but in the end, there's no place like home!

i love you all the times (aka, road trip with a toddler????)

This year, one thing that suffered in our budget was the vacation allocation.  Going from two jobs to one will do that to a family.  We contemplated flying back to Iowa and Minnesota to see our families and use our U2 tickets (which we purchased when we lived in the area), but that was ridiculously expensive.  We contemplated taking the train, because after all then the misery of long-distance travel is contained to just one day.  But then we thought, A TODDLER ON A TRAIN??? and changed our minds.  Plus, that option was pretty expensive too.  So, it all came down to a great American road trip.  I did my best to tell myself that it would be fun and Burrito would enjoy seeing some things.  Just like The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Car Trip.  We even showed her how we would see something like "Mt. Grizzmore" on our trip. We were hopeful.

And to be honest, I must give Burrito credit.  She did reasonably well for all that we threw at her: Six states in two weeks, regular 8-12ish hour days in the car, not having her regular naps, having less sleep at night, having to sleep in multiple places, having the refuse the God-given urge to move.  We tried our best to work in plenty of stops (which of course made the days longer), chances to play on a playground, walk around somewhere or have a picnic lunch.  We tried to work in some sight-seeing too.  And Burrito did ok.  She had new books to read, new videos to watch, CDs to listen to (until Mommy broke the CD player).  She enjoyed some of the sights, particularly the Corn Palace (as she is very into all things princess and palace these days), Mt. Rushmore ("the faces!"), the train at Bedrock City, and above all, swimming in the hotel pools (which we made sure to include given the wisdom of an article I read, "to little kids, the pool is the vacation").

Perhaps toddler rebels would fit in well in lawless Deadwood?

But with all that said, Burrito definitely had her moments of toddler angst (whoever first said that toddler-hood is like adolescence totally nailed it on the head!).  No, she didn't spike her hair and paint her nails black, but she did whine.  A LOT.  I was exhausted each day from the strain of trying to keep my little munchkin happy, entertained, and taken care of.  Because an unhappy toddler in the car is no fun for ANYBODY.  The moment that was the pinnacle of toddler-hood was when we had stopped to pick up some fast food to eat for supper in the car one evening.  Burrito was enamored with the comic book that she got as a prize in her kid's meal.  She begged me to read it to her immediately.  I said, "No, Mommy is hungry.   Mommy needs to eat her supper and then Mommy will read it to you."  "No!" she said (she used this word a lot on vacation), "you're not hungry!"  She insisted on this several times!  On how I felt in a way that would benefit her.  Ah yes.  A toddler has occasional moments of empathy but they are still little cave-people mainly.  Driven by their feelings and seeing themselves at the center of the universe, they still need to grow and mature and be trained to care for others.

Moments like that one remind me of one of the central principles of parenting I strive to uphold.  It came up with Burrito once when I was trying to teach her about the Gospel and what God's grace meant.  I told her the word grace means, "I love you all the times."  I told her this because it's something I whisper to her a lot, something I say in her ear when a time-out has just been completed.  I wanted her to know that God's love is not conditional.  And I told her that He is even better at this than Mommy and Daddy.

I am tempted to only respond kindly when Burrito behaves, when she is a model child, when she does something I can show off to others.  But every time she throws a tantrum or misbehaves, every time she says "NO!", every time she smacks me in anger, I am reminded that I am called to show her unconditional love.  As a parent, my love should not be based on performance or on image or perfection.  It is based on the fact that she is my child and she is dear to me.

That's the crazy thing.  I get annoyed, I get frustrated, I get angry sometimes.  But I really do love her all the times.  She is dear to me for herself alone.

And sometimes I wonder, is that how Jesus feels about me?

multitudes on monday (26-30)

We just got back from a two week vacation that involved driving across multiple states in order to reach relatives, friends, and of course the U2 concert in Minneapolis/St. Paul.  I will write more about our trip soon but for now, here is what I'm thankful for today:

26. Safe travels...and that the worst car malfunction to happen on our trip was the CD player breaking...which was able to be remedied by playing Burrito's kid CDs in her mini DVD player.  Hooray!  A toddler on a road trip without music would not have been a good time!

27. Chances to hear life-changing testimonies of God's work in friends' lives.

28. Hospitality of friends and family.

29. A Burrito who managed the car ride ok, despite LONG periods of time sitting and lack of naps.

30. The joy of coming home to our house...and the joy of being so happy where we live that I longed to come home.  The joy of Burrito arriving home and hugging her crib!

What are YOU thankful for today?