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Christmas Eve Eve Snowstorm

In 1979 my Uncle Ted came to visit us for Christmas during his holiday break from Kent State University.  To say that Uncle Ted was my idol would be an understatement.  He taught me all sorts of things when I was younger… like “Peace Baby Man That Turns Me On” (said while holding up your fingers in a peace sign), he knew magic and how to make farts with your arm pits.  He was also “Speed Racer” in his Mach 5 and got in trouble from my grandparents when we came back from the store exclaiming how Uncle Ted drove just like Speed Racer.  In those days we lived on the east coast (Ohio, Virginia, New Jersey) and saw my grandparents and my Uncle Ted and Aunt LeAnna every summer.

After we moved west to Colorado we saw them less frequently, but Uncle Ted and Aunt LeAnna visited us once every few years and had many great adventures in Colorado.  In the winter of 1979, Uncle Ted came to visit us when we were living in the basement of the house.  While we had many fun times during his visit like concocting recipes of a “dubious” nature, drawing, talking late into the night and listening to Uncle Ted’s music – this is the story of Christmas 1979 and the blizzard of a few days before.

December 22nd

2011 re-creations of the decorations made in 1979. Thanks for your help Maya.

Getting a Christmas tree while living on private property in the middle of the Arapahoe National Forest is easy.  Pick one out, saw it down with a bow saw and drag it back home on a snowmobile.  Decorating it is another matter though.  This was our first year out this far in the woods and getting our food home was a higher priority than transporting our decorations from storage to the house.  So we improvised…

Garland made of popcorn hand-strung onto string and wrapped around the tree is an obvious one – and we made plenty.

We also created paper snowflakes by folding paper multiple times and cutting circles and triangles into the sides, then unfolding them, putting string through them and then hung them on the tree.

Less obvious was how to make actual decorations to hang from our tree. Well my father said that necessity was the mother of invention so we used what we had.  I certainly had my experience with tin snips building the house and we also had an abundance of lids from canned foods (since we didn’t have a garbage collection service).  So we improvised by cutting various shapes into the tin lids, punching holes in the top of the shapes with a nail and running string to hang them on the tree.  In the end we had stars, crescent moons, diamonds and of course the obvious circles hanging from our tree.

December 23rd

Mom and Dad hadn’t finished Christmas shopping and planned a trip to Denver with Uncle Ted and Charlie (my three-year old baby brother). Any trip to Denver is a day long event, so they left early in the day with instructions to my sister and I to get our chores completed before dark.  Duh! Honestly, our chores were “serious chores” like gathering water and cutting wood.  If we didn’t do them we would have nothing to cook with and no wood for the stove anyway.

This close to Christmas Jennifer and I were getting along really well and we worked together to get the chores done early in the day.  In fact, since Christmas was coming we actually hauled in enough wood and water to last us through Christmas Eve and Christmas so that we didn’t have any big chores on those days.  Of course, this was two days before Christmas and the days were as short as they would get, we worked hard early in the day to complete everything we needed to do and then spent the rest of the short day playing games.

Throughout the day we saw the weather looking worse and worse, but didn’t think too much of it. Even when it started to snow we weren’t concerned because we knew that Mom and Dad had taken the six-wheeler with the tank treads and it could make it through the snow.  When our parents didn’t get home before dark and the snow become a blizzard with the added wind – we started to worry.  Then when it became time for bed and still our parents weren’t home we were definitely concerned.  Of course, we didn’t have a phone at the house (since we didn’t have electricity either) and this was a LONG time before cellphones. There really wasn’t much we could do except go to bed listening to the howling wind and plan to walk into town the next morning to search for our parents.

December 24th

As is often the case, morning dawned with no clouds in the sky and the only reminder of the previous night’s blizzard was the new snow on the ground.  Jennifer and I swept off the wood that we gathered the day before and carried enough in for the day and night.  Then we put on our heaviest clothes and snowshoes and headed into town.  Our family had friends who lived at a place we called “the ranch” (even though it wasn’t) and that’s where Mom and Dad always parked the six-wheeler and got into the 4-wheel drive for trips into Denver – so that is where Jennifer and I headed out to.

We must have been walking doubly fast in our worry about our family because we made it to the ranch in record time.  Imagine our parents surprise when the children they had spent all night worrying about snowshoe in just as they were getting ready to try and make it home again!

What happened the night before

This photo shows what our six-wheeler looked like without the tracks, but is not actually ours (thanks Google).

While Jennifer and I were spending our day together, the rest of the family had trekked to Denver, completed their shopping and made it back to the ranch – but not before the blizzard set in.  Of course, Mom and Dad were worried about Jennifer and I all alone at the house and were bound and determined to make it back to us.

But the elements and luck were against them.  As they piled everyone into the six-wheeler and started off through the blizzard, the machine threw a track off.  Investigation showed that the track had come loose because an entire tire had come out from the drive train.  Even still, they tried to make it with no tracks and only five tires.  After making it less than a 1/4 mile through the snow they realized the futility and walked back through the blizzard to the ranch (which must have been a distant and yet welcoming light seen occasionally through the blowing snow).

Uncle Ted was in charge of carrying Charlie held close against his chest while Dad helped Mom back to the ranch through the blinding snow.  Uncle Ted said later that he was crying on the way because he just knew that baby Charlie must have frozen to death during the endless walk.  The relief must have been astounding as he unbundled his seemingly lifeless, but in fact only sleeping, form in front of the fire in the huge fireplace at the ranch.

They spent the rest of the sleepless night hoping for an end to the blizzard so they could make it back to the house.

Since Jennifer and I showed up early, there were two extra sets of arms to carry things back home.  We limped the now five-wheel drive back home walking along side it.  The walk was much longer since we had to take the long way around (Jennifer and I went cross-country on our way in).

When we finally got back home (well before dark), we found that the dogs had made it into the house by climbing in through a missing pane in the window (which was only covered up with cardboard).  They knocked the Christmas tree over and ate every last bit of popcorn off of it.  We were grateful to be home though so we righted the tree, popped more popcorn and made new garland.  The dogs stayed in for the night and with full bellies didn’t eat any more of the garland.

December 25th

Christmas Day dawned just as Christmas Eve did.  No sign of snow and the temperature probably rose close to freezing.  It was the most memorable Christmas ever – even if all the excitement happened in the days leading up to it.

And yes, Santa did make it out to the Gibbins’ home and surprised us all Christmas morning.

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Tent Living

In the late spring, summer and early fall of 1979 I lived in a Coleman tent with my father and our Irish Setter.  This was when we first began building our log house.  Living in the tent allowed us to get up early each day and finish the day’s work as the sun set.

This was the same tent that we used to camp with every weekend when the family lived in Great Falls, Montana.  Lovingly cleaned and put away by my father we were still able to use it 10 years later.

This photo was taken by Dad the summer before we began work. That summer we spent camping on both sides of the property. The campsite is on what we called the “backside” of the property. 

After seeing both sides during the winter though, Dad said we were going to build on the other side because of the southern exposure. Even though this was the prettiest side and was next to the water. 

When we began work, Dad pitched the tent downhill from where the house would one day stand on the other side of the mountain from this photo.  He explained as he unrolled the tent that he chose this particular location to maximize the coverage of shade as the sun moved through it’s daily route in the sky.  After the tent was up and staked, Dad got out his military issue folding shovel (one with the shovel and pick axe that could be positioned in multiple ways).  He then dug a little trench in front of the tent door (which faced uphill) and around the sides.  The trench would ensure that any rain that fell would be directed around the tent instead of flowing under it.

For the fire pit in front, Dad used a much larger shovel and I took my turn too.  We saved any rocks we came across and used them to ring the fire pit.  Dad wanted it big so that we would have plenty of space for a large fire.  Placement of the fire pit was also part of his planning for the tent placement such that the fire pit would not be under any trees.

Next it was time to make the latrine.  Dad and I headed off into the woods a short distance from the tent, but far enough away for privacy and dug out a hole.  The hole was dug behind two trees that were about 4 feet apart.  At the time I didn’t pay attention to this placement, but it became clear when the hole was completed and Dad cut down a tree and nailed it to the other two trees crossways to provide a place to rest your butt.  Got the visual now?

On weekends, Mom and Jen would bring baby Charlie out and we would all camp on the property.  Filling the tent to capacity.

Mornings we would often unzip the door of the tent only to startle deer as they grazed in the meadow. Dad pointed out the path that they had worn through the woods as they came so often over the years.

At night we would let the fire die down and as we fell asleep we heard coyotes in the distance howling their messages across the valley.

Not every day was a work day. Some days Dad had to drive to Denver to pick up building supplies. On the days that I didn’t go with him, I was left a mental list of things to work on. Sometimes these were tasks to work on for the house like skinning the logs, or gathering rocks. Other days I had basic camp chores such as gathering wood and water for the next few days.

No matter what I had to complete, I always worked hard to get the tasks done early so I had the afternoons off. Many were the hot afternoons spent in the shade of an Aspen tree, absently swatting horseflies and turning the pages of whatever Sci-Fantasy novel I was enjoying at the time.

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Bath In A Bucket

A porcelain wash basin similar to what we used "back in the old days" - you know 1979-1983.

Water conservation was pretty much a way of life when “running water” meant that the winter temperatures hadn’t frozen the creek over.

One of the many chores that my sister and I shared was referred to simply as getting water.  It really wasn’t actually simple though. Most often this was achieved by carrying empty gallon milk jugs down to the creek and filling them up with fresh water.  Calculating just how much water was needed for a family of five was an art.  At 15 my hands were large enough and my fingers strong enough to actually carry three gallon jugs in each hand (provided I didn’t need mittens).  I always took time to remind my sister that I was doing more than she was – at a stretch, she could only manage a total of four – wimp!

Bath night required more water to be gathered – in fact about 4 extra gallons per person.  Yes, we pretty much bathed in as little water as necessary.  We had two porcelain covered steel pans that would be placed on the wood stove and filled with 2 gallons of water each.  One pan was for washing with soap, and the other for rinsing off afterwards.  After the water was heated we would move the pans to a bedroom area, stand in front of the pan and painstakingly wash our bodies by using a rag with soap.  Not too much soap though, because if the water became too soapy, then the rinse water in the other pan would become soapy too.

In the winter, when clean snow was on the ground for collecting right outside of the door we sometimes just spent  the day melting the snow into the pans to make enough water to bathe.  You would be surprised just how little water is actually in snow.  That’s why it took all day. No sense in hauling in extra water when Mother Nature provided for us so amply.

To be fair, we didn’t always have to bring in the water by hand.  In the summer time we often just stopped by the spring on the way home, filled up the jugs and loaded them into the back of the truck.  In fact, sometimes we filled up a 55 gallon steel drum with water and brought it home for use as non-drinking water.  These bath days were nice because that water was sometimes poured into a horse trough, left to warm (kind of) in the sun and then at the end of the day we could enjoy a real bath – well, a bath you could actually climb into and soak.

Of course the horse trough was out in the middle of the meadow in front of the house – so you had a choice between modesty and cleanliness.

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Fifty Steps To The Outhouse

Charlie and I as the outhouse was being built. The seat actually faced the road so you could wave at people as they drove by.

Or so… actually, I probably never really counted.  But it was off in the woods a little way.  The thing is that we didn’t actually finish the walls on the outhouse that first year either.

Dad got up first in the morning and the rest of us just waited for him to restart the fires and take the chill off the basement.  You could hear him moving around, building up the fires in both the wood cookstove and the potbelly.  You could only see him by the glow of his cigarette and the occasional light from the open stove doors.

Once he had his tea and cigarette he would make his way to the outhouse.  He was the first each morning to make a path from the house, through any new fallen snow to the privy.  Since the walls weren’t completed, neither was the roof.  So dad would have to first shovel of the snow from the floor and sweep it off of the “throne”.

Now think about that a moment.  That’s one cold toilet seat!  Unless you detach the seat and bring it inside.  That’s right.  Just behind the potbelly stove we had a large nail in the wall where we hung up the toilet seat to warm by the fire.  So when you went to the outhouse you actually grabbed your coat, the hot seat, the roll of TP and then you headed out.

Generally, this worked pretty well except that sometimes, when the fire was really hot… you burned your ass.

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Raking Rocks And Watering The Floor

The first winter in the Cabin wasn’t really “in” the cabin at all, but kind of under it.  Since we only got two of the vertical log walls (mostly) up before the winter really hit, we had to live in the basement all winter.

While this might not sound horrid to the casual reader there are things one must know to understand what it was like.  The basement was NOT a finished basement, in fact it was so far from finished that there were really only tin walls with some insulation around the outside of the basement and dirt for a floor.  No really, not a dirty floor… a dirt floor.  It was actually a lot living in a cave. Basically, since the basement was a “walkout”, the roughly 10 foot walls started out ground level in the front of the basement, but as it went toward the back we had a 7 foot wall of natural dirt with about a 3 foot shelf to the back of the house (remember how the hole wasn’t dug out far enough ref. Beginning Work on the House).

Two year old “Charlie” helping around the basement by hammering nails into an old board.

This meant that as we walked across the floor we were constantly uncovering little rocks.  Mom dutifully used a rake to remove the rocks and smooth over the floor again. With the continued walking, or Charlie playing with his toy trucks on the dirt floor, or the dogs digging out a comfortable place to sleep… huge amounts of dust were raised.  Mom had an answer for that too.  She used a steel watering can to sprinkle water onto the floor.  Not enough to make mud, but enough to keep the dust down.

Once the snows came and settled on the flat basement roof, which was really just the plywood floor of the cabin above us… the watering can became unnecessary.  With a wood burning cookstove on one side of the basement and a wood burning potbelly on the other side we generated a lot of wasted heat which, of course, rose to the uninsulated plywood-floor ceiling above us and melted the snow.  This turned the snow into water that leaked into the basement in 4 foot by 8 foot sections (from the plywood seams).

This time it was Dad who came up with the solution when we didn’t have enough buckets or pots to trap the leaks.  We hung up plastic tarps and Visqueen scraps above the important areas (like our beds) at an angle and with a trough so that as the water leaked in, it was more or less directed into 5 gallon pails. This incessant dripping made a LOT of noise as we slept and perhaps that is why to this day I can sleep through pretty much whatever is going on around me.

Any time I hear the Phil Collins song “The Roof Is Leaking” I always think of the first winter in our house or rather the basement.

The roof is leaking and the wind is howling
Kids are crying ‘cos the sheets are so cold
I woke this morning found my hands were frozen
I’ve tried to fix the fire, but you know the damn thing’s too old

Many, many times I would wake early in the morning and wait for Dad to get up and start the fires in the stoves to warm up the basement just a bit… I know Jen did too.  Before we got up and out of bed, we would wait for Dad to get his first cup of morning tea and then take his trip to the outhouse… but that is another story.

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Beginning Work On The House

Spring of 1979 marked the year we started building the cabin. Dad and I and Ginger (Dad’s Irish Setter) loaded up the tent and headed out to “the property”. From the time that Mom and Dad exchanged one mining claim for another even more remote claim it was referred to as “the property”. It wasn’t until we moved into the semi-completed cabin that it became “the house”… but that wasn’t until much later.

We pitched the five-man, canvas Coleman tent in the meadow that would later become our yard, dug little trenches to divert the runoff from summer rains around the tent, and also dug a latrine a little ways out into the woods.

As one would expect, the future house would be on a hill. Given that this was the Rockies, that meant we would need to dig a flat place into the hill. Bobby Allen, a Central City resident and business owner was hired to drive his backhoe out to the property and dig us a proper site to build. Apparently there was some misunderstanding about how large of a site was needed and Bobby left with the hole being about four feet short of what we needed. We began work anyway.

The planned log home needed a foundation measuring 32 feet square. Dad planned to place old telephone poles every eight feet to hold up the house. It takes a LOT of hard labor to dig sixteen separate holes wide enough and deep enough to put telephone poles into. Luckily it wasn’t just Dad and I digging. Blind Jerry spent a number of days helping to build the cabin and he could dig a hole with a pot hole digger like nobody’s business… as long as the hole was started so he knew where to dig.

Eventually we had four telephone poles sticking about twelve feet out of the ground in the front, four poles sticking three feet out in the back and eight somewhere in between. The next step would be to put in the floor joists and that meant a trip all the way to Denver because there was no closer lumber yard.

Dad and Jerry would get up early and head out in the pickup for a trip that was to last all day. During these frequent supply runs I was often left to “hold down the fort” (as Dad would say). The first part of these days I would gather campfire wood, walk to the creek to get water for the next few days… and then work on other tasks that a twelve year old could complete without supervision. Then, I was left to do whatever I wanted until Dad returned at about dark. Mostly that meant sitting under trees in the shade and swatting horseflies while I turned the pages of whatever sci-fi or fantasy series I was currently devouring.

The floor joists, made of 2×12 rough sawn beetle-kill pine, went up unremarkably well. There were just a LOT of them which meant a lot of sawing, hammering and splinters. Soon though it was time for the plywood sub-floor and another trip to the lumber yard.

The “walk out” basement wrapped in tin and showing the two log walls we were able to complete before winter.

After the floor was down, Dad wanted to enclose the walkout basement so we could move out of the tent. The outside walls were framed in, second hand windows installed and then outside was covered with scavenged corrugated (and rusted) tin roof material.

It was then time to start the main part of the cabin by setting out into the woods, cutting down pine trees, skinning the bark off and building the walls 8 to 10 inches at a time. We only got two log walls up on the main floor before our short summer was over and it was time for a hard decision. The whole family moved out of the comfort of Buck House and into the basement with a dirt floor and limited insulation.  Thus began a long, cold winter and the start of “roughing it” in the Colorado Rockies.

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Uphill In The Snow Both Ways

Jennifer and I walked to school when we lived in the log home that our family built… and it was uphill both ways in the snow. Okay, not all of that is true. We really didn’t walk ALL the way to school. We only walked to the bus stop, but that was at least a three mile walk (depending on which way we went) and there wasn’t always snow. But, it was partly uphill both ways… and partly down hill. We had two alternatives for the hike, both with their own advantages.

Typical snow shoes with wood frame and leather straps.

The Main Route

Officially our bus stop was 2.15 miles from the house (the blue marker).  This walk required us to walk to the top of the hill from the house less than 1,000 linear feet.  Then it was “mostly” down hill from an elevation of 9,640 to roughly 8,800.  Of course, nothing is truly all down hill when you live in the Rockies.  In the winter time steps that might have been downhill in the summer become uphill over a large snow drift.

We usually walked this way in the late spring and early fall before the snows really set in.  Honestly, it was a very pleasant and beautiful walk.  Once we got over the hill we walked a ways down a real dirt road through tall pines.  The track then meandered at the side of a meadow and then turned into a cattle trail.  At this point we crossed a creek and traveled on the side of the mountain with the southern exposure; which meant less snow.  After awhile we would walk through Aspen trees which in the fall were absolutely gorgeous with their coin sized gold leaves quaking in the sun.

Then it was time to cross the creek again and walk through the pine forest and down a much steeper grade which finally met up with another four-wheel drive track that led to the main dirt road where our bus stop was.  The first year we lived in “the boonies” this was always the way we walked to school.  In the winter we wore snow shoes that allowed us to walk on the top of the drifts.  Once we got to the bus stop we removed the snow shoes and stored them in the back of the bus until we made the return hike.

The Secondary Route

Once other folks with school-age children moved nearby we started taking this longer route to school.  Jennifer and I walked near their house and they would meet up with us for the hike.  From our house to the other bus stop it was 3.6 miles (the green marker); nearly 1.5 miles further than our other route.  Advantages though where that Ronald and Rusty Stringfellow walked with us, it relieved some of the monotony of putting one foot in front of the other and with other families living in the “neighborhood” there was a higher likelihood of getting a ride from one family or another.

For this hike we followed the road the whole way. Of course road may be a misnomer because it was mostly a four-wheel drive track over rocks, but at least it was pretty well worn.  We traveled past the Stringfellow’s house on Lloyd Hill, past Pisgah Lake and then down the hill to the upper parts of Columbine Campground.  Once we got to the campground itself we reached a maintained road that was mostly plowed during the winter.

Another distinct advantage of this route was that sometimes we could ride the snowmobiles in and park them at the Boodle Mine (where the bus stop was).  Then they would be available for the ride home too.

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Sleighrides and Hayrides

A Shire approximately the same color as I remember Sarge

Ever in search of a sustainable home-based business, Dad thought that providing hayrides during the summer and sleigh rides during the winter would be a good moneymaker. So Dad bartered something (I don’t remember what) for two draft horses.

Ace and Sarge were very large Shires, a particular breed of draft horse that actually exceeded the size of the better known Clydesdale (of Budweiser fame). These horses were so large that we couldn’t get saddles for them, so we rode them bareback. This was rather like riding an elephant. Even adults walked bowlegged after a short ride.

Once we had the horses, we also acquired a wagon and a bobsled. Then, it was time to go to “the city fathers” and discuss the business idea and get their blessing.  As it turns out they weren’t too keen about having horses clop-clop through town and leave their business behind in the street. Of course Dad had a solution to that!  I would walk behind carrying a large shovel and scoop up the “road apples”. You can imagine how anxious I was to perform that duty. Thankfully, the city still didn’t go for the idea and I never had to suffer the humiliation of my school mates seeing me scooping up horse droppings throughout town.

We kept the horses and they came in very handy later when we built the log cabin. We also kept the sleigh and wagon for a while. We used them to carry friends and family around the rural area outside of town near the Buck House where we lived before building the cabin. The wagon and the bobsled were very fun to ride in, but it was the bobsled that I have the fondest memories of. Wrapped up in wool blankets, drinking hot apple cider, dashing through the snow and singing Jingle Bells (of course) will be something I never forget.

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The Buck House

View from Bald Mountain & The Buck House

In the spring of 1978, we moved from The Sauer House in Central City out into an even more rural area of the already rural town. Dad built a house for someone by the last name of “Buck” and in keeping with Central City tradition we dubbed this house The Buck House. As it was so far from civilization the owners were worried about vandalism and my family stayed in the house while it was finished up and before it sold. Dad called it a “spec house” which just meant that the owner built the house on the speculation that it would one day sell. Well, it didn’t sell right away and we lived there in the mean time.

The Buck House was a much larger house than we had ever lived in. In fact, it was so large that to conserve on the electric bill Mom and Dad closed off the entire basement and turned off most of the heat down there in the winter. The upstairs already had enough room with a master bed & bath, a main bath, three additional bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and dining room. Downstairs was a huge rec room, two additional rooms and the laundry. So, in the winter, they stuffed a door-sized piece of foam in the doorway.

This house was located on Bald Mountain in an area called Kings Flats. Mom and Dad bought a 5 acre mining claim not too far from where the Buck House was built and they prepared to build their own house. But… the bank wouldn’t loan money to build a house on an unimproved road. Unimproved?? What was that supposed to mean? It turns out that the property sellers didn’t fully disclose that the road wasn’t plowed in the winter time on a regular basis (only when the county got around to it). That meant to the bank that it was unimproved road and they weren’t going to loan money for building.

So, mom and dad decided that if the bank thought we were too rural and they had to build without a loan, then we were just going to get even more rural. They set about finding out what other properties were owned by the same real estate agency and traded a five acre mining claim on the outskirts of a very small town for a five acre claim way the hell out in the woods.

That summer dad and I moved into a tent on the property while we started building the cabin.

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The Sauer House

In the fall of 1976 my family moved from Lakewood, Colorado to Central City, Colorado. Central City is a very small tourist town almost due west and 3,600 feet up. These days it is a gambling town which is much different from the tourist town it was. Back then the Central City Opera Company provided houses to the opera performers during the summer months and in the winter they rented them out. These houses were Victorian in architecture and fully furnished with antiques. They were perfect for a family to move into into in the fall, but only if they would be ready to move back out six months later.

We moved into a two story house at 218 Eureka Street called “The Sauer House” just up the street from the elementary school I would attend for 4th grade. Many of the homes in Central City were named after the original owners of the homes. This one was no different, but I have no idea who “Sauer” was and what he meant to the community… just that at one time the family owned the home.

This house was very exciting to move into when you are nine years old. After all, I had never lived in a house with a parlour – and didn’t even know what one was until I did. Ours had an upright piano, something that my mom was really excited about too even though she didn’t actually play. Baby Charlie slept in the master bedroom with mom and dad, Jen and I had separate rooms upstairs. The rooms were up a very steep staircase on the left and right side of the upper landing for the stairs. We thought it was very cool that each of us had a little door on the east side of the room. The door was short because this was where the roof of the house came down and space became unusable. So the owners of the house built in closets… but not just any closet… this was “wardrobe” that I could walk into, turn left and end up in my sister’s wardrobe. It connected our two rooms and for a young boy who had just found Narnia the year before this was seriously cool stuff.

As much as Jennifer and I were very happy to have our own rooms, before the six months were up we had moved back in with each other and made the unused room a playroom. The house was old, mom and dad were an awful long way away and Jen and I were very close siblings who had spent the previous year sharing a room in an apartment. So it just made sense to us to share a room again. Funny now when I think about it, Jen was the same age as my youngest daughter is now and I can see her wanting to share a room… and long as she didn’t have to and it was her choice.

The Sauer House was very unique and something I will always remember, but the six months were up very quickly and my family moved into a house that my dad built with his boss Greg. We called it The Buck House.