Friday, October 16, 2015

95 years old

Matt's Grandma, Betty Wetzel, turned 95 in August.  Wayne and his siblings put together a birthday party for her at her home in Dixon, MT.  We stayed in Ronan with some of Matt's family (Matt's parents, Kristy, Kazia, Kelsey, Kevyn, Susan, and Kevyn's 7 kids) for the weekend and drove over to Dixon for the party.

It was a great weekend honoring a great lady.  I've only spent time with Betty a few times, but she's pretty swell.  Even at 95, her wit, humor, and independence are all still strong.  This is my favorite picture of Betty from the weekend - smiling, surrounded by people she loves.  She seemed so happy and I heard her say - now I can just go to sleep and not wake up.


We saw so much wildlife on our drive to Ronan.  We saw the usual - deer and antelope as well as a black bear fishing in a river and a herd of male big horn sheep.  (We saw females and babies in Glacier earlier in the month so it was fun to see males this time.)


 
The house we rented was great.  It fit our group well - 9 adults and 10 kids.  The property was awesome.  The house sat on 60 acres (or something like that), backed up to the mountains, and had a creek running through it.
 
 
 
 
It had been super smoky in Montana leading up to this weekend, but the winds shifted and the sky cleared up on Saturday.  We spent the morning enjoying the property.  Matt brought our 4-wheeler and he took everyone for rides.  We played in the creek, went in the hot tub and visited.
 


 
Willa loves spending time with her cousins - especially Asenath.  Asenath is 10.  Willa thinks she is older and wiser and so cool!
 
 
 
In typical Wetzel fashion - the Wetzel boys went for a dip in the cold water.  They wrestled each other in the swimming hole, enjoyed the rock slide and jumped off the rocks.

Here's Wolf coming up for air after Kevyn dunked him under the water
 
In the afternoon we went to Grandma Betty's for her party.  It was fun to meet some of Matt's cousins, aunts, and uncles that I've heard about for the past 12 years but hadn't met.
 
  
Betty told me her husband, who passed away 20 or so years ago, would be surprised by how big the family has gotten.  Betty knew everyone's name and who belongs to who - even the in-laws and great grandkids.
 

2 comments:

Knudson Family said...

Great pictures. It's so beautiful up there!

Katie said...

really pretty pictures!