photo-grafs: Montana for 2 weeks

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Montana for 2 weeks

We had to pack and up and leave our house in such a hurry (1 night's notice) when we suddenyl got renters that I was very grateful that I had two months prior to slowly pack most of the house up. Chris was already in Idaho Falls and we couldn't move into our rental house for another two weeks so the kids and I headed to Montana for a few weeks. We had already been planning on spending at least a week up there anyway because my mom had flown in at the beginning of June for the month and my dad was going to be there for the last week of June. My cousins, Abe and Sarah were gracious enough to let us stay at their house for the whole time! It was great being around family and relaxing but also hard just sitting and waiting to move into our new home.

Here are some of the things that kept us busy:

Mom and dad went on a fe adventures together. They did whitewater rafting down the Gallatin River (which was surging at this time of year) and also horseback riding. Here are some great pictures from their rafting trip. (They are the two on the right).

We visited lots of parks:

Every day we tried to have a picnic or snacks at a different park. Bozeman has some really fantastic parks so we tried out as many new ones as we could! Several of them have great nature trails with ponds and also awesome playground equipment (we need more parks in Idaho Falls!)

Olivia's favorite thing to do: swing!

I watched my little cousins as much as I could to help out while I was staying at their house. They play great with my kids and have gotten pretty close during all of our trips to Montana. We had lots of fun together!

Natalia and Jacobi

Swimming at Bogart Pool:
One hot afternoon we went swimming with Grammie and Grandpa. The kids hadn't been in a swimming pool for two summers so it took them a little while to get used to it. It made me sad because they both were such little fish in the water when we lived at Rivercrest with the pool. Brady used to swim all around by himself with his arm floaties on. Due to the nature of the craziness of our summer we didn't get to do swim lessons this year but we will definately be doing them next year!

Olivia finally let Grammie take her around in the water and once she knew that she was going to be safe she loved it and even went down the little kiddie slide a few times. There are also some really awesome water slides there that I wish I could have gone down...next year!

I tried to get some better pictures...but with lots of splashing and uncooperative kids this is all we got.

Lemonade Stand:

What do you do when it's REALLY hot and the kids are REALLY "bored?" Have a lemonade stand! My cousin Abe set up this table with lemonade, punch and snakcs for the kids to sell. Brady and Natalia actually did a pretty good job of sitting out in the heat! They each made $4.00!!! (Meanwhile, Olivia and I went to Aunt Linda's and took a nap!)

And this is the view from my cousin's front yard of the Bridger Mountains. They also live right across the street from the nature park and Dinosaur Park (themed playground for kids).

Splash Park:
We went to the splash park two times and also to a small pond to go swimming one day. The kids loved splashing in the water and especially using the huge water guns/cannons.

Museum of the Rockies:
Dad went with me and the kids ad my cousin Megan to the Museum of the Rockies. They have a lot of dinosaur and Native American displays, as well as a special frog exhibit for the summer.

Outside there is a working farm that is an original homestead of an early family that settled in the valley. They have daily demonstrations on cooking and living during that era.

Outside off of the back porch was a working well that the kids could pump and syphon out water into watering cans. They then went around watering all of the flowers and vegetable gardens!