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.

Random Mobile Shots

Lily painting the zoo

Lily wanted to paint the zoo. This the the giraffe house and a giraffe.

Lily painted the zoo

The finished zoo. Along with me taking a picture of the giraffe, Lily and Waldo and the little brown things watching the lions. The female lion is wearing a tutu and the male is riding on her back while holding a glass of water. There’s a zebra on the top along with a carousal , that’s the red thing on the top corner.

Taking a closer look during our walk

We went for a walk last week and she she had to bring her binoculars so she could check things out.

Modeling the shirt we decorated

Lily has been very unhappy because the shirt I decorated with Minnie Mouse for her birthday has been retired so I finally made her a new one and she helped me add extra things (like the face).

Modeling the shirt we decorated

The finished drawing that Lily did from the restraunt last week

This is the drawing that Lil was working on at dinner last week.

Going up the slide

Going up the slide at a playground that we finally decided to check out, after two years. We’ve been back like 5 times in the last two weeks. We should have gone sooner.

Going down.

The DRIVE part 6

While we were in California we had the ability to visit with a lot of different family members and I made it my goal to take pictures of and with them. I did really well.

The pictures in this post span our entire trip.

May 2013 California trip

Lily hugging and snuggling with my Grandma Memaw.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

Me and my Pop.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

Me and Memaw.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

Me and my little sister Jolene. (Olivia’s Mom)

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

Memaw, Me, Lily and Pop.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

Olivia, Jolene, Memaw, Me, Lily and Pop.

May 2013 California trip

Some silly faces.

May 2013 California trip

Lily, Me, my Mom (GG) and Olivia.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

Me and my cousin Melissa.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

Lily, Jolene and Olivia.

May 2013 California trip

Olivia, Me and Lil.

May 2013 California trip

Silly faces.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

My Dad (Papaw) and Lil.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

My Dad, Lil and Waldo.

May 2013 California trip

Me and my Daddy.

May 2013 California trip

Me, My Dad and Lil.

May 2013 California trip

2 out of 3 silly faces.

May 2013 California trip

This was the last picture we took before we left.  Sniff.

I love my family so much and miss them everyday.

The DRIVE part 2

This is part 2 in the yet unknown length series from our CA trip.

Just like last time we visited Lily and Olivia spent all of their car time with tablets and having a good time. It is also really nice that Lil still sits backwards so she and Olivia face each other and can talk easily.

May 2013 California trip

After my Grandma’s funeral Waldo took these pictures of Lil and Olivia being silly.

May 2013 California trip

I love how they are together. I grew up with lots of cousins that I was very close with. I sad for Lil that she doesn’t have that in her life all the time, but at least she gets it when we visit.

May 2013 California trip

The next day while Olivia was at preschool our little Trio went to Walmart (Target was way too far to go right then, unfortunately) and stocked up on stuff to entertain these girls. Silly us, we didn’t really bring anything to play with so fixed that. Those toys were some of the best investments we’ve made in a while.

May 2013 California trip

We took some of them everywhere with us to keep them busy.

May 2013 California trip

Hungry Hippos at my Grandparents.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

Tea party at my Dad’s.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

Fishing at my Dads.

May 2013 California trip

One day we decided to go swim at my Aunt KK’s. Man that was fun even though Waldo decided to take his phone for a swim. That part was no fun. Waldo put his phone in the pocket of the swim trunks he was borrowing and said to himself “wouldn’t it be funny if I forgot my phone in my pocket”.  When he got outside I wasn’t ready to get in yet and the girls wanted to play so he did the Dad thing and jumped in with a big splash and started playing with Lil and Livi. A few minutes later he realized his Oops. Between playing with the kids in the pool; Waldo, myself and my Aunt tried different things to help save the phone. Spoiler: none of it worked and we went to the Verizon store the next day and upgraded Waldo, which turned into us switching phones and I got the upgraded new phone once we got home. I have the best husband.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

I never understood pool noodles before. Now I do and they rock. They can be used for anything and everything.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

KK bought this giant floating seesaw for her Grandkids that were coming to visit the next week. She broke it out for us.

May 2013 California trip

The girls liked it, but it was a little…precarious to say the least.  It’s so far out of the water it felt a little unsafe.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

I tried to get on it after the girls were done and it was pretty much a no go.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

Stay tuned for bath time, jellyfish and more family.

June 2013 trip to California from here on out known as The DRIVE That Lasted 15 Hours Instead of 12 Both Damn Ways.

This is the first in a yet unknown length series.

In Early June my sister Jolene sent me a text that our Grandmother (Mamaw) was headed to the ER. After many texts back and forth over the next hour to find out what happened and what was happening Jolene texted me that Mamaw had passed away. While this is very sad news it was also not super surprising because Mamaw had Alzheimer’s and was just getting worse all the time. For the last 3 years she lived with my Dad and Step-Mom so she was thankfully with family and well taken care of. To be with my family and show my love and support we had to take the little drive down to central California. I’m not going to lie, this was a good thing for me because Waldo and I had talked ourselves out of taking a vacation to CA this summer because of money. We had started to plan a trip that would include taking Lily and my niece Olivia to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for the day, but after calculating the expense it just didn’t seem doable, but because of this we had to make it work. Sort of Yay.

As is our habit Waldo and I started planning our trip out which included looking at our route. I like to take different routes when we can because I like to see different parts of the world. Also we have done the straight down the highways to CA a few times and hated the part where we hit Sacramento at rush hour no matter what we do so we decided to see what else was available.  We studied Google maps and according to the almighty Google the alternative we decided on would only take an additional 43 minutes. LOL! 43 minutes, we could totally handle that; we get to see new mountains and avoid almost all major CA towns, right on! LOL! Stupid us.

Fast forward a week and we were on the road. We followed Nancy’s directions (the name we gave our nav voice) and all the sudden we were in the middle of the Nevada mountains and it was beautiful. Don’t ask me why I didn’t take any pictures up till this point, I guess I failed as a blogger, but trust me these mountains and fields were green and beautiful. We were on a very deserted 4 lane highway when Nancy tells us to turn right, onto a two lane road. Alright Nancy, if you say so.  We drove a little ways and passed the Air force (or Army, I don’t honestly know or care) Mountain Warfare Training facility, Ooookay, I guess we are in a bit of a deserted area, but this is where Nancy said to go and trust me I followed the little line on the nav map and made sure we were on the right track and we were.  Then a few minutes later we passed a sign that said the road to the summit was open. Well hell thank goodness for that. It never occurred to me that the road might not be open.  Then we passed the gate that they would use to close the road if the summit wasn’t open and it was like we hit a time warp and were on the oldest and smallest road ever created in CA. And we were headed UP. Thankfully Waldo noticed the sign that said it was 24 miles to the other side. Only 24 miles, we could totally do that.

We passed the 5000 feet elevation sigh and I thought nothing of it because I was trying really had to not get car sick. We were driving around all of these hairpin curves and Waldo was shifting our automatic Honda like it was a manual. There were sheer drop offs on my side of the car that I had to stop looking at. Then we passed the 6000 feet sign and I complained to Waldo “why didn’t I take a picture of the 5000 ft sign?” Oh well.  More hairpins, more drop offs and finally Waldo insisted that I take the Dramamine that was still thankfully in the glove box from the last trip we took.  Oh and at this point I don’t think we’ve seen another human being. We had no cell signal AT ALL and I was a little worried that if anything happened to us we were toast. Then we passed some of those Army/air force guys setting up for some mountain warfare training and I felt better and so much worse. At least I knew there were other people around somewhere.  Then we passed the 7000 ft sign and I slapped my let and almost yelled “why haven’t I been taking pictures of these signs?” Then there was snow on the sides of the road and I was like oh holy crap we’re up high. When we got to the 8000 feet sign I tried to take a picture but couldn’t get it before we passed it. When I complained Waldo told me that he would have stopped, I hadn’t thought of that, seeing as we were on a road. But at that point I think we’d seen like 2 cars so really who cares if we stop.  So when I saw the 9000 feet sign I told him to stop. I mean really, 9000 feet!! He stopped right there and I took this picture.

May 2013 California trip

Finally at about 92 hundred some odd feet or so we hit the summit and started on the way down. Finally.

We stopped at a ‘rest stop’ (really a permanent port a potty) and we realized what a nice place it was to stop when we went and read this sign.

May 2013 California trip

We didn’t take the whole 1/2 mile walk, but we did look around and it was such a nice way to stretch our legs and take a little break from the hairpins.

May 2013 California trip

We walked along that bridge and it was so peaceful.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

We finally got into Madera (our destination) around midnight or something stupid like that. I have to say that Lil was a champ. She didn’t sleep the whole time which really surprised me, but just played with the iPad, her toys and her drawing that whole time and didn’t hardly complain and just hung out. She talked about Olivia the whole time and couldn’t wait to play with her. Once we got to my Dad’s we quickly set up our bed and crawled into it.

Early the next morning Jolene and Olivia came by and Lily’s fun started.

May 2013 California trip

I dragged the girls outside and started documenting this trip.

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

May 2013 California trip

I’m going to stop here and like I said in the beginning this is the beginning of a series.

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