Big Arm

After our adventures in Hungry Horse, we drove on over to Big Arm to spend some time at Erik's folks. His sister D and sister K with hubby B and daughter Sawyer were all up from Reno for a visit. Its always nice to see them but this time was especially cool since Sawyer's 2nd birthday happened to land right in the middle of their visit. We dinked around with them for a couple days, swimming in the lake, getting skunked at fishing, driving up to shop in Kalispell and eating lots of yummy food. It was a really nice time spent with family.

The girls warming up after a lake swim and shower by watching a movie.

Erik's mom, sister K and the birthday girl.
Erik's mother and sisters.

Lindsay pouting about something. Look at how sympathetic her mother is. ha!

Kera's turn to pout. What it is about a birthday party that brings the best out in children?!

Now this is more like it! Since we had no wind for kites, the girls used footpower.


The girls sitting amongst the 50some balloons blown up for Sawyer's party.

Daddy's girl!

What a good time we had. :-) Now for the rest of August we have some camping planned, maybe one more trip to the lake and the girls and I will head to Boise to spend a week in 2 weeks. We can't wait to see Hattie, Staci, Laurie and Katie and to visit the Zoo and such. Then we'll be home and getting ready for school to start. I can see the summer winding down already even if it doesn't feel like it! :-) Oh well, we'll be doing our best to wring every last minute of it. Now, off to make zuccini bread out of the tons of zuccini Karen sent home with me!

Fun at the lake

We headed up to Erik's folks in Big Arm on Sunday after finding out that his youngest sister & toddler had shown up, although we'd already planned to go up, we weren't going to leave til Monday after Kera's dentist appointment, but changed it to get some more time in with his sister. We had a great time up there, some highlights included:

Getting skunked fishing not once but every time we went out. Not even a bite, for anyone!

Seeing an osprey with wriggling fish in his talons fly right overhead on one of our unfruitful fishing trips.

Eating lots of yummy fresh food including raspberries, lettuce, potatoes, snap peas, and beets.

Picking lots of fresh raspberries.

Learning and helping make a fresh batch of raspberry jam with Erik's mom.

Eating fresh raspberry jam for breakfast!

Swimming in the lake that is finally warm enough to enjoy.

Swimming with the kiddos in the lake.

Reading a book. (The Constant Princess by Phillipa Gregory--great if you like historical fiction)

Playing with my cute almost 2 year old niece.

Going for a run with the lake as my views--nice!

Lake, Round 2

This last weekend up at the lake, in review...

1. Fished a couple times each day but mostly were skunked. The fish were in the bay but we had the wrong size jigs. :-(

2. Each time we took the boat out to fish it was a great boat ride, especially in the evening. So beautiful. I never really noticed till this trip how the water has little ripples inside the bigger waves/ripples. It looks pretty cool.

3. Picked raspberries and got to bring some home as well as fresh rhubarb (can anyone say pie?), snap peas, radishes and strawberry jam. (My mother in law is like the Montana version of Martha Stewart--she rocks. After visiting her, I always think about how nice it would be to have a garden of my own and all those fresh fruits and veggies but then I remember all the work involved and decide its not really for me! lol)

4. Went for a long run up there--did 5 miles (although I misread my training log and it should've been 6, oh well!) at about 6am on Saturday and it was absolutely gorgeous on the way back. I was facing the lake and the sun was still behind this big cloud but there were streams of light coming out (like the cover of a Frank Peretti book) and the mountains and islands on the lake had this diluted light on them (kinda like they were hazy) it really was spectacular. I love it when I remember why I love outside runs and beautiful scenery is one of those reasons!

5. Got to meet some relatives from Florida---Erik's dad's cousin and her hubby--and that was nice. She is a reader and so it was fun to talk books.

6. The girls slept in the sailboat with their Papa on Saturday night and although they enjoyed it I dont think they got a ton of sleep cuz on Sunday they were OH SO grumpy, it was torture. Come to think of it, maybe it was just the whole weekend catching up to them, but still, they were horrid.

7. The girls started to help water the garden but ended up with wet clothes and that transitioned their wet clothes being strewn all over the yard while they ran around buck nekkid, so here are a few pics I captured...

This week is back to gymnastics camp for the girls and lots of preparation for me for the upcoming Canada trip...I keep saying I "have a million things to do" and I'm only slightly exaggerating.

Mountains & Cherries

The Mission Mountains on the way up to the lake last weekend. They were beautiful and this would be a great picture if it wasn't for that sign. Don't worry, we weren't parked there! :-) Had a great weekend up at the lake with Erik's dad. We went fishing and managed to each catch one--thats always a good thing when its me and the boys fishing--I love to either outfish or at least match them! Then we headed into town--Polson was hopping. There was these really fast boat races (Erik calls them cigar boats) and then it was the Cherry Festival, so there were venders and of course, cherries. The cherries weren't quite at the peak of their season however, so not as tasty as they could have been, but it was still fun. We wandered around the festival for a bit and then went down to the river park and sat on a blanket to watch some of the boats.

It was a nice & relaxing weekend, probably nothing like this coming weekend will be. Looks like we're going back up to the lake, this time both his parents are there and some relatives from Florida. So it'll be a bit busier--but I'm sure it'll be just as fun. I hope the fishing is good! :-) I've got a million things to do before we leave this evening, so I'm off. :0)