another day on the river...

 

We have spent many evenings playing on the Missouri River this summer.  We have the perfect setup...  we live on the river and our friends bring the "toys."  Willa is learning to surf behind a jet ski in these pictures.  I didn't grow up wake boarding or jet skiing.  It actually makes me nervous.  Matt learned how to surf behind the jet ski on his first try.  He and Mike (our neighbor in these pictures) take turns pulling each other so they can wakeboard and surf up and down the river.  I haven't tried it yet... maybe next summer.

 

 

 

Random thought - We live 10 minutes out of the city and when we moved out here, there weren't any other little kids living in our neighborhood.  I was sad my kids wouldn't have neighborhood friends to play with.  But several families have moved out here now with little kids.  Yeah!!  All three of my kids have a friend or two their same age and gender.  Here are my boys with the neighbor boys eating ice cream sandwiches.  CUTE KIDS!

 

 

 SUPER MABEL

 

We love Super Mabel!  Now that is a good time!  Jonas visited the USA from Japan for two weeks.  He drove up from Utah to see us for a few days with Marcia.  Of course we spent an evening playing on the river.

 

Matt, the kids and his brother, Jonas, riding "Super Mabel"

 Willa is brave in all things.  She'll try anything.  Clark is much  more timid.  A slow ride on Super Mabel is about all he can handle.  Oliver is still a little young to try much.  He loves riding behind the jet ski.

 

Whitefish Lake

 

On one of our nights in Whitefish, we drove down the mountain into town for ice cream.  The downtown is darling.  Afterwards, we stopped by Whitefish Lake to check it out.  We ended up staying several hours.  It was beautiful.

 

 

The kids played, Oliver went skinny dipping, and we watched the sunset. 

We will definitely return to Whitefish.

Whtefish Mountain

This is our first full summer in Montana.  We moved here last summer, but with moving and setting up life and trying to get to know the city, we didn't have a lot of extra time to explore the state.  I am starting to understand Montana and love it.  Our whole marriage Matt has talked about and swooned over Montana (since he grew up here), but I never really understood it.  I never wanted to live here because of the cold winters.  But after living here a year, I think I really like it here.  If it were only closer to my family, then it might actually be perfect.  Montana is beautiful.  We have taken a lot of little weekend trips and camping trips and rafting trips this summer... and everywhere has just been gorgeous and quiet.

 

My parents came to visit in July.  While they were here we (sans Matt) stayed at a friend's condo in Whitefish, MT for a few nights.  We loved Whitefish.  We spent one of the days exploring the mountain.  I've never been to a ski resort in the summer.  Wow.  It was so fun and gorgeous.

 

 

We rode down the alpine slides.  Even my Dad did a run.  Willa rode with me the first time and then by herself the second time.  My mom and I were timid the first time, but went faster the second time and wanted to go a third time to really let loose.  Maybe next summer...

  

 

We rode the chairlift. 

Clark made me a little nervous.  Oliver rode with  my parents so I'm not sure how he did.  Clark wanted to stand up and look at my parents behind us. 

 

 

JoJo and Oliver

 

 

Then we rode the gondola to the top of the mountain to see the views, do a little hiking, and eat lunch at the café at the top.

 

 

they couldn't get their jumps timed together

 

It was such a fun day.  So many memories.  So much laughter.  And so very different than Florida.

July 4

We spent the 4th of July in Great Falls again this year.  We went to the parade downtown, watched the boaters go by on the river all afternoon, and watched fireworks after dark.  The Wetzels were visiting (Matt's parents, Kevyn's family, Stephen, and the twins). 

 

It was a hot day.  The parade was good.  It wasn't my favorite, but it had lots of vehicles (fire trucks, air force trucks, old cars, etc.) and lots of candy so the kids were happy.

 

 

In every picture, my kids are either plugging their ears or eating candy.  Cute little blondies!  I love these faces.

 

 

 

Here are the kids... minus Zedick (Kevyn's baby). 

Reuel is into flags (and sprinklers) these days so he loved getting free flags.  Happy 4th!!!

Portland

We spent our last night and day in Portland.  Matt has been to Portland several times, but this was my first visit.  It's a beautiful city.  It was clear so we could see Mt. Hood looming over the city.

 

Matt's friend from high school, Thomas, lives in Portland.  We spent the day with him.  Thomas and his wife met us for breakfast at a hip spot in the city.  The food was so so good.  Great Falls is definitely lacking in the restaurant department.  Plus we rarely eat out in our day to day lives.  So I love getting to try new restaurants when we travel.  After breakfast, we went to Washington Park.  It's 400 acres and has several attractions.  We visited the Rose Garden and the Japanese Garden.

Portland Rose Garden

 



 

 

The roses were beautiful.  The views of the city were beautiful.  But I was very aware of the crowds.  After living a year in Montana, I have gotten used to very little traffic and a low population.  Portland and the gardens we visited seemed very crowded.  I would go back to Portland to visit in a heartbeat, but I think at heart I like living in a small city.   

 

 

 

Portland Japanese Garden 

 

 

Thomas got us in free to the Japanese Gardens which is why we picked it over the zoo.  The gardens were very pretty and felt very "Japanese."  We were supposed to be quiet and almost reverent.  Our kids were pretty good.  We did run into an annoyed grandpa a few times though.

 

 

 

I liked all the fountains and the zen rock gardens. 

Willa liked the scavenger hunt, and the boys liked the koi fish.

 

 

 

Our flight wasn't until 6 so we spent the rest of the day catching up with Thomas at his house. 

 

Our travel day to Portland was uneventful.  This travel day was the opposite.  We returned the rental car and took the shuttle back to the airport.  While we were checking in at the airport, Oliver disappeared.  Talk about scary.  We found him within a few minutes and he was standing with another family just around a corner, but those 3 or 4 minutes seemed like 30 when Matt and I were frantically running around trying to find him.  Our second flight was a little delayed.  We didn't land in Great Falls until after midnight.  None of our kids had slept much all day.  We were all exhausted and looking forward to getting home.  When we got back to our car, it wouldn't start.  One of our kids had left a dome light on.  We flagged someone down and he tried to jump the van.  No luck.  It was in some sort of security mode and instead of starting up, the horn started blaring and the lights started flashing.  We couldn't get the car to start.  We ended up calling a friend to come and pick us up and left the van behind.  It was after 1 am when we finally got home.  We were able to get the van started the next day after a little google search.  Vacations are awesome.  Traveling sucks though.