Summer Vacation, Part 4: Glacier Hikes...

We ended up camping for three nights at St. Mary in Glacier Park. One morning my hubby was kind enough to stay with Daniel at the campsite so I could have my first summit climb in Glacier.  Bonnie and Frank took Daisy and I up Mt. Oberlin.  It's not a long climb but it is incredibly steep.  Daisy had already done this climb when she was 8.  She "climbed" down the whole thing on her rear.  This time she stayed on two feet all the way up and all the way down.  :)

When we got to the top this little lady greeted us.  She walked over to that rock turned around and looked at me as if to say, "Okay, go ahead and take your picture.".  The view from the top was breathtaking and it's hard to describe the thrill of finally being on top of a mountain in Glacier, even if it was a small one.  The summit is not very big and its a LONG way down on all sides.

Looking down.  The line going across the green a the top of the picture is Going-to-the-Sun Road.  The height would make anyone a little dizzy.

We climbed down a different way and we came to a spot with all kinds of little pools and streams.  It was something out of Eden.  I could have spent all day lingering here.  (With bear spray, of course.) :)

The next day Daisy graciously stayed at the campsite with the dog and Rue, Daniel, Bonnie, Frank, Melanie and Patrick all hiked up to Lunch Creek Basin.

There are some spots where you have to scramble up and Daniel tackled them like a pro.  At the "toughest" parts we had his little Bob harness on him and Rue kept him very close.  I am glad to be getting him used to this kind of stuff. I want it to be second nature for him as he gets older.

 

Lunch Creek Basin.  The last time Daniel was here he was 5 weeks old.  I carried him up in the Snuggli.  This time he carried himself up.  I changed his diaper in that meadow.  Gone are the days of me carrying him in the backpack on hikes.  He's just too big now.  I have to say even though I enjoyed those days it is nice to have all the weight on my back.  I am really happy I put all the effort in to bring him on hikes with us starting when he was 5 weeks. Those are priceless memories that I wouldn't trade for anything.  

It was quite windy in the basin.  It felt like all the wind in the park was being funneled through there.  Rue found a nice little shelter for Daniel.

Daniel in his little harness.:)

 Going down was harder than going up for Daniel.  Rue was so sweet and stopped to give him a little pep talk.  Can you see Bob saying hi to the camera? :)

The day we headed back to Kalispell we drove into Many Glacier and did some touristy stuff.  The is the view from the Many Glacier Hotel.  

Big sky!  Uncle Frank took us the scenic way home.  This is looking west toward Glacier.  I love Montana!  

Whew! Done, finally! And this is only a fraction of all the pictures I took on our trip! I took almost 500 in all!  

We have had a blast this summer and it's not over yet.  Tomorrow we are heading up to do a hike near Mt. Rainier, the Naches Peak loop.  It's the fated hike where I sprained my ankle and was in a walking boot for 2 months last year at this time.  I don't plan on spraining my ankle this year! 

Summer Vacation, Part 3: Glacier Park...

We spent our 8th anniversary hiking to Avalanche Lake near Lake MacDonald in West Glacier.  This is Avalanche Gorge. 

Avalanche Lake

Uncle Frank had to work so only Bonnie came with us on this hike.

The next day Uncle Frank and Bonnie cut us loose in the park and we headed up to Logan Pass just the four of us.  We decided to hike to the Hidden Lake Overlook at Logan Pass.  

There were countless mountain goats with their babies and we saw three big horn sheep.  I had never seen big horn sheep in the wild before and I was in awe.  They are so majestic and they carry themselves as if they know it.  

Here are two big horn sheep.  I tried to enlarge the picture more but it was cut off the blog page. 

Rue found us a lovely picnic spot off the beaten path.  We are used to being off the beaten path in Glacier away from the tourists' crowds thanks to Bonnie and Frank being mountain guides in Glacier. 

Momma and baby goat.

Hidden Lake

My handsome men.

To be continued...

Summer Vacation, Part 2: Montana...

So much for me getting back to blogging on a regular basis! There has just been too much fun summer stuff to do.  Plus we went on another camping trip.  This time closer to home in Olympic National Park. That post will be up in a little bit.

Our 5 1/2 hour drive to Kalispell, Montana ended up taking about 11 hours.  About 20 minutes past Plains, Montana a tire on our little utility trailer blew. 

To make a long story short, after me driving back and forth to Plains with Daniel and Daisy several times to try and track down a tire iron (in small town Montana places close on Saturday night and don't open again until Monday) I finally got a hold of a towing company and the man and his wife met me at the Conoco in Plains.  He told me he would charge me $60 to drive up there and change it himself or he would sell me his tire iron for $20. I gave him $30 and almost gave him a hug too but I restrained myself.  :)  When I finally got back to Rue it was dark but he changed the tire like a pro and we were soon back on our way.  We made it to his aunt and uncles house at 12:30am.  We should have gotten there around 6pm.  But now we have a memorable family vacation story to tell everyone.  :) (And yes, that was making the long story short!)

One evening we went into Whitefish and walked from Rue's cousin's house to downtown Whitefish and the Amadeus Festival and listened to a free concert for a little bit.  Daniel was so engrossed in the music, he sat and listened the whole time.  I love both their grins, they are exactly the same.  :)

This is Sam.  He loves little kids.  Daniel fell in love with him right away. He is such a sweet little dog.

 

Daniel and his second cousin Ty loved walking Sam home.  :)

Back at Uncle Frank and Aunt Bonnie's house Bonnie showed Daniel how to feed lettuce to the chickens.

I can't even begin to describe how lovely Bonnie and Frank's little corner of the world is.  They are nestled right up against the mountains with gorgeous views out their windows.  I love waking up in the morning, getting my coffee and sitting on the couch looking out the front window.

My next post will be in Glacier!  :)

To be continued...

Summer Vacation, Part 1: Jones Bay...

One of our favorite places to go in the summer is Banks Lake in Eastern Washington.  I love the scab lands, the heat, the canyons, climbing all over rocks, the smell of sage in the hot air and swimming in our favorite swimming spot every evening.

That's Daisy way up there on the rocks.  My favorite thing to do in the evening after we've had dinner, gone swimming and Daniel is in bed is to head out to those rocks and find a nice spot to sit and enjoy the evening breeze, the smell of sage (did I mention I love the smell of sage) and soak in the view.

 

This is the view from my favorite sitting spot.

This is the view looking the other way. 

 

Our home away from home.  Notice all the ropes holding the tent down.  These came in handy for a huge storm that blew through.

 

Daniel working out the call of nature in nature.  :) 

 

Checking out the Grand Coulee Dam.  Daisy taught Daniel to call it the "water wall".  She didn't think he should say that other word. :)

 My father-in-law took me on a canoe paddle the last evening they were there.  

Sunset from the canoe.

 

This is Steamboat Rock.  Notice the dark clouds behind it.  This was the tail end of a massive storm that blew through.  Thankfully we saw it coming, secured everything and headed into town.  Rue, Daniel and Daisy went into Safeway and I stayed in the car.  There was lightening everywhere, the wind was blowing so hard the car was shaking and I don't mean a little bit, it felt like someone was standing on the bumper jumping up and down!  Signs were blowing down the street and I thought for sure there must have been a tornado.  Rue said the clerk in the store said a storm that strong wasn't common.  After things calmed down we headed back to camp and my amazing hubby had secured the tent so well you couldn't even tell a storm had blown through.  

The second night we were there we had a run in with a rattle snake.  The dog was tied up outside the front of the tent with her water and food.  We had just settled down to bed and we heard the loudest rattle I had ever heard.  We both knew right away what it was.  Rue could see it right next to Starbuck's water dish.  Thankfully Starbuck was trying to get away from it and not trying to attack it.  She was pulling on her leash as far as she could.  Rue opened the tent a little bit, quickly unhooked the leash from her collar and pulled her into the tent.  Shortly after that the snake disappeared.  I was picturing it slithering under our tent but it was gone.  

Our in-laws ended up leaving early and we still had 10 days left of vacation.  Since we were only 5 1/2 hours from Rue's aunt and uncle in Kalispell, Montana we decided to give them a call and see if they would like some company.  They were very happy to have us come and visit them.

To be continued...

Kami's Shower...

It was so much fun having a lot of the girls from work over for Kami's baby shower.  The weather was hot and sunny and my back porch was a nice cool spot for the party.  It is always so much fun spending time with the girls outside of work.  Even our manager Melissa came and Jess our old assistant manager.  The evening was filled with lots of laughs, good food and adorable baby things.

Thanks to my mom for taking pictures and to Becky, Hannah, Sandra, Melissa and Jackie for helping out.  And thank you to all the girls for coming!

Home again...

Hi everyone!  We have been home from our vacation for almost two weeks now.  I most definitely will have a post up soon about our very fun, very unexpected vacation.  There was a rattlesnake, massive storm, a blown tire and unexpectedly ending up in Montana and Glacier.  It was a great trip!  I have a baby shower I am doing for a friend from work this weekend so I am pretty busy this week.  I will be posting again on a regular basis starting next week!