Another Reason I Love Montana is...

...because you'll never find a more comfortable place to wait for the bus. Seriously, folks! I love it.


Katie also got a little taste of Montana after she climbed to the top of this "mountain" and was bragging about getting there first. This picture was taken right after informing her that she was actually climbing on a big pile of horse poop.

Bedtime Stories

One of the best things about visiting grandparents are the bedtime stories. Especially Grandpa stories (no offense to the Grandmas). Grandpa Quinn is the Giant-Jellybean storyteller, and Grandpa Burnside reads Uncle Remus.



Mason and Katie have loved listening to the same stories my dad used to read to us when we were little. It's their favorite part of the evening. Bre'r Rabbit and the Tar Baby, Bre'r Rabbit and the Briar Patch--they can't get enough. Although the stories themselves are great, I've got to give my dad credit for doing great voices and making it all come to life.

Grandma got in a little cuddle time with Andrew and a book as well. It doesn't get much better than that.

Painful Victory

The hike up Mt Helena was a little over a mile and a half each way. Mason and Katie did great, while Andrew seemed more interested in observing nature than walking up the trail.

I ended up carrying him about 2/3 of the way up and back. He doesn't make a great backpack, since he's only mildly aware that he's supposed to be holding on to my neck and not pointing out everything he's seeing on the trail. But in the end, we made it, and it was worth it (now that it's over).

One of the best things was that my mom hiked it with us. She is the incredible shrinking woman, having lost almost half her body weight over the past year and a half. She's running 5K's now and eats healthier than anyone else I know. She's amazing!

Ouch!

Andrew was (unfortunately) introduced to another part of my childhood: cactus. To get to my piano lessons, I had to cross a field covered with sagebrush with cactus hiding in it. I don't know how many times it took me before I could do it without injury.

Andrew was just trying to get to a neighbor's house that had a trampoline...barefoot. They have "native landscaping", so I should have remembered that would be a bad idea. Right after I thought of it, he landed a foot right in one. It took a lot of distraction, but eventually I got all of the spines out.


The silver lining here is that the house with the trampoline also has a 6-year-old boy that Mason and Katie have become best friends with. It has been great to have a place for them to go burn off some energy. As if that weren't great enough, he has two older sisters that my mom and I paid to play with them all this afternoon. Goldmine.

We hit the children's museum and carousel this morning, but opted out of a trip to McDonald's due to a very grouchy Andrew. We're going to hike Mt Helena in the morning--wish us luck. Usually there is a letter "H" on the mountain, but a couple of months ago, the rocks on the mountain were rearranged into this:


If you're going to rearrange rocks into a peace sign, you might as well paint them pink.

Going Home

Almost every year I take a journey out to Montana. I wish I could fly from Charlottesville to Helena, but the going rate is usually around $650, as opposed to the $270 I paid for the direct flight from D.C. into Salt Lake City. I might even consider it if it weren't for the minimum of 2 layovers and the fact that I have to buy 4 tickets. It adds up quickly.

I drove up to D.C. on Monday night, and arrived at about 8:30 pm. For some reason I thought that would be good timing, since my kids would be ready for bed. I don't know if it was something in the air, but as soon as we walked into the hotel room they became like children possessed. They were so wired that it was impossible to get them to settle down until almost 9:30. Mason didn't crash until after 10:00, and Andrew fell asleep on my head sometime around 11:00. Did I mention we had a 5:30 a.m. wakeup call?

When I finally pulled Andrew out of bed the next morning, he was so exhausted and disoriented that he screamed all the way down to the front door and did his best to lean forward in his stroller so that his head would drag on the floor. Add to that 2 other kids and all the luggage, and we made for a really pretty sight. At least they were dressed in style:




We were lucky to sail through check-in (a $10 well spent), and onto the plane. I was smart and booked aisle and window seats for the four of us, hoping the middle seats wouldn't get taken. They both got filled, but the person in between Andrew and I wisely opted to change to the one last available seat in the plane, giving Andrew and I the row to ourselves, and the middle person between Mason and Katie was happy to get a window. Exhausted 2-year olds are miserable to fly with--it was the longest flight of my life (or at least on par with Australia).

It's amazing how emotionally vulnerable I can when I'm that exhausted. The grouchy woman who sarcastically said "Why don't I let you guys go first" after Mason bumped into her while getting off the plane about made me cry, as did the very nice man who helped to push my overloaded luggage cart to the car rental place. I was just so grateful to get to the car and drive. The seven-hour drive to Montana was the part I was the least worried about.

We stopped after 3 hours in Basalt, Idaho to see Ryan's Aunt Kathryn and Aunt Mona. The kids got to burn off some energy and take a ride on Aunt Kathryn's scooter with her:


Plus, we got some awesome cinnamon rolls that helped us make it through the rest of the trip. We made the last 4-hours without stopping, so I have to give the kids some credit for that. As for me, I had a wonderful drive. I downloaded the book "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer (the author of the "Twilight" series), and so far it has been a great book and kept me very engaged through the whole drive.

Everything is worth it, though, for that feeling of coming home. I don't know how much longer my parents will live here, so I try to soak it in every time I come. I love the mountains I see right after crossing the border into Montana, and everything is so green right now. I have driven this road so many times between my summers in Jackson Hole and my years at BYU. Each landmark tells me I'm a little closer to home.

My parents still live in the same house that we moved to when I was 5 years old, and my bedroom has the same pink wallpaper that was put on when I was about 8. My kids play with the same fisher-price camper set I used to love, and ride bikes out on the same street I did. Although I am really excited for my parents to move somewhere a little more convenient to travel to, it breaks my heart to think that in the not-to-distant future I will no longer be able to come back to this home.

After arriving, we got to watch the last half of the Celtics-Lakers game. I let the kids stay up for the whole thing, which I'm kind of paying for today, but I'm glad they got to see it. It made for a great ending to a really long day.

Nathan and Paty

My brother Nathan and his wife Paty and their three kids decided to do an Midwest to East Coast tour, starting with Michigan then on to Ohio and then over to Virginia. They live in New Mexico, so it was a definite change in scenery.

We took them out to Sugar Hollow, and on the way back, the kids got to do their first geocaching using my brother's GPS. They had a lot of fun finding the hidden box and trading the little toys they had brought for some new ones (old junk for new junk)


Saturday we drove up to D.C. and went to the White House and the Smithsonians. We lucked out, because it was one of seven times a year they open up the White House grounds for visitors. It was kind of crazy to be right outside the Oval Office. We only had time for one museum, so we opted for the Natural History since the Air and Space would have required way too much walking for what I was up to on a very warm and humid day.

Outside of the front of the White House

Garden Side of the White House

It was a crowded day at the museum, so there are no pictures to document the chaos that comprised our quick trip through the dinosaurs. They loved Thanksgiving Point in Utah because it has a lot of interactive activities, so the Smithsoniam was actually a little bit of a disappointment for them. We're heading out west tomorrow, so they'll get to do Thanksgiving Point sometime in the next couple of weeks.

I get to drive up to D.C. tomorrow, spend the night and fly out early on Tuesday. I pick up a car and then drive up to Montana. It will make for a busy day, but we love to see Grandma and Grandpa Burnside so it's all worth it. I just wish Ryan was coming along for the fun!

Butterflies

We made one more trip to our favorite swimming hole today, and I took a little video of the butterflies. I'm not sure why I'm so in love with them, but I am. They are pretty small on a video like this, but the fact that you can see them at all is impressive.

We got up there a little earlier so that we could stay longer and had another great day. It's rare to find an activity that caters to my older two kids (swimming, climbing on rocks, etc) as well as Andrew (throwing rocks) and me (enjoying time with my friends and my kids). Plus, my kids are so worn out by the time we get home that Andrew falls right asleep and my other two just play for the rest of the afternoon. It doesn't get much better than that.

Cook-out Fun

We headed outdoors last night, Andrew included (he didn't get them memo about taking a nap).

The kids a great time playing with friends, climbing trees, and eating hot dogs and smores.

There was a very friendly deer, which was much more welcome than the bears that the signs were warning us about.

Katie has become one with the outdoors. Last night, I asked her if she needed to use the bathroom. She said she did, and that she could do it on her own. I was impressed, since the bathrooms were a little way off from where our fire was. When she started walking in the opposite direction of the bathrooms, it took me a second to figure out that she wasn't planning on using the bathroom at all. Why bother, when there are all those great trees around that much closer and more convenient? After a quick lesson in outdoor etiquette--especially at a large campground with a lot of people around--we headed over to the real bathrooms.

Sugar Hollow, Take 2

After such a successful first trip, we decided to head out to Sugar Hollow again today. We were there about three hours, but had to leave for kids to take naps. If it weren't for tired 2-year-olds, we would have stayed there a lot longer.

Being able to swim was wonderful. The kids jumped off rocks, caught fish with their nets, and climbed up the waterfalls. Andrew continued to delight himself with throwing rocks--and as there is an amazing abundance of those, he is perpetually entertained. It's another scorching hot day, but you wouldn't know it up there.

I'm going to leave my tired baby home asleep with Ryan and take Mason and Katie up the Blue Ridge Mountains tonight for a little cookout with some friends. It will make for a much nicer evening (for me, at least!)

Sugar Hollow

Ryan had to be gone all morning for some church things, so I was planning on a tough day since we don't go to church until 3:30 in the afternoon and the temperatures have spiked into the high 90's (hot, hot, hot!).

A phone call from a friend changed that, and I ended up taking the kids on a hike near Sugar Hollow Reservoir--about 20 miles from our house. I've been out to that area plenty of times because we have other friends that live out there, but had never gone hiking.

It was a bumpy drive for the last couple of miles, but it made for a short hike. That's important when there are two 2-year-olds along for the trip. We went up above the reservoir where the river pools up into a nice little swimming hole. Andrew spent the entire two hours just throwing rocks in the river, and Mason and Katie and their friends had a great time hunting for tadpoles and building dams. It was so much cooler there, the water was perfect for wading in, and entire trail was alive with swallowtail butterflies. Between that and great friends, it made for a perfect morning.

As much as I would love to live by an amusement park or something like that, I am convinced they have at least as much fun--if not more--playing in a river and chasing butterflies. We're going out with some friends tomorrow night to do a little cook-out, which is a pretty close rival to a river (hot dogs+marshmallows+fire=happiness). One thing we had hoped for when we moved here was that between having the mountains so close, and the beach an easy drive away, we'd get outdoors a lot more. This has been our best summer yet for that.

Summer Daze

Summer vacation officially started yesterday, and I have vowed that I am not going to get to the end of this summer and feel like it was wasted. In exchange for all I am asking of my kids (mainly Mason and Katie, since Andrew just ignores me), I'm promising them one activity a day that is at least somewhat fun and effortful on my part.

Yesterday, we had to go to drop something off at Mason's school, so I figured I'd let them play on the playground for a while (like I said, all I'm trying for is "somewhat fun and effortful"). Since it was in the 90's and extremely humid, I wasn't sure how long we'd actually last. Luckily, Mason knew where there was a trail that lead through the woods that surround the soccer field, and I was very happy to find that a walk in the woods was a perfect idea. It was much cooler, and all three of my kids love to hike. I love watching Andrew wear his little body out, since my chances of him taking a nap go up significantly.

This morning, we headed to a blueberry patch. Unfortunately, we had been beat out by dozens of other blueberry pickers who had cleaned off most of the best berries. So I paid about $4 in gas and $1.79 for the pound of blueberries we were able to find. Of course, only about half of those are even ripe enough to eat--but I'm sure they'll be real tasty in muffins. The one thing I can say for Virginia is that if I'm going to pay $4 for gas, at least the scenery is amazing. Between the huge old houses, mountain views, and beautiful trees, I sometimes have a hard time keeping my eyes on the road.

I also had a party for my CTR 8 class this afternoon (I'm Mason's teacher). I teach 12 kids, 9 of which came. It was only 2 hours, but it was a busy two hours full of water balloons, ice cream, and other games. Now that was an effortful activity.

As for the things I'm asking my kids to do, for the first summer ever I'm getting off to a good start with having them do some reading, writing and/or math every day as well as practice the piano. I've had good intentions but poor follow-through other summers, but after 2 days I'm now at 100%. I have to celebrate the little things. They are also being told (at least a couple of times a day) that a clean house makes for a happy mom. And happy moms are definitely the best kind, so it's worth the effort.

One of the things I'm having Mason and Katie do is keep a journal, so this is going to be my journal of our very productive summer. Wish us luck!