Summer Recap- Part 1!

Oh my goodness! It's getting chilly here already!  Yes I am a little scared for what's in store, we do not even have a snow shovel/ snow blower yet, but it is on the radar...  "Mr Prepared" is going to be sure we are ready for our first Montana winter!  With that being said, I can't believe our summer has come and gone...  So many visitors, so many new experiences, and just all-around great times with family and friends!  My goal is to recap each visit with a new post until I am caught up, and then I promise I will be better at posting this fall!!!

Visit #1: My Sister, Nieces and Mom
It was so great to have them out in June right when the weather was first warming up for the summer!  I left work early, picked up Kaitlyn from school and we headed to the airport to get Jenny, Shelby, and Julie!  Classic, I had put Kaitlyn in a pretty yellow dress to greet her cousins, and she had an accident at school, and ended up in a mis-matched outfit and hair all over the place when I picked her up!  What are you gonna do, right? Not important! So here are some pics from picking them up at the Bozeman airport after two long flights from Nashville, TN!!!

They were doing about 5-6 days here and then 3 days in Vegas, so we had a jammed packed schedule!  First on the list was to hit the little sprayground park near our house to let everyone run off some energy from traveling!

The next day, Nana was flying in and got delayed, so we all went to the Dinosaur Park and had a picnic lunch there in Bozeman.

Nana finally got here later that afternoon, and we went and had mexican...well, you can't really get true mexican here, so let's call it "southwestern"... at Rio Sabinas!  Next on the agenda was our trip to Chico Hot Springs and Yellowstone!  Chico is a quaint little mountain resort outside the entrance of Yellowstone and it sits on a natural hot spring, which is basically like a giant hot tub, but with no chemicals, so the water is just constantly running through.  It is so nice, they have a bar there at the pool, a great restaurant, and then other activities like horseback riding and scenic river floats (which our crew was a little young to do)!  It's about an hour or so from our house- very scenic drive...

Here's us in the hot springs, or the warm pool, as Kaitlyn calls it, then there is also an extra hot pool that is too hot for kids, but oh so nice!

Here's a great picture of the view at Chico! It's kind of at the foothills of the mountains in the middle of nowhere- they do a lot of weddings here- beautiful! 

Kaitlyn and the girls were fired up after dinner, dancing, singing, running wild, having a grand ole time! I think they were still up at 10pm!

We stayed there overnight, and headed into the park the next morning for a full day of adventure! Here's another view on our way in!

You could probably take 3-4 days, at least, to see ALL of Yellowstone, but we did the condensed 1 day version so we could spend some more time at home and in Bozeman.  Here's Jenny and Shelby at the entrance!

This was one of the many animals we saw, which after much discussion, we deemed to be a female moose.  We saw lots of bison too.  And we had kind of a rare experience in that we saw 3 bears that day! This is really how it is, you are literally driving along, and you say, "Oh look, there's a moose right there (10 feet away)."

We saw Old Faithful erupt! Here's a pic, it is one of the most well known geysers in the world, not because it's the biggest, but the most reliable!  Every 90 minutes or so... for us it was 2.5 hours, I think, it's not exact!

Ahhh yes, two very tired little girls!  Snoozin away!

Justin took Julie and Kaitlyn on a couple bike rides in the chariot, which is always more fun with a buddy... and more work on dad, but totally worth it to hear all the giggling and carrying on!

One of my sister's favorite things we did was hike the "M" trail in Bozeman.  Even Shelby did it!  She did an excellent job, because it is a challenging hike, but so worth it!  I'm so glad she came along, not something you get to see everyday!  You can see for miles and it is beautiful!

On one of the hottest days, we went to the country club to swim! Everyone had a ball and we definitely enjoyed the non-humid summer weather! I think Kailtyn's favorite thing is to eat at the pool and have popcicles!

This is their last morning here before flying onto Vegas. Nana is spoon-feeding Kailtyn her Apple Jacks and spoiling her rotten!!! :) haha!

It was so great having them all here to visit and have some quality girl time!  It was sad to see them go knowing it would be Christmas before we are all together again.  But what I'm learning is when you move far away from family and friends is that you have to make the most of your time together and use skype and the phone, and blogs, and email, and pictures as much as possible!  We are lucky we live in a generation where there is so much technology at our fingertips to stay in touch!  At least it makes it a little easier...

Stay tuned for Summer Recap- Part 2!  Justin's family visit and the 4th of July...