I'm incredibly behind in blogging about our vacation this year. We had a fantastic time. Destination: Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana. It's fun to relive it by just now posting the pictures and video. We left the last weekend in July and spent the first week of August out there.
Could be the farthest we've gone as a family? The boys are awesome travelers. They were excited to fly, and Cooper slept through the 2 longest flights during the round trip. We went through Denver on the way out and through Chicago on the way home.
This take off video from Denver to Kalispell might be one of the cutest ever taken of a child in an airplane. He feel asleep almost instantly after.
We all slept great that night!!!
First trip into the park the next morning!!
Driving the "Going to the Sun Road" should be a bucket list item -- it was beautiful.
Another bucket list item was seeing the glacial rocks in Lake McDonald. I had read an article on Facebook long ago, with pictures of this lake in Montana with the most beautiful stones.....flash forward and I'm there!
Our beautiful home for the week was just outside of Columbia Falls, MT and made for a very short drive to the entrance of the park.
On Day 2, we were joined by a very special visitor. Auntie Shiloh! I'm so glad she and I share the same sense of adventure and love of nature. It was a real treat that she flew out to join us. She arrived just in time for a fishing charter on Flathead Lake. Sadly, we did not get a single bite in 5 hours. Oh well, it was an experience. The boat did have a rooftop sitting area that kept us relaxed.
Here's actual non-phone, "real camera" pics from our first day in the park:
It was a successful pheasant season in the Dakotas, despite the drought that cut the bird population back significantly. Drew left about 10 days before we did and sent me all kinds of good photos with the dogs. Even as a pup, Boomer did awesome. He and Cotton make a perfect team because they are so different. I'm looking forward to many years ahead of us with them. Griffin and Cooper both love being up north. They have always traveled well and don't pose much of a problem. This year, we ended up riding in the WDT travel van affectionately known as the "mafia van". It offers lots of room, ability to stand, outlets, a bathroom (we didn't need to use), and a satellite TV. Hard to complain about a drive, no matter how long it is in a vehicle like that. Actually, there was only 1 problem. Once we got to Omaha, the wind really picked up and turned the van into a kite on 4 wheels. It is no fun to ride a billboard in 60 mph wind gusts. Fortunately, no one got sick. Another interesting thing about this year is that we brought our high school aged babysitter with us. We went back and forth about it. She really wanted to go, and it was actually very nice since everyone got to go hunting in the morning while she stayed with the sleeping kids. They joined us after lunch for afternoon hunts except for 1 very windy afternoon.
Boomer's first retrieve
Before we got up there, Drew sent me some very sad pictures of Cotton's first experience with a porcupine. It was pretty pitiful. They drove the poor guy to a vet about 30 miles away and she sedated him to get the quills out of his nose and mouth. He recovered quick! Just a day off and he was back at 100%.
Griffin was out of school on the Friday and Monday of our trip for a scheduled Fall Break. He had to miss half of Thursday, but his teacher assured me it wasn't a big deal. Mrs. Darter asked Griffin to send her a picture while we were gone. The very first day we took this one and he insisted that I got it to her right away. She ended up putting it on the projector the following week and letting Griffin get up in front of class to talk about his trip and show a feather. He was on cloud 9.
He also took his BB gun in hopes of shooting a pheasant with it. This was about as close as he got.
Such a special place that we can't wait to get back to! I'm hoping we will see the Dakotas in the summer of next year for the first time.
As we approached Halloween, both boys had said that they wanted to be Batman. I tried to convince Cooper to be Robin, but he would not budge. It all worked out fine, because Griffin had a change of heart and decided he would rather be a soldier. He even got custom dog tagsThis was the first year that they weren't a duo! I guess Cooper wore his costume around the house too much beforehand, because when it came to the night of Halloween he was not interested in putting it on. I made him wear it for a couple terrible photos, but when we went to the church to play on the bounce houses he was back in his skeleton long sleeved shirt and jeans that he had worn to daycare. We stopped by the church, fire station, YMCA, and Bill & Pat's before calling it a night. Griffin was interested in going door-to-door. Maybe next year we will begin that rite of passage!
