Join two Models to display in webpage - asp.net-mvc

Question

I'm building an application using ASP.NET MVC4 with code first data migrations. I have an estimates model, a clients model, a DbContext, and a view model I created. I am wanting to display the company name in a drop down, with the company name tied to an estimate. I have a ClientId in both models. I also created a DbSet<> and that didn't work either when querying against it.
I tried to create a viewmodel that I thought I could simply query against and display through my controller. I'm not having any luck in getting this to work. After a day plus of looking on here and other places, I'm out of ideas.
How can I query/join the two models, or query the viewmodel to get the company name associated with the clientId? Thanks for the help.
Models:
public class Estimates
{
[Key]
public int EstimateId { get; set; }
public int ClientId { get; set; }
public decimal EstimateAmount { get; set; }
[DisplayFormat(ApplyFormatInEditMode = true, DataFormatString = "{0:MM/dd/yyyy}")]
public DateTime EstimateDate { get; set; }
public string EstimateNotes { get; set; }
}
public class Clients
{
[Key]
public int ClientId { get; set; }
public string CompanyName { get; set; }
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
public string Phone { get; set; }
public string Email { get; set; }
public string Address { get; set; }
public string City { get; set; }
public string State { get; set; }
public string Zip { get; set; }
public ICollection<Estimates> Estimates { get; set; }
public ICollection<Contracts> Contracts { get; set; }
}
public class ClientEstimateViewModel
{
public Clients Clients { get; set; }
public Estimates Estimates { get; set; }
}
public class NovaDb : DbContext
{
public NovaDb(): base("DefaultConnection")
{
}
public DbSet<Clients> Clients { get; set; }
public DbSet<Estimates> Estimates { get; set; }
public DbSet<Contracts> Contracts { get; set; }
public DbSet<Invoices> Invoices { get; set; }
public DbSet<ClientEstimateViewModel> ClientViewModels { get; set; }
protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
{
modelBuilder.Conventions.Remove<PluralizingTableNameConvention>();
}
}
Controller:
NovaDb _db = new NovaDb();
ClientEstimateViewModel ce = new ClientEstimateViewModel();
public ActionResult Index()
{
var model =
(from r in ce.Clients
join x in ce.Estimates
where
//var model =
// from r in _db.Clients
// orderby r.CompanyName ascending
// select r;
return View(model);
}

Answer 1

Because you've created the relationship between client & estimate in your models, you should be able to create a query like this:
var query = from c in _db.clients
select new ClientEstimateViewModel
{
Clients = c,
Estimates = c.Estimates
}
Although you'd have to change your model so Estimates was public List<Estimates> Estimates { get; set; }
This would give you a collection of ClientEstimateViewModel which you could then pass to your view