#40Yearsin40Days 1989: Another year of unrest, unsettled, unfamiliar, unknown, our little family spent the next ten months in the Sun Valley area. In the spring, the snow began to melt and we discovered we had a beautiful yard. It even had a small creek in the back yard with a little bridge over it. But no lingering over the yard … it had been a financially difficult year. Our renters in Colorado were not consistent in paying the rent which was supposed to cover our mortgage and the property management fee. And we already knew we could’t afford to stay in that big, beautiful house in Hailey. We eventually had to evict the renters. They stayed as long as the law would allow and finally abandoned the house, leaving a lot of damage, and took our dryer with them. It was quite a blow. We were caught in the real estate bubble of 1989.
After we dealt with that ordeal, back in Idaho we moved to a single wide mobile home in Ketchum. It was much more affordable but it sure was small.
Since we didn’t do the usual Sun Valley things, we decided to do the one thing we did do and that was camping. We bought an old camper mounted on a 1965 Ford flatbed truck. It was something. LOL! Scott drove it like a professional truck driver on those mountain roads.
We strapped the motorcycle to the front and away we went for fun in the beauty of Idaho. This Honda SL70 was Scott’s when he was a teenager. It had been passed to a cousin who enjoyed it for many years. And then it was passed back to us to enjoy with our family. We had a lot of fun on that little motorcycle for many years. We enjoyed a lot of camping and picnicking that summer.
That year we made a trip back to Colorado to celebrate my mother’s 50th birthday. All us kids were there plus other family and friends. It was a a fun time together. We gave mOm a mother’s ring. Family was everything to us.
During the time in Sun Valley, we were honored to have visits from friends and family. My aunt and uncle, my brother and family, my cousin and family, Scott’s mom and her new boyfriend, and a dear, lifelong friend. And in between, we visited family down in Boise. These times kept us going.
One night we were driving home down the valley highway. The moon was shining all around and the “mountains” had a pink glow. It was pretty magical. Abbey had been looking at them and said, “These mountains look like breasts.” Scott and I tried not to laugh, as we had always taught the kids the true names of all the body parts. And the mountains did look like breasts. LOL!
Life in the mobile home park was pretty much uneventful. Adam had a pretty serious bike wreck.
We began to hear about serious drug activity around us. We had enough. Scott found a position at a radio station in Boise and in September we made another move. We told the kids. They were troopers as always. Because of my silly talking, Abbey confused her B’s with V’s. She would say Voise instead of Boise. But she could say baby so we practiced saying “baby boise” over and over and, eventually, she started saying Boise.
We moved to east Boise. I started working for a Re/Max real estate office as their bookkeeper. Adam started in a new school … again … and Abbey started Kindergarten. We found a church nearby to attend but they wouldn’t even let us sing in the choir unless we were members. So we just enjoyed Sunday mornings there. We didn’t want to get too involved anyway because by then we knew that the Free Methodist conference was going to plant a church in Boise and the church planters/pastors were going to be my aunt and uncle! We were thrilled. They would be coming next year and we allowed our hearts to fall in love with what God had planned to do through this new church and what our roles might be.
#ExpertPacker #BabyBoise #NothingIsCertainButDeathAndTaxes #LivingByFaith #GodIsAlwaysAtWork
Candy Troutman 