Past the old Romping Ground

We all spent Monday and Tuesday in Island Park, near Yellowstone, at a friend's cabin, playing games, reading, watching movies (Brother Bear...watch it!!), and floating the river. On the way back, we passed through tiny towns and by many potato fields (there isn't much out here!) The tiny farm towns were charming, and had motels consisting of small cottages, and businesses called PMS (professional motor sales?), Otis': proudly serving BEER, and the Ranking Motel. We also passed an adorable B&B next to Warm River which is known for it's fly fishing. The B&B is run by my sister Trissa's good friend Sadie's parents. This is what Trissa referred to as Sadie's 'old romping ground.' Hehe oops!

Trissa has a very good friend Jane, who lives 2 blocks down, and is a single mother of nine children. She found out 2 years ago that she had breast cancer, went through chemo therapy, and had a mastectomy. More recently, she discovered that she has a brain tumor, and then on top of it all, the family's house was totaled by a house fire. Thankfully, the Australian Shepard Betsy, herded everyone safely out of the house. Last year, Trissa nominated Jane's family to be on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition; the show receives approximately 1500 nominations each day - each story heartbreaking and deserving I'm sure. However, yesterday the fire station presented Betsy with an award, and then Ty Pennington from the show did the revealing that Jane's family had been selected to receive a new house while vacationing for a week in Key West...WITH Betsy! (The show bought her a bikini!)

The whole town -especially our street- has been buzzing, and this family truly is deserving. Last night we helped Jane's kids move their (8?) instruments including their piano(!) to our house to keep for the week, and then watched them drive away to the airport in a limo. Today the house is completely gone, only a dirt hole is left, and the new house will be revealed on Tuesday at noon! They work 24 hours a day, and today Trissa found out that the 2000 or so volunteers that are "required," don't actually work - they pretend to for the show! Also, Jane's daughter Sophie told us that they had to do several takes for the revealing - how many times in a row can you act that surprised? Reality tv? Pssshhhh...right.