First Day in Glacier

More vacation recap! I know, it might be getting boring if you weren't there... which none of you were - except for you, hun :) But there are pictures...

Pictures are good for something right?

Ok, I didn't say great pictures. But think back to your old family vacation photos... if there are any to be found, I'm sure they weren't great either. And I promise, no corduroy to be found in this lot!


What you will find are some rather out of focus family shots but at least we have them. I didn't think my camera was all that complicated but I'd rather have some blurry family photos than none at all. :) And I must say it was nice to be some place where people offered to at least try to capture a family photo. I try to do the same for others around here and 90% of the time people look at me like I have three heads. Of course they always say "yes!" but it was just a different vibe there.


So let's see, first day in the park... and here's where I admit a parental downfall. In hindsight, I think the kids were maybe expecting a "park" like this:

Not necessarily a park like this:

Don't get me wrong, we spent days looking online, looking at maps, on Flickr, etc. etc. They knew we were going to try to see some wildlife and do a lot of "hiking". However, my suspicions were confirmed when Karleigh commented "This is really pretty but this is like the most boring park ever, it's more like the wildlife refuge." And does she not sound 13 already?After we giggled -well me, I giggled, I'm not sure Jim would like me describing him as "giggling":) - we explained that it was a NATIONAL park, kind of like the wildlife refuge that she loves so much.

The one thing that I started out being disappointed about was that the Going to the Sun road was not opened all the way through (in fact, when I checked last night, it still wasn't) but I was determined to make the best of it. It's not like me pouting was going to remove avalanches or repair roads any faster anyway. Plus, as you'll see, it "forced" us to explore other areas of the park that would have most likely not have even made it to the to-do list. Oh! If I had had a to-do list. Those who know me would be so proud that I did researching for this vacation but I did not have a list of have-to-do's...
for the most part. :)

Our first stop inside the park was Apgar and Lake McDonald. The weather made it look like we were going to get some good thunder bumpers and Mother Nature did not disappoint though at the same time, the weather didn't interfere with anything.

So, since the road wasn't open all the way through, we did get to go through to Avalanche and there were trails and waterfalls along the way. The kids talked us into milkshakes in Apgar which was smart because it gave them an extra boost before our picnic lunch.

Rylan was so funny when he would find a rock in the middle of a hiking trail he would stil down, call Karleigh's name and then yell "Cheese! Cheese, mom!"


Hum, I just remembered that Karleigh took a picture of Jim and me in this same spot with her camera. I should probably get the pics off of it at some time!



When we got up to Avalanche, we decided to wander around and walk the Trail of the Cedars nature hike. It took us through the trees, next to the river and along a wonderful wooden boardwalk.


The kids spotted the cedar tree behind us and totally cracked up that it had a "nose". Some random guy offered to take our picture and even put thought into making sure that he had the funny tree in the picture too!Then we wandered down next to the river and watched a guy attempt some some fly fishing, the kids threw rocks in the water and climbed all over the drift wood. They needed some help feeling motivated to move along!

We continued along the trail reading the signs and learning about the area which the kids really enjoyed, thankfully! I was going to take a pic of the other 3 but again someone offered to take one of all of us with the comment "at least now it LOOKS like you guys were having fun!"??? Weird. But thanks.

And around the bend another Griz Alumnus offered to take one of us. So, we chatted a bit and I think we ended up making him feel old when he did the math between the class of '99 and the class of '82. Karleigh's looking shy because she had pointed out his U of M shirt earlier to me but was too afraid to say "Go Griz!"

The roots from the downed trees were insane. There is so much surface water that the roots don't really have to dig down but that makes them very susceptible to wind.
After the trail hike we took some time and actually got to walk on the Going to the Sun road. It's not very often that the road is only open to bike and pedestrian traffic, only the few weeks where they have it mostly cleared but not punched all the way through. It was an opportunity that many visitors don't get. Of course we set off for that walk before we had our lunch so we didn't go too far. It was thundering and started to sprinkle so we took that as a sign to have our late picnic in the van!

As we headed back out of the park we stopped at a lot of little points that we had seen on the way in!

But obviously the kids were getting tired and punchy and who knows what the dude behind me was doing?!?!

So, we headed back to town, picked up some Taco John's for dinner since we don't have any around here and headed back to the condo (and a really rough bed time for the kids) They were over tired and sleeping together wasn't working but once we split them up it was sleepy time for them! And relaxing time for us while deciding what to do the next day, which ended up being fun!

Whitefish

Whitefish, Montana... we decided we could totally live there. We spent our first full day on vacation just hanging out and relaxing. We were all tired from traveling and both kids wanted to check things out, play tennis and go swimming. Fair enough!



I sure wish I was better at telling stories but eh, I seem to have lost that ability. Oh well! Before we headed out we made sure to snap a family pic. It probably would have turned out better had I actually used the tripod instead of just being frustrated by the mounting clip that was already on the camera - yup, that's right!


We headed into town and told the kids that they got to choose what we did that day, lunch and activities included. So, McD's it was and then we headed to the train depot to eat and watch trains. Rylan, of course loved it.


Inside the train depot they have a little museum mainly focused on the depot history but also includes some other Whitefish oddities and gems like this guy:Karleigh was kind of freaked, Rylan thought it was cool and I figured it was a hoax. However, next to it was a binder including clippings from the local newspaper and pictures of their one-time mayor? in the mid 1990's with a photo of the same type of fish that he caught, also in Iceberg Lake (which is in Glacier National Park) by using an old pearl earring that had belonged to his wife. Weird huh? Apparently it was more like skinning game and tasted like chicken. All I know is that I was totally freaked thinking about the kids pulling one of these from the lake!

After a walk through the museum and the depot, we trotted across the street to the little park where the kids ran around a little bit.

After a short bit of time Rylan's head snapped around at the sound of another train coming into the yard. We walked back across the street and stood there letting the kids watch the train go by less than 20 feet from them. They loved it!

After that we headed off to the grocery store and picked up some things for the week. Breakfast and lunch stuff and dinner for the night. That helped keep the food budget way down since we packed our lunches most days and ate breakfast at "home" every day. It was clear at the end of the grocery trip that the kids were getting tired so we headed back to the condo for some resting. And rest we did! Not too often that you get to full on cuddle like this with a 3 1/2 year old.

After the kids woke up we got them re-dressed! and they decided that they wanted to go play some tennis. No fighting from me! They really haven't played before... the Wii sooo does not count. Karleigh was excited and ready to go with her big plans of playing college tennis on her mind. :)

She was so determined to play and play well or at least hit the ball but she had a really rough time. She's kind of a day dreamer and doesn't really watch the ball all the way through. It's really funny to watch them and see where their strengths and weaknesses lie. She's a decent reader but she's ALL about numbers and math - just like Jim. She didn't do as well as she had hoped but she was so determined and didn't get very upset through out the whole thing.

Rylan on the other hand... Jim was calling him "Johnny Mac" pretty quickly. He was hitting the ball (with his racket but he wanted mine) although he didn't get to play with mine for very long because every time he missed the ball, he would "gaarrrrrh" and throw my racket to the ground. Not cool but at the same time oh so hard not to laugh at him! He's actually pretty good but boy is he competitive when it comes to sports... wonder where he gets that?!

After what I would like to say was a pleasant end to our tennis game (though in all honesty I can't really say that but the other three of us couldn't really deal with hurtling rackets any longer) we wandered back to the condo and changed into our suits for an hour or so of swimming in the pool. Great pool but I never did take any pictures of it. A little chilly but we had it all to ourselves. I have to say it was really fun taking a vacation during an off-season time. It was so quiet and so peaceful the whole time. Oh! And between tennis and swimming we spotted an elk in our backyard. Super cool!

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!

Home Again, Home Again!

First things first... the odometer reading as soon as we pulled into the driveway when we got home from our trip!

There are a couple of great guessers out there! But the closest was "Keegan's Mommy"! She was only off by 157 miles. Not too shabby at all! I didn't even have a clue how many miles we would cover! Nice job! You can email me your address to potterjk@msn.com and I'll pop your little gift in the mail.

(don't worry, we don't really need to "check engine"... it just lights up when the car is on but the engine isn't running!)

In the 2,290 miles that we travelled, we stayed in Spokane, Washington two nights, Whitefish, Montana for a week, explored Glacier National Park, visited with one of my friends and her new baby, went to the National Bison Range, swam, stayed up late, woke up late, and just had an overall great family trip.

Of course I have a ton of pictures to go through and hopefully I'll pull it together and share some here. We left on the 11th and got back late on the 20th and of course today is Father's Day so it's going to be a quick post tonight but yes we're home, safe, happy, tired and filled with memories.

Bloggity Blog Contest!

Figured I'd try something new to me. I've never done a blog contest here so here it goes! We're headed off for vacation today...



All you have to do is leave a comment with your guess for how many miles we end up putting on our van during our trip.

Here's the starting reading:

The person (maybe even people??? who knows!?!) closest to the total number of miles driven will get a nifty gifty. In the case of a tie, I'll have Karleigh randomly pick the comment number for the tie-breaker.



Easy enough? Now, go get your guess on!

Where to start? My head is in a weird place right now. We're getting ready for a nice long vacation, the kids and I just got back from my parents house last weekend for a visit with my brother, we had playground night tonight at the school, my birthday is just around the corner and yah, there's lots of exciting stuff for our little family going on.

On top of all that great stuff, there's still that underlying sadness? weirdness? strangeness? of the whole lots-of-dead-babies, are-we-ever-going-to-have-another-live-baby thing and while I'm sitting here I can't even focus on my thoughts because I'm listening to our local news and I really just want to puke. One woman throws her baby into a porta-potty, another mother of two kills a young mother and cuts the unborn baby boy from her body while a soundbite says "it wasn't a living being so there was no crime towards that unborn baby". Then there's the other local mom who shoved her 4 and 7 year olds from a bridge, resulting in the 4 year olds death. I will never ever understand what possesses people to pull this kind of crap. Insane, literally.

I know that God doesn't always work the way that I think He should. Babies don't only end up with those who "deserve" them and sadly they also aren't guaranteed to those who do but man I'm just so... ugh... there really are no words right now so I'm shifting gears a bit, but only a bit.

Back to the whole ever going to have another successful pregnancy? thing... Basically all I can say is that I covet your prayers for being lead the appropriate way for our family. Jim and I have discussed the Femara, off-label, use. We are not going to do it this coming cycle but we may the one following that. Yes, the drug is more expensive. Retail is about 6 times that of the Clomid. However, get this... our insurance covers it on our strange sliding prescription coverage and is guaranteed to cost us less (out of pocket) than the Clomid. Since it's off-label use, it's not viewed as an infertility drug as far as our insurance is concerned. They only view it as a breast cancer medication. Hey, I don't write the rules but I'm happy to play by them!
Although at this point I'm still undecided.
And right now? That's ok.
Even though I don't necessarily FEEL like I have time, I know that I have enough... what ever that really means. I enjoy having my kids 21 months apart in age. How would I feel about 6 years? 8 years? 10 years? Where do we draw the line? If we were to get pregnant at the next possible opportunity, that baby would still arrive over 2 years after we lost Eli. 2 years passes so fast and during that time I do not want to miss out on what I have but I know I've talked about that before.

I'm so far away from where I thought I was going to end up when I sat down to blog tonight. Sooooo far away. However, I do feel a bit better. Anyway, I was supposed to end up with something along the lines of ... we're getting ready for vacation. During that time I will probably be taking a big break from the internet because I want to totally check out and just take in the beauty of our destination, enjoy our first vacation that is just for us -no other reason except for vacation - and *cough* I'm not sure I'll have internet access! LOL I may squeeze in another post or two before we go but I'm also getting our things ready and the house ready for our sitter. I'm hoping to keep the news off for a whole week, re-group, re-charge, hike, drive, swim, play tennis, BBQ, sit next to the fire, take pictures and just relax more than I've done in years... maybe even ever.

Race Cars, Hair Cuts and IEP's, Oh My!

Once again, it's been a week since I updated! I suppose that's a good sign in a way on the other hand, that doesn't mean that I don't have anything to talk about. Like the title said, it's been race cars, hair cuts and IEP's among other things including fishing in the yard and a trip up to my parents house again since my brother was in town that I'll get to later.

Wednesday was a family day. We had some errands to run and along the way, ended up hooking up with a replica of the number 5 car! Rylan was so impressed and though Karleigh hates loud noises [I mean seriously, she runs out of the bathroom with her fingers in her ears when she flushes the toilet] she too loved the sound of the revving engine of course, fingers in her ears. It was a pretty cool set up and had screens for virtual racing inside the car which we did, boys against girls. They drove faster but Jim was black-flagged so that means we won, right? Very fun on a hot day, at least it was in the shade!

Posing with the number 5...

Breaking out a pit fight for reality's sake!

While we were on that side of town, we stopped in to visit one of our friends at one of Jim's stores. While we were there they gave us certificates for the "boys" to get free haircuts, who can say "no" to that!?! The place just opened, in fact I guess their grand opening was today. It's a great place for the guys. TV's tuned to sports, etc. very fun and Rylan was in 7th heaven. Believe it or not, this is his first "real" haircut. He was so thrilled! I've always done it at home because he's just an easy kid but he was so excited to be a big boy. By the way? LOVED his stylist! She was soooooo good with him.


You may have noticed her buzz cut? Well, turns out... she had been working at another salon and had a client with breast cancer. So, she shaved her head along with her client as a show of support for the battle. Then? Her employer decided that it wasn't a professional appearance so they fired her! Can you believe that? Of course, it didn't take her long to find another job because the owner of this salon heard about it and called her and offered her a job. Like I said, she's great.

Oh! Oh! and you know how I've been talking about the weather? Yah, this? is HOT for western Washington in August... and it was only June 3rd!
So, that was Wednesday in a fairly boring nutshell. A whole lot of testosterone for us girls but a great day for the guys. Thursday morning, I had my last meeting with the school for Rylan's preschool information. We went over his IEP and where he is in comparison to where they would like him to be next June. I do have to say, I'm really looking forward to it FOR him. He just loves the teachers and I feel like there's really great communication between the whole team that will be working with him and it seems like they all get along which is a huge bonus. The office staff also called the bus barn for me and it looks like both kids will be in the afternoon session. They will probably load up on different buses to school (it's a staggered start time for the preschool kids) but ride the same one home. At least that's what they're going to try. So yah, I know it'll be rough sending them off to school, 5 days a week at the same time but I'll get to ease into it and I know that it'll be really great for him. Karleigh will start on September 9th and then Rylan will start on the 21st.

We've been getting ready for our vacation so time feels like it's flying for us and hopefully, I'll have lots of great pictures to share over the next couple of weeks!