Saturday, August 31, 2013

Farewell Summer

I can't believe it's the last weekend of summer. I can't believe we have just a few days left before 2 of my boys start school. 

We spent the last couple of days on our last camping trip of the summer at Riley Creek campground on Priest River (about an hour north of us). The weather wasn't quite as warm as I'd hoped, but the boys didn't seem to mind and they played in the water until their teeth chattered. Some friends came up and spent the day with us Friday which was perfect entertainment (for the kids and the adults!). The boys spent the majority of the time fishing and riding bikes, and they actually slept in until close to 8:00 every morning!

Now we are back. Not quite feeling ready to start back in to the school routine, but I guess we don't have much of a choice. Tomorrow we are celebrating B's birthday with a BBQ, and then we will probably spend Monday doing some last minute summertime yard work.


Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Almost 6

We did a small family early birthday celebration for B's birthday since my parents were visiting. That seems to be the norm for his birthday since it falls so close to the end of summer...we do a small family birthday celebration early, then a get together with friends closer to his actual birthday. 

This year we did Chuck E. Cheese's, and I'm fairly certain it is going to become the requested birthday place. (And really, I'd welcome the change from Texas Roadhouse & Red Robin which have been the birthday spots for the past few years!) The boys had so much fun playing the games, and we spent a good portion of the day there. Plus, it was not crowded at all, despite being a Saturday. 

B got to open his presents from his grandparents, and we gave him one of his presents early (a skateboard!).

 




Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Glacier

A little over a week ago, we spent four days camping in Glacier Nat'l Park. Glacier is probably one of my favorite places ever (at least in the summer when it's warm). We have had a trip planned for the past three summers I believe, and we've had to cancel every single one. So we were pretty determined to make it happen this year! And it did. And it was perfect. Except for the mosquitoes and a few 4-year-old temper tantrums. 

But seriously...cannot WAIT to go back again. Every time we go to Montana, John and I have a conversation that goes something like this:
"Why did we leave Montana?" 
"It's so beautiful here!"
"The air is fresher!"
"It feels like I'm breathing in health!" (Direct quote from John this trip!)
"We could totally live here...why did we move?"
And then the voice of reason (me) steps in: "because we hated living in the middle of nowhere 90 miles from the nearest real town which we didn't even want to go to in the winter because of the snow..."
Riiiiight. 

Really though, there are parts of Montana that we do miss, and the drive to Glacier totally reminds us of that. We live in a beautiful place now, and we love it, but there's just something different about Montana! Anyway...on to the point of this post...

We took our first tent-camping trip in about 5 years. It was a bit crazy, and probably crazier because we are used to our trailer camping comforts, but we had fun! We camped at a little campground off the beaten path a bit called Bowman Lake. It was a bit of a drive, but the campground was pretty much perfect for us (minus the mosquitoes!). We spent a LOT of time at the lake, which wasn't too crowded, and we even got to try paddle boarding for the first time. Well, John tried and succeeded, and I kind of stood there and tried not to lose my balance. 

Besides the lake, we did a couple of hikes along the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The boys loved the mountain goats (we saw LOTS, including some babies!) and they did pretty well hiking. The weather was beautiful, but there were quite a few people along the main road. We were so glad that we decided to camp up at Bowman Lake instead of one of the bigger campgrounds where we would've been even more stacked on top of other people.

LOTS of pictures. Because it's beautiful there and we have cute kids! 

Crammed into our little Subaru!
Bowman Lake

Paddle boarding:
John & B
Arch's turn
And Preston...
The boys loved paddle boarding so much they were begging us to get a board!
John & Arch again

Our campsite:

The next pictures are from a hike we did to Hidden Lake. We actually didn't do the full hike, just to the overlook which was about 4 miles round trip I think. Just right for our little guys! They said they were tired by the end, but they were still running around like crazy of course!


Next up: Trail of the Cedars. This was the perfect short walk to finish the day with since we had just done the Hidden Lake hike. The boys loved balancing on the downed trees!

Attempted family picture...with John's finger included!

And then back to Bowman Lake!
The pool that they made to keep the little fish in that they caught
The butterflies were so friendly! This one wouldn't leave me alone for about an hour or so. I finally got so irritated that I had to shoo it away and change locations! It then found a new spot to take up residence:
The boys made friends with some kids who brought a little raft along...it was a good day for them!
Here the boys are making turnip & alligator stew. Silly kids. They insisted that I make turnip stew once thanks to one of their favorite books, Mr. Wolf and the Enormous Turnip. They didn't like the stew that I made, but their own concoction must be better?! Maybe it's the alligator...
Tromping through the woods to the lake
And one last picture: Bowman Lake.