Vacation Re-cap Part 1!

Alrighty! The vacation re-cap will take quite a while so I'm going to do it over the course of a few days - plus, that lightens the load of having to come up with something "good" right!? So, here we go (and hey, I want to have this all in one place since some day I'll probably print this blog - you didn't know you can do that? You can! - anyway...)

We took of from home around 1:00 in the afternoon since Jim had to work that morning. We grabbed lunch at Sonic and then decided to take the scenic route and go down the gorge on the Washington side via SR14 instead of hitting the interstate on the Oregon side. It certainly made it feel like vacation started right away instead of us driving TO vacation if that makes sense.

Karleigh caught a glimpse of the wind surfers and kite surfers along the way so we pulled off and watched for quite a while and the kids loved it! Karleigh's decided that's going to be her sport when she gets older. I say good on her but she might want to learn how to swim much better first! And fair warning... I was not in the 'zone' for snapping pictures at. all. soooo it is what it is. As I kept reassuring myself, I have the pictures, they will help us all remember, the don't need to be perfect at all.

Wind surfers along the Columbia River, standing in Washington, looking at Oregon.

Karleigh posed but just for a moment. They both had too much fun watching and screaming and laughing about the new-found sport.

We continued along the gorge and eventually ended up in Spokane for the night. Between stopping for almost an hour along the way and the even longer road construction delays in Spokane we were rather late checking into our hotel room. We had planned on going out to a fairly nice dinner for my birthday that night but instead I ended up with a yogurt parfait from McDonalds! Ahhhh how the priorities change when you become a parent... and it's almost 10:00 at night and you promised to paint tiny toe nails purple. :)

We woke up the next morning, hit Starbucks and the road. Instead of heading straight to Whitefish, we took a detour south to Missoula first. We met up with Jim's aunt, cousins and the kids' "cousin", Carson. We had a picnic in the park and as you can see, they were thrilled to get to play with Carson. They've missed him so much since we saw him in December. Rylan absolutely thinks Carson is the greatest. It's so hard to believe that he's up to my chin now. I can still clearly remember holding him for hours the day he went home from the hospital.

Some swing time with Aunt Casey too!

The park not only had a great play area but it had a really fun spray ground too. These aren't the best pics that I got of the kids but I feel kind of strange posting pics of kids I don't know so this is it. It was pretty busy and Karleigh's never met a stranger in her life so she usually has quite a few other kids around her.

They had a great time running around and cooling off! We, as in Jim's cousin and I. decided to let the kids keep playing while we went to do my hair. We weren't gone all that long before her cell rang and it was Aunt Casey letting her know that they were going to leave the park and head to her house. I said when the phone rang "oops, someone must have gotten hurt." Turns out I was right. Some other little girl slammed right into Karleigh and she got all scraped up. She's tough though and luckily none of the scabs were rubbed by her "hiking shoes", which really are just regular ol' Nikes. :)

So, hair felt a million times better, kid was all cleaned up and we said our 'goodbyes' and slid back into the van for the last 2 hours of the drive. The park was the greatest idea because Rylan fell asleep pretty quick and Karleigh just relaxed for most of the way. The stretch of country between Missoula and Whitefish is rather nice to just sit back and day dream about. We swung past the St. Ignatius Mission that was built in the early 1890's.

I've always been rather impressed with the Mission Mountain Range and really liked it this time of year with the vibrant green and gold in the fields.

Flathead lake was also looking mighty nice as we drove past. We looked for the monster for you Mark but alas, we didn't spot him this time ;) but there was one tiny looking sail boat!

Finally, at 8:15 we pulled into Whitefish. What a cute little town! After less than a week there Jim and I both decided that we could totally live there even though it would be pretty tough to beat where we're at right now.

We drove to the condo, picked up the key, hauled everything in, got organized and just sat back and relaxed. The condo was cute! Nicer than what we had anticipated and very clean and cozy. Oh and the beds... ahhhh... the beds were so cozy. The kids had a bit of a tough time getting to sleep that first night, excitement and a new place but once they were asleep, they slept well! And so did we!