Montana Part 2

The girls and I drove up and met Anton again for a couple weeks in late July. It was great, as usual. It is so low key, and we always have such a great time. It is very different from Salt Lake though - I got kind of home sick. I was ready to spend hot summer days by the pool. Some of the days up in Montana, I would wear a sweatshirt. That's not the kind of summer I am used to!! But, it is beautiful and we are making great memories - some which I would never trade for anything in the world!

We went to a really fun, and really good restaurant called Roost. Chicken, corn bread, coleslaw...Yum! Another one of our favorite places up there is Buffalo Bump. We eat there weekly when we are up there. There are lots of yummy and fun places there.

We took a day trip to West Yellowstone and went to the grizzly encounter. It was crazy! Those bears are so beautiful and so huge! I can't image seeing one of those in the wild. Claire got to see one of her favorite animals - the peregrine falcon (thanks to Wild Kratts). After we saw the animals we walked the town, grabbed lunch at a local diner then went to a little candy store and loaded up on a lot of sugar! It was a fun day. I wish we could have gone into the park. Hopefully next year!

The county fair was going on while we were up there. It is always fun to go see the animals and the crowd. They had a great petting zoo, which was a highlight for the girls. They got to milk a cow too! It was a fun night...there isn't anything quite like a county fair!

Lilly & Maddy. I swear that girl loves her dog more than anything in this world. For many reasons it has been nice to have our own place up there, but being able to take the dogs with us has been a huge plus. Lilly gets super homesick for her dog when we leave them home, so I don't think we would have lasted as long as we did up there if we didn't have Maddy with us!

The Rodeo! The girls had never been to a rodeo, so we figured taking them to one in Montana would be the perfect place! Unfortunately it wasn't the best rodeo...no one qualified for anything, and the bulls they rode weren't huge. Claire kept asking when they were going to ride the "big bulls". It was fun regardless of those things. Hopefully we will catch another one next year!

One thing that is different from Salt Lake is the places (or lack thereof) to go swimming. There is only one outdoor swimming pool, and one indoor. We tried both, and the girls loved them. Our apartment is located right by a huge park filled with walking paths, play ground and this cute little pond. A lot of the ponds up there have their own little "beaches". It warmed up one day enough for us to venture over to that one. It was so much fun! Anton and I just relaxed on the beach and watched the girls play and play. Lilly kept trying to catch tadpoles, but unfortunately she didn't catch one. It was such a great day!