Summer Photo Dump 2

Sitting here in the beautiful weather taking a break from decluttering (and just finished cleaning up a shattered glass of water from the patio so I need a little downtime!).

We have had an amazing year for early summer gardening. Lots of beautiful heads of broccoli and cauliflower, and more kale, chard, lettuce, peas, and berries than we can eat! Tomatoes are just getting started, and we have some beautiful peppers growing, along with green beans starting to blossom. Our plum and nectarine fruited for the first time this year, so I'm excited for them to ripen up.

We made our first trip of the summer to Glacier. John is hoping to make another...I'd love to go again but not sure we have the time. It's such an amazing place. I can hardly choose which pics to include because every single one is so beautiful (even though the pics don't begin to do it justice!). This year we camped with some friends who have property right on the edge of the park. The kids had so much fun hanging with their friends (and we did too!).

There was still snow at Logan Pass. Brrrrr.

This pic is courtesy of Archer. It's a little blurry but I love it!

We had a good amount of rain while we were there. Here we spent some time drying off at a restaurant with fries and milkshakes.

The "weeping wall" was more like the gushing wall!

One of the more memorable moments of the trip was when we were headed down from Logan Pass and it was SUPER foggy - as in we were driving about 10-15 mph some of the time because it was so hard to see. Well, some rocks fell down onto the road ahead of us and John slowed down even more because of the small rockslide...and then a softball sized rock hit our hood! Thank goodness for the Linex paint job, and we were also very thankful it didn't hit the windshield. 

Glacier with the Cousins!

Our Labor Day weekend was spent camping at Glacier. One of my favorite places EVER. There's just something about it...the mountains, the animals, the frigid lakes...everything. It looks like a postcard everywhere you look. It's a bit of a trek for us (3.5-4 hrs), but WELL worth it.

My brother and his kids joined us and we all had a blast. The kids only get to see each other a few times a year, but when they do, they make the most of it. We didn't have spectacular weather part of the time we were at Glacier, but the kids didn't mind! 

I am already excited about a trip back there. It's the kind of place that you just can't get sick of. There is too much to see, and too many places to explore. (Picture overload coming up!)

(This was before with left, but too adorable to leave out!)

Boys in Camo!

Playing in the hail!

B did awesome paddleboarding solo!

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.