We’ve moved again!

I am sitting here on the sofa looking out at the breathtaking mountains of Glacier National Park in Montana.

Honestly, life has been such a whirlwind the past 30 days that I can scarcely take in all that has happened. Once we decided that Montana was going to be our destination, a week later we were on the road!

Professional movers would be coming to get most of our things, but we had to haul our main personal belongings out with us. That meant we were hauling a 12 foot U-Haul full of our clothing, the shoe obsessions of two people, and various other valuables that we’d prefer not to trust to movers.

We were so excited to be leaving Utah! We have lived in many places and travelled to many more. We’ve always been able to find the positive things about an area and just blend with the locals and enjoy. We found living in northern Utah to be a lot like living in the little town from Footloose, lol. That’s just our opinion and if you love living in Utah- that’s awesome. It’s a beautiful state but I was glad to be moving on.

We left a day early trying to avoid arriving with Montana’s first snow storm of the season. Um- fail. We arrived right along with Montana’s first snowstorm of the season. Now, having lived in Colorado, we have been through our fair share of winter driving through mountain passes and very few people have driven in more varied situations than my husband. Our arrival through the pass into Montana definitely ranked right up there as one of the most terrifying winter drives to date. Driving across the pass at night with ice, blinding snow, major wind and pulling a trailer that weighed more than our Tahoe.

I can hear you saying, “You guys should have pulled off for the night and stayed at a hotel.” I know. But here’s the thing: There aren’t any hotels. The exits were few and very far between and there just wasn’t anywhere to stay. Like……you’re OUT there. There was no choice but to just gut it out. My husband is amazingly cool in these situations. The only way I could “help” was to stare down at my phone to avoid looking up and shrieking- which I’ve learned does NOT help.

I was never so happy to pull into a tiny Hampton Inn in a little mountain town in my life!

We spent the next day chasing the storm and finally caught up to it just as we got close to our new house. The further we went, the deeper the snow was getting.

I spent the last several miles of our journey that day being simultaneously terrified of ending up in the ditch along with our belongings and overwhelmed by the incredible beauty that I was being engulfed in.

We finally arrived at the new house.

Take off your snow boots, come on in and have a look around. This is Montana.

We are still moving in, so I didn’t do any “staging” for these photos. This is just what it looks like at the moment! One of the interesting things that I have discovered about mountain homes is that many rented and sold “furnished as is”. We have even seen some of them listed with the cars in the garage and everything! I assume that is because it would be such a pain moving everything in and out of these places (ask me how I know this). And that’s how this house has come, so we are quickly settling right in.

The above photo is actually the back of the house. If you enter the glass doors on the wrap around deck, you will enter the main part of the house with a beautiful, spacious open floor plan.

The upstairs has a loft area as well as two large bedrooms and a bathroom. All the rooms in the house look out onto the magnificent view of the mountains.

And oh my- the view is really the incredible star of the house. At least once a day, I look out and it’s like I am seeing it for the first time again. The clouds and sun play and move on the mountains all day and it is like looking out a completely new view. The pictures really just don’t do it justice.

There is a small pond in the back of the house. Being only a few miles from the entrance of Glacier National Park means that a lot of wildlife will be visiting that little pond. It is completely wild here. This area belongs to the wildlife, which does include wolves and grizzly bears. After dealing with some huge black bears in Colorado, I have an incredible amount of respect for the intelligence and sheer power and determination of these animals. To even *think* of seeing a grizzly out here is quite sobering.

As you can see from the photo below. Winston has settled right in and is as relaxed as a Saint Bernard can possibly be. Honestly, we haven’t seen this dog THIS happy since the last winter we spent in Colorado!

The kitchen is great, with everything you need for cooking and entertaining, but nothing fancy. My favorite things about the kitchen are the fabulous walk-in butler style pantry, the corner kitchen sinks that come with a view and the gas range.

The master bedroom is on the main floor and is once again, filled with windows to take in the fabulous views.(The bedroom photos were snagged from our real estate company because I still have boxes sitting around!) It has a fireplace and a door to exit onto the wrap around deck. It has a decent sized walk-in closet and the ample master bath has the added bonus of heated tile floors. I’m not sure how I have lived thus far without heated tile floors in my home.

This house also has all of the extras that one would want when living quite a ways outside of town, including heated gutters, generator back up and alternative sources of heat, etc that are all automatic.

I love being here so far and Montanans are some of the most welcoming and genuine people. They’ve pulled us right in.

It will take me awhile to figure out my new normal here because this is all definitely different from anything I’ve known. But I’m up to the challenge and I’m excited to be here.

I’ll leave you with this fuzzy picture. This was taken here at the house about a month ago. Yea……….sooo….. that’s a grizzly bear. In my yard.  You can see the edge of our pond to his right.

Thank you for reading, for checking in and for hanging in there with me while I’ve been moving! Honestly, I feel like it was a huge feat to get this post up today! I have loads more to share and now you can at least picture where I am writing from.

Welcome to Montana!

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