Our new "Northome" .... June 14, 2004

As many of you know we are in the process of moving back to Minnesota. We closed on a home near Squaw Lake, MN on June 4th. This spot puts us about 45 miles from Grand Rapids and Bemidji, in a pretty nice lake/canoe area. The house is on 30 acres, which is fairly wide open, with three ponds. As you can see by some of the photos we do have trees around the house, but we aren't in the woods like Wisconsin. There is plenty of woods that surround our property there for our recreation! Having grown up in Missouri and North Dakota, it's kind of nice to see the sky!

Here's the view coming up our driveway.

Here's the front of the house. The covered porch is
"hummingbird central".

Here's the back of the house with the shed attached.
It has a nice sized deck off the back.

Here's a view of the eating area from the kitchen.
You can see the anitque cookstove. The island is a
good size and has a cooktop. The view out of the
windows will be great to look through while cooking.

Here's a view into the kitchen - you can see the nice
hardwood floors, that run throughout the current
house.

Here's the island and "the great wall of storage",
which includes a convection oven.

Here's the living room area - we love all the
windows. This is going to be a great room for plants.
The windows provide a great breeze throughout the
day.

Here are the men (Jason, Dean and Dad) tearing off
the metal woodshed that was attached to the house.
This needed to be done prior to construction
beginning. It was filled with wood, split for the
woodstoves from floor to ceiling. It was quite a
project to empty it out and tear it down. Thanks to
the great help from Lynn & Jason, Mom & Dad we were
able to do it in just ONE day!"

With the shed removed you can see just how cozy the existing house is.

View of one pond from the covered porch. We counted
18 hummingbirds at the feeders at one time last weekend. Yikes! Last summer, the previous owners went through150lbs of sugar making "hummer food".

Construction has begun! This was the progress up to Wednesday 6/16. We're adding on a great room, a bedroom and an office. It will be very similar to our addition in Wisconsin, if any of you are familiar with that.

Here's a nice view from the fields overlooking the house. You can see all three ponds surrounding the house.

Here's a close-up of the swimming hole! It's been known to be used for skinny dipping!! (June 16)

Here are Dean and Joelle Mutchler, trying out the new canoe and navigating one of the ponds. They jumped several ducks and had an all together good time. It's fun to think that the new house has already been filled with family and friends and we've only been there a week :)"

Well, I feel a little like the Three Bears in Goldilocks. 'Who's been playing at my house?' This weekend Dean was lucky enough to have the Dean Mutchler family over for a bar-b-que. They had the best time and said it was like summer camp :) Here are Travis and Sammy Jo flying kites in the field. Note the addition behind them :)

Dad is always showing off their flowers . . . so now
it's my turn! Here are some wild Indian Paintbrush
from one of our fields.

(Editors's note: In the title of this page, Northome comes from Laura and Dean's new Minnesota address. Their mailing address is in the Northome Minnesota postal delivery area. Northhome = North Home :>) )

After spending much of the winter & spring weekends up at Nature's Kennel with the sled dogs, Tasha and Ed. We decided to bring home two sled dogs of our own! Solo, is a 7 year old retired sled dog. He's too slow for pro racing, but should be just Laura's speed for this coming winter. Millie, is an almost 2 year old spark plug! She ran in and finished the U.P. 200 Sled Dog Race (200 mile race). Laura fell in love with Millie back in March of 2003 when she was just a pup. When Ed and Tasha said she wasn't going to make their final cut, we decided she had to join the family. She will be the power behind our two dog (for now) team! Both dogs seem to know their commands well. They are both Alaskan Huskies. They've been keeping Laura busy through the Wisconsin to Minnesota transition and are beginning to bond with Dean. Our new home in Minnesota promises to have lots of trails for us all to explore.

 
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