Another trip to Montana

Right on the heals of coming home from our California trip we were offered the opportunity to visit Montana. Of course we jumped on the chance, we love to visit our friends there.

After our not so fun trip through the mountains in California that took way tooooooo long we decided to take the more or less straight highway route to Montana. Because of this we didn’t go through Missoula and missed visiting our friends there, which was a real bummer, but it saved us hours and twisty turny mountain roads.

We got to Montana and our friend Gil; who so graciously offered his spare room for us right when Google predicted we would, it was awesome.  Something that wasn’t awesome, I was having such a good time with some of our friends I neglected to take pictures of some of the more fun times that we had, I guess having the fun is the best, but I miss the pictures. I only took 700some pictures during this trip and that may sound like a whole lot, but remember most of them are out of focus or bad in some other way. Anyway we had a  wonderful time and even though as per usual this series of posts is late, it’s better than never.

Montana Trip July 2013

On the drive to Montana we stopped in Kennewick, WA at a little park and had lunch and then played on the swings for a little bit.

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Montana Trip July 2013

Ah, the Flathead Valley in Montana. Beautiful, usually green, but still beautiful.

Montana Trip July 2013

Our first view of Flathead Lake, which is ginormous and beautiful and always signals the last stretch of our journey.

Montana Trip July 2013

Our first morning in Montana we went to the Buffalo Cafe in Whitefish. One of our favorite places to eat and not just because our friend (Waldo’s BFF and hetro-life-mate) Jack is the main cook there. The food is super delicious and it’s a piece of Whitefish history or at least a must see there.

Montana Trip July 2013

After breakfast and a tiny bit of Whitefish sight seeing we went to visit our friend Becky. Becky is all about lego’s and so she and Lily built all afternoon.

Montana Trip July 2013

That first day was jam packed. After leaving Becky’s we went to Anthony and Maggie’s and Lily was introduced to the love of the Xbox Kinect. Lily and Anthony and Maggie’s son Conrad played and played and had a blast.

Montana Trip July 2013

The next day which I believe was Tuesday we went back to Becky’s and after hanging out and trying in vain to decided where to go for lunch for I’m not kidding you at least an hour we hopped in our car and finally decided to go eat where Becky works. We hadn’t been there before, but it’s well spoke of by Becky (of course) and has great reviews on Trip Advisor. We had fancy bacon and brie cheese burgers and they were the Yum. After lunch we went for ice cream at a local place that makes all their own ice cream and it was so good we went there again a few days later.

Montana Trip July 2013

Lily kept talking about playing with Conrad and his video game, it was cute. We had planned to visit Anthony and Maggie again anyway so back we went.

Montana Trip July 2013

Conrad liked the dog guitar that we bought Lily.

The next day was work day. Well since we work from home, everyday is a work day even on vacation. While on vacation is just usually a short day, but since we were in the town where our office is we had to make an appearance, which we would have done anyway to say Hi, but meetings were planned. For me this office time was only an hour or two, but for Waldo it was a full day event.

Lily and I spent the day with Becky while Waldo worked. I totally got the better gig. We had lunch together and checked out the thrift stores; which I was bummed to not find anything good, but Becky found an almost complete Lego Yoda for $5 so she was jazzed.

Montana Trip July 2013

We left Becky and went to the park before picking Waldo up. I really wish I had thought that plan though a little because it was like 101 and that park had little to no shade so everything was HOT! We checked out a few of the pieced of play equipment, but left after less than 10 minutes.

Montana Trip July 2013

It looks like she’s having fun, but only because this particular thing has the metal covered with cloth so it was only a little hot.

Montana Trip July 2013

After picking up Waldo we went to dinner and they had this really cool moose outside.

This is the end of part 1 of the Montana trip. Stay tuned for some fun.

Thrifting

After we moved into the extended stay motel we realized that the pots and pans they provide are not the kind that we usually use, so I started going to thrift stores around to see what I could find. I really wanted either stainless steal or glass pieces made by Visions, which aren’t in production any longer. For her birthday last year Waldo and his siblings went in together and bought their Mom a whole set of the Visions cookware, it was very pricy, but we love them. We cook everything in them besides a few things that we use stainless steal for, we also use cast iron, but I have enough of those already. Over the course of the week and a half that we were in the motel I went to a number of thrift stores. Sometimes I’d find one or two things, sometimes I’d find nothing, alot of the time I’d just find a lid or two. I had to put my foot down with myself to not buy anymore unmatched lids.

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The purse was already mine.

Then one day right before we moved out I hit the jackpot.

I now have a whole range of different sized pots a few glass skillets (not pictured, obviously) and more lids than I can shake a stick at. I am making it my quest to keep collecting these. We love how they cook and they can be very hard to find. I don’t think I paid more than $7 for any of my new pieces and I’ve seen them online for much much more.

While I was at the different thrift stores of course I looked around a little and found a few other great things.

Some nice pepper grinders, a whole collection of kitchen gadgets for Lily and a few for me and best of all a cute little kids table for Lily.

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We didn’t buy the slide at the time, I figured I could come back for it and I learned the first rule of thrifting the hard way. Buy it now, because as soon as you love something it will get sold. Oh well, now I’m addicted to thrifting so I’ll find another slide somewhere.

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Lil loves the table and it's now our craft table/foot rest in the family room.

 

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