Two months and 55 pounds

 We got a new neighbor!

His name is Willow.

He too is just a baby.

In fact he is only 4 and a half months old. 

Just two months older than Chessy.

Two months and 55 pounds different!

Yes, Chester is at 19 pounds now. Willow is 72 pounds(and growing)

 I am sure that they will be great friends some day soon...When Chester is not eye to knuckles, maybe.

 For now Chester's new friend seems to remind me of the abominable snow man in bugs bunny. "I will hug it and squeeze it and love it...Poor Chess has no chance against those "seemingly" soft blows from those plate sized paws.

 Yes, those paws are incredible...

 Matthew was very protective of Willow's new friend. 

 Don't look now but there is a horse running at you!

It is a good thing Willow loves kids! He will spend the next phase of his life surrounded by them.

After the kids left Willow and I hung out.

He finally held still so I could capture his divine beauty and cuteness.

Just look at those paws, holding a tennis ball...

He is only half way grown too.

Yes, Willow!! My camera will be seeing more of you.

Can  you tell how crazy my life is by my frequency of my posts? I think my blog suffers the most when my life gets busy. 

Matthew only has 14 days of school left and I am floating between being incredibly horrified at never setting foot in the elementary school again, and the dog days of summer(literally!)

Welcome to the hood Willow! 

Yes, I will put a dog door in your fence(that might be kind of a big door) so you can come visit anytime:-)

Where it all began

 It is no lie that my life has been...well a little fishy lately. Yes, even Mother's day was a fishing extravaganza?!?

Well, I asked my father in law if he had any old photos of Mike's grandfather Clair fishing. A little while later I received an envelope in the mail...

When I held the 50 year old slides up to the window light I immediately wanted to cry. I love the power a photo has.

These photos have not seen the light of day in many years, and yet here they were telling ME the story. Mike did not even exist yet, and here was his grandfather doing something that would be passed on to his great grandson. 

 My father in law was quick to let me know that this was before "catch and release" existed. This was also before the movie "A River Runs Through It" came out. 

However, you would swear that it was from the movie. 

And this young man was Cal. He was Clair's brother in law. He was an amazing architect. In fact there are many of his creations all over Montana. He was the one who taught Clair how to fly fish soon after meeting Clair's beautiful sister, Pat. She was beautiful too, inside and out. She was an incredible artist and one of my favorite things I own is a silk print she made for Mike and I. 

I know I tell people all the time, but you just can't put a price on photographs. Dot told me that Clair always complained that no one ever wanted to see his photographs. It is really a bummer that my love for photography happened after Clair passed away. I would have had him drag out boxes and boxes of photos.