Pen Pals

A very special package unexpectedly arrived for Elias a few weeks back. It was from Kyra, one of the friends Elias made this year at Cumberland Folk Week in Kentucky. She "wrote" a wonderful note, drew a few pictures and sent these two cars. Elias knew who she was right when he saw her picture. We sent a package back just the other day. What fun!

The Squirrels Eat it Mommy?

One of Elias' highlights of our MT vacation was going potty on the side of the road. We put him in a pull-up for the long car rides, but he would often say he had to go potty. We certainly wanted to encourage that, so we had him go outside a handful of times. He was successful at both peeing and pooping (I think he prefers outside to most public restrooms), but wanted to know if the squirrels were going to eat his poop. Where does the kid come up with these things?

Montana

It was a trip of hiking. It wasn't ideal timing being 6 months pregnant, but luckily Matt had Elias to carry around, so we were close (or closer) to an even match. And when I say hiking, I mean hiking...and right from the start. We left a little less than 2 hours to get from the airport parking lot to our gate, and it wasn't really enough time. The security line was over 45 minutes long (my theory is the new whole body imaging machines they have), so we had to run to the gate. The doors were closed, but luckily we weren't the only ones, and they opened them up and let us on-board. Also, the flight was nearly empty, so finding seats was not an issue.

Elias got a new (used) toy flip phone from Aunt Stephanie for the trip, and he must have made at least 100 calls. I sure hope he didn't go over his minutes. I'm not sure we would have survived the trip out there without it (as the trip home was not quite as nice...the newness had work off). We flew to Spokane and drove over 3 hours to get to Lakeside, MT. Our condo was right on the lake. What a beautiful view!

The day after we arrived, we visited a local State Park and did some hiking. Elias threw rocks into the lake, one of his favorite past-times.
The following day, we made the hour drive to Glacier National Park's West side. The park was virtually empty, so we hit the hikes recommended by the Park Ranger (as did everyone else in the park that day). We started with a 2 mile hike up to Hidden Lake.

We followed a waterfall up and into the very lush, green forest. It was a nice trail.

At the lake, we ate lunch. It was a bit chilly, but overall the weather for the trip was unbelievably warm.


After our hike in the forest, we decided to walk along Going-to-the-Sun road (part of it closed to vehicles for road work) to see the Garden Wall. Along the way was this amazingly blue water surrounded by purple rocks.


Since it was a road, it was easier than our previous hike to look at the surroundings while walking. Plus, Elias could ride in the stroller. I think both Matt and I enjoyed this road "hike" the most.


A bit to our disappointment, the only wildlife we saw was on roads. We saw these calivators (their name according to Elias) while doing our road hike. We had to stop for some big horned sheep on our drive to Lakeside, deer while in Lakeside, and cows on our way to Glacier.


After probably a mile too long (we had to walk back too), we saw the Garden Wall. I think we were glad we made it that far, and the park was breathtaking all along the way.

It was a long, but rewarding day. The following day we found some playgrounds in a nearby town and took it fairly easy. We had to rest up for our next big Glacier adventure.

Since we had decided we saw as much of the West side that we could see, we headed to the East side (a much, much longer drive) on Wednesday. It was a bit of a rough trip for Elias, but we made it, and saw most of the places on our list. We walked around the Sunrift Gorge (forever known as the George by Elias), hiked to a small waterfall, and did a short jaunt to Sun Point (although it was shady and very windy).


We didn't make it to Many Glacier (where we supposedly could see bears from our car) because Elias was ready to head home. We did stop at Two Medicine on the trip back to our vacation home (Elias keeps asking, "When are we going back to vacation home?"). We had time to throw a few rocks into the Two Medicine Lake.

Glacier National Park is a beautiful place to visit, and even thought the main road was closed in the middle, we went at a great time. I can't imagine how many people would have been there during the summer.

For the rest of our trip, we found more playgrounds, visited Dairy Queen, had breakfast at a great bakery (learning that Elias likes ketchup on his pancakes...Heck, I think it is safe to say he loves ketchup, as he dipped his banana in it tonight), hiked at Bigfork, and relaxed at the condo.

Montana gets two thumbs up!

5 Little Monkeys

We have two books in the "Five Little Monkeys" series. Elias really enjoys these books; I, however, tend to think of them as the "Bad Parenting" series.

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed is the typical story of how 5 little monkeys jump on the bed. One falls off and bumps his head. Mama calls the doctor and the doctor says, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed." Well, Mama continues to allow each of her monkeys to jump on the bed until every one gets hurt. Once they have all fallen off the bed, she decides it is time to jump on her bed. Really great lesson.

Elias' new favorite book is Five Little Monkeys Bake a Birthday Cake. This story is about a Mama monkey's birthday. Mama is asleep in bed with some very good earplugs. Her 5 little monkeys proceed to get all of the ingredients for a cake, mix it together, bake it in the oven, and use saws and hammers to make a birthday present without waking up Mama ("Shhh...don't wake up Mama"). The cake drips in the oven, so the fire department comes. Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you look at it...maybe the series could then be over), the house doesn't burn down. The fireman and little monkeys sing Happy Birthday to Mama (Elias loves to sing Happy Birthday at this part). Of course, Mama's birthday isn't until tomorrow, so the little monkeys scheme to do it again tomorrow. I can't deny that it would be nice to sleep through some of the things Elias gets into, but unfortunately even though he loves the, "Shhh...don't wake up Mama" part of the book, it doesn't seem to carry over into real life. Couldn't we get at least something good out of these horrible books? No such luck.

Pumpkin Patch

A few weeks ago, Elias, Noah, Carissa, Kat and I went to a pumpkin patch for some pre-Halloween fun. It wasn't quite the organic farm, pick your pumpkin from the vine kind of place we were hoping for, but everyone had a good time none-the-less. Elias enjoyed the petting zoo, two corn mazes, a balloon tent (although not for long), touching each and every pumpkin and riding in the wagon to pick out his own. We only ended up getting a mini pumpkin, but I think Elias was perfectly happy with it. He picked it out himself.

Books in Bed

Every night just before getting into bed, Elias picks out a book to take to bed. Last night he picked out Dr. Seuss's ABC book. We haven't read that one in a while so he was talking about how he picked out a new book. As Matt and I are singing his goodnight song, he opens the book to the first page, looks at it for a moment and says, "I can not read." We could barely finish singing his song because we were cracking up so much. It was as though for a moment he was planning on reading the book while in bed, but then only suddenly realized he didn't know how. It's only a matter of time, my Elias...only a matter of time.

Ahhh...It's Good to Be Home

Vacations are nice, but sometimes it is just as nice to make it back home.