Grandma Helen's Birthday Hike - The Big Move Part 7

The morning after arriving at the ranch, we got up at 6am and were in the car by 6:30am. Doug treated everyone to breakfast at the Park Cafe just outside of St. Mary's in Glacier National Park. Great, little hipster cafe. They sell Doug's bison there, have GREAT omelets, strong coffee, and are famous for their homemade pies. They also sell Wicoxson's Ice Cream which is the daddy of all ice cream. We then all met in the parking lot at Logan Pass. We had planned on tackling one hike, but due to an abundance of bear activity the day before, they closed the trail. So, instead, we did the Hidden Lake hike. This was our first experience in Glacier National Park and it was love at first sight. You can hear about it and see photos of it, but neither of those can explain how truly spectacular it is. WOW. We did the normal touristy part of the hike - the lookout view - and then we proceeded to go another 3 1/2 miles down the mountainside to Hidden Lake. We went out to a penninsula and ate our lunches while some swam in the icewater. It was a very hot, sweaty day, but even that couldn't entice me to venture out - nothing like hiking in wet shorts for the rest of the day. Elisha went with the girls out to an island and went in to shock halfway out it was so cold. After lunch we all hiked back UP the mountain - not quite as easy as the hike down; it was a BIG mountain. Brad and I decided that we are complete whimps and out of shape. However, my amazing hubby still managed to scale a mountain with a four year old on his shoulders for part of the time. The kids amazed us. Josiah, Isaiah and Elias were in the front of the pack with the bigger kids and beat us back by 20 minutes. Micah got lots of shoulder rides from Doug Mitchell and Brad, but she also walked a ton. We were hooked from day one. Hiking is great fun.
After the hike, we all went BACK to the Park Cafe for a late lunch/early dinner (again on Doug's bison tab - it was his mom's birthday and he made it really special for us all). We stuffed ourselves and then had pie and ice cream. We all went back to the ranch fat and happy.....oh, and tired, really tired....oh and sore, REALLY sore! What a day. Have I mentioned that I love Montana? See the photos here.

The Big Move Part 6

After the 4th of July, we went back to Grandma Winnie's cabin for a few days and then moved along to Wayfarers State Park campsite. We arrived and there were only 2 sites left - not the best either. We were planning on staying for about 6 days while we figured out what to do next and started looking for somewhere to live. There was a site opening up the next morning, so we watched and as soon as they drove out we snagged it. Wayfarers is a GREAT campground. It is just outside of Bigfork on Flathead Lake (the other side from where we were). AND not only did it have flush toilets, but also a great shower and even a large sink outside of the bathroom for washing camp dishes - we were living in luxury! While we were there, we met the neatest family. The Harmons had three girls and were there visiting with Stephanie's (the wife/mom) parents. They were from Aurora, Washington and were here because Rhett (husband/dad) had a job interview. They are Christians and homeschool. You know when you are kind of down and wondering what is going to happen next in life and you wonder if God is leading you anywhere at all (see Exodus for other complaining, whining, disbelieving followers! :)) and then He puts someone in your life just as a pure blessing - for no specific reason, but just as encouragement along the way? What a sweet family. We imparted Micah's hot pink cowboy boots that she LOVED dearly to Naomi Harmon. Micah had been cramming her feet into them for a while, because she just couldn't stand the thought of parting with them. However, after meeting Naomi, she was happy to pass them along to be loved by a worthy recipient ....and Naomi did love them. While we were still at Wayfarers, Doug Nelson called and asked if we wanted to come to the ranch for the night on Friday to go hiking in Glacier with he and his family on Saturday. No one that knows the Nelsons would ever turn down that kind of offer.

We left Wayfarers a day early to head out there. The ranch is 9 miles outside of Browning, but don't let that scare you (Browning is a reservation town with a reputation). It is a beautiful area near Glacier National Park. We had visited two years earlier and fell in love with the area and the ranch. Doug's property is near perfect and probably one of my favorite places on earth. The ranch is nestled in among aspen groves with a breathtaking view of Glacier. This was our first time meeting Doug's kids that he inherited when he got married 2 years ago and my first time seeing his family again after 17 years. We arrived Friday evening. Doug's sister, Julie, her husband and two sons were already there. It was such fun seeing Paul again (the ranch manager that has been there for two years who we LOVE!) and getting to meet Julie's kids (the last time I saw Julie, she was pregnant with Garret who is now almost 17 - yikes!). The kids ran around falling in love with the ranch all over again and we set up our tent near the teepee pond. Little did we know that it would be our home for some time!!

Doug's family is GREAT. His mom and dad are wonderful people who have raised 5 amazingly talented and well-rounded kids. We didn't know, but it was Doug's mom, Helen's birthday hike that we were going on the next day. That night was a flurry of activity with all of us running around....swimming in the teepee pond, packing lunches, getting packs ready, eating, cleaning up and getting settled for bed before our early morning adventure.

The Big Move Part 5 - 4th of July

We left our Flathead Lake abode for a while to join our friends, The Behrendt's, at their friends' (The Olsens) river house in Plains for the long weekend. There were a number of families coming so we opted for pitching our tent in the backyard as to not contribute to over-crowding. Besides, by this point, we were gettting accustomed to our little home away from home (well, I guess technically, it WAS home at that point!). We had never met the Olsens. Kurt Behrendt moved to Montana to work with Shawn who is a builder in Bozeman. We had the time of our lives that weekend and met friends for life. Those Olsens are a wonderful family. Their river house is on the beautiful Clark Fork River. I love fresh water and it was such fun to swim with no salt. The water was also really cold. We were amazed, because here it was Fourth of July weekend and the water was empty. We saw 2 other boats all weekend long and we were out there all day, every day. Both Colleen and Shawn Olsen are avid water skiers, so they have water toys galore. We cliff jumped, sea-dood (is that a word?), water skied, tubed, skimmer boarded, cliff jumped, swam, fished, etc. Josiah and Elisha learned to water ski and Elisha and Isaiah both did the skimmer board too. Brad hadn't skied in 20 years, but picked it right back up. One day, we all took their Malibu and the Boston Whaler and decided to boat into Thompson Falls for ice cream (an hour's ride). First we stopped to picnic and play at a sand beach on the way. In Thompson Falls, we docked the boats on the edge of the river and walked across town for gas and ice cream. We looked like a pretty funny crew all walking through town in our river stuff. Shawn led the way. We figured that we were going to a Baskin Robbins-type place - you know, an ice cream place. When we get to the gas station and he says this is it, we howled....and walked to the chest freezer and got drum sticks. HA! Thompson Falls is a little bitty hole-in-the-wall town (beautiful, and one of our favorite places in Montana, but the streets roll up at 8:30).

This was our first time living somewhere in which fireworkds were legal - woo hoo!! We were afraid that we would really miss out on the big city fireworks in San Diego - we really did have a great show every year. We had resigned ourselves to being in Montana and just knowing that the trade off of being here was worth the lack of fireworks show.....little did we know that we were spending the weekend wtih a bunch of pyros!! We bought a bunch of fireworks, but Kurt and Shawn were out of control. They bought boxes and boxes - no truckloads - of them. They even went to Wyoming and bought some contraband!! We had over an hour long fireworks show and these things were HUGE. We even about set the deck on fire when a "ladybug", after sky-rocketing into the air, plunged toward the house and about hit Jeannie in the head!! It was the best fireworks we had ever seen - these Montanans do things in style! :) Brad, Kurt, and Shawn were hilarious. We had so many, that they were setting them off in big sets at the end. And we set off entire packs of black cat firecrackers all at once. Up until last year, we always had a 4th of July party at our house. Last year, we went to Torrey Pines State Beach with the Curles family and we were missing them. We had such a great time in Plains that it made missing them easier. It was hard leaving, because we so enjoyed the place and the friends. We are hoping to make it an annual event in Plains.

The Big Move Part 4

The bad thing about waiting to post about our big move until NOW, is that I have forgotten the day to day feelings, excitements, fears, etc. that went along with each of those days. I was foolish and did not write them down as I should have thinking that I'd remember it all because of how vivid it all was then..... I was forgotting that all that breast milk was really brain matter and it's never coming back.

I do remember that the night before we left Bozeman I was scared to death. We knew that we were heading north toward the Flathead Valley (that is really the area that we wanted to live in), but had no idea where we were going to stay on the way or what we'd do when we got there. We planned to look for campsites along the way and then find one up there and start looking for a place to rent while we continued to look. Our first night, we stayed up past Missoula in a campground area called Bear Claw. At this point, I was still really afraid of bears - especially grizzlies - so that name didn't bring any peace to my mind. It was a great little area with a bathroom AND a shower. Most of you from CA reading this are thinking "well, yeah...duh!", but that's because you have never camped in MT. Flush toilets, as I now know they are called, as opposed to pit toilets (just like they sound) are few and far between and showers are a luxury (in fact, almost none of the state parks have showers)- but I wasn't well versed yet on MT campgrounds and thought that was normal too. There was only one other campsite being used (and this is summer, mind you - there just aren't many people in MT even with all the tourists). Our neighbors were gone when we set up camp, but arrived shortly therafter. They were an old, hippy couple on Harleys. They came over after a while wondering if these could ALL be our kids (remember, there are only 5 of them - we are not even close to the Duggers!). Our friends were missing many of their teeth and were about three sheets to the wind. They also used very colorful language in telling us how great it was to see families out having fun together and then told me that I must need to take valium to deal with all these kids. I assured the man that I did not and told them that all these kids were a great blessing from the Lord. He agreed and then toned down his language. We had a nice conversation with them. They left early the next morning, beeping their horns and waving. We moved along as well. We arrived in the Flathead and looked around to the East where we had seen a property that we wanted to see. We found a campsite - well, really it was a little restaurant that had RV spots on the lake and they had one area that they let tent campers use. Again, there was a bathroom and a shower - kind of scary, though. It was on Lake McGreggor and a beautiful spot. As soon as the sun started to set, the mosquitos came out - in swarms. No, REALLY! The boys found some pine cones and sticks to use for baseball. We had a great time making s'mores and swatting the mosquitos. There was this plant covering the entire area as if it were grass...I had an idea that it was the herb (and weed) plantain (I found out later that it was) which is what you can use naturally to treat bug bites and stings. I think it is funny that God filled "Mosquito Ville" with plantain.
The next day, we headed into Kalispell. Oh, I forgot to mention that Montana is not the best place for cell or internet coverage. Brad was trying to manage the Pacific Coast business as we went along and it became extremely difficult at this point being on the road in areas with no internet access or cell phone coverage. He figured out that at least he could get access through his cell phone company on his phone. Granted he had to have cell service (refer back to previous thought!), but it was better than nothing. We went to a park in Kalispell so that he could use his phone/internet and we decided to call my good friend from college, Doug Nelson who is from Kalispell (and the person who introduced me to Montana 18 years ago). Doug and his wife, Karen, live in Hamilton now during the winters and they live outside of Browning on their bison ranch most of the summer. We knew that he would be able to tell us of a camp site in the area. When I called, he happened to be in Kalispell. He said that he knew of a site, but asked if we would like to stay on Flathead Lake instead. Well me, being no dummy, said "Yeah!!!". He came to get us and we followed him to Grandma Winnie's cabin right on Flathead Lake. Doug's family has a couple of properties on Flathead. This one has been in the family for years. No one was staying there for a couple of weeks and he set us up. Isn't God amazing? We were shocked. Grandma Winnie's cabin is this cute, little 60s throw-back with running water in the kitchen but no bathroom or shower; there is an outhouse. We LOVED it. Doug's parents have a big house down the road, and we were able to use the shower and washer/dryer there if we wanted. Brad set up an outside shower at our cabin with a gallon milk jug and the hose (lake water - COLD lake water). We made a jumping board sticking out into the lake, built camp fires in the fire pit, and had a ball. And Doug was such an encouragement as well. Doug is a risk taker and unlike anyone else that I know; it is an honor to know he and his family. He and Brad were talking and Doug mentioned that he admired Brad's courage just picking up and moving up here. Brad told him that he wasn't sure if it wasn't foolishness. To that, Doug said one of the most encouraging and profound things of the summer: "Courage always looks like foolishness until it comes to fruition". He is a great friend to have around at a time like this when everything seems so unsure and scary. So, here we were, discouraged and wondering what in the world we were going to do next and God puts us on 150 feet of beautiful lakefront footage for a 2 week vacation. Amazing. And, we got cell coverage too! You can see more photos here and here too.

Bozeman part 2

We were in Bozeman a total of three weeks. We met some other homeschoolers, got the city tour, and checked out some surrounding areas. It is beautiful, but we still felt like the NW was where we wanted to be. Some highlights include camping by the Yellowstone River. While Brad was gone, we went camping with the Behrendt's. The area was beautiful. It was our first experience camping at a KOA. They had a pool, laundry room, game room, and even wall paper in the bathrooms (which even had outlets!!). It was the Taj Mahal of camping.

We hiked in the Abaskaro Mountains up to this breathtaking waterfall and had a picnic. We still cannot believe that we live here in this beauty. Everywhere we look we are in awe and everywhere we go is a potential place to live. I don't think we have "met" a place in MT that we couldn't call home (Well, except for Butte and Cut Bank and downtown Browning!). However, I know that the Lord has a specific place for us to give us a future of His choosing.

Also while Brad was gone the kids put on a Father's Day play. They worked on it all day. Josiah came up with a semi-original score. Elias was the bunny - I have no idea how in the world they got him to dress like this!! It must have taken some serious slick talking.

Brad returned in a week and we decided that it was time to move on. You know what they say about house guests and fish, right? That both stink after three days? We wanted to be sure that our good friends remained our good friends! We are a big load of fish! :) We weren't sure exactly where we were going, but we were heading north. This is where the adventure really begins. It was kind of scary just taking off into the wild blue yonder to start looking around, but... "have tent, will travel". We knew that MT was the place, but, you know, MT is a big state!! :) We are so thankful that God moved the Behrendt's to MT exactly a year ahead of us. It made this whole move so much easier. Having a place to start out, get our bearings and then spread out from made all the difference in the world. The Lord is good. Surely goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

more photos here.

First Stop - Bozeman

Well, our first stop in Montana was Bozeman. Our dear friends, the Behrendt's, opened their home up to us.....yep, all 7 of us, well 8 at first, because Shaun was with us too! They obviously didn't know what they were getting into! Bozeman is beautiful. We spent time driving all over looking at the surrounding areas. We visited Ennis (wow!) and Virginia City. Virginia City is an old historic town. The girls all wore costumes for our trip. Kurt took us to the Madison River where he gave us all a fly fishing demonstration.

While we were In Bozeman, Brad had to be back in San Diego for a week. We drove he and Shaun up to Spokane, WA to the airport. There are closer airports, but the rate in Spokane was $59 and from Bozeman it was $400. We decided that we really wanted to look around in the Bitterroot and surrounding areas, so we took a long drive. Our good friends, Karen and Doug Nelson, offered their place in Corvallis for an overnight stay and suggested some travel routes and things to see. They were not in town, so we had the run of the place. Doug suggested we take Skalkaho Pass across since it had just opened. Well... had I known we were for sure on the right road, and if we had a full tank of gas, and had it not been getting dark very shortly, I would have enjoyed it. Skalkaho pass is a very steep pass through two huge mountains (did I say huge, I meant enormously huge). It is only paved the first mile or so and is 50 miles long (as we discoverd on the other side). As we kept going farther and farther in, I kept getting more and more worried - what if we had taken a wrong road and were headed to a dead end?? At one point TOWARD the top (notice I say toward and not AT the top!), to the left of the one lane, dirt "road" with no side rail, there was a 2000 ft sheer face drop!! There was also an incredible waterfall about halfway through - it rushed down as if it were going to hit the road and then rushed under a small bridge. We (no, I) was glad to be on the other side of the mountains in Hamilton when we got there! I wish that I hadn't been worried, because it really was beautiful. We will go through it again in the daytime, being assured that this is in fact the correct road, so that I can enjoy it.

After staying in Corvalis for the night we went on to Phillipsburg. It was our favorite place at that point. Okay, I say that, but really we have found so many places that we love here that I wish we could live in all of them. Phillipsburg is this great, little, old mining town that they are restoring. Great shops, little restaurants, and the most fabulously large candy store you have ever seen! No, I am not kidding. The Sweet Palace is enormous and has everything you can imagine. I have never seen anything like it. We fell in love with that entire area. We stayed in Missoula for the night and drove on to Spokane the next day. Dropping Brad and Shaun off at the airport was hard. Shaun was really sad because he was going back to San Diego and we were not. He felt like he was losing his family. It was tough for him and for us as well. It was also a disappointing knowing that we wouldn't have Brad with us for at least a week!! View photos here.

On The Road

Day one, we drove all the way to St George in Southern Utah. We stopped at a Hilton Garden Inn. We love hotels. When we checked in, there was a "US Olympic Speed Skating" sign up. Brad made some silly comment at the front desk about Apollo (Anton Ono) being there and the front desk clerk replied that indeed he WAS there. Wow! How fun is that? Not that I saw him or anything, but just the idea that he really was there made my night! :) I had visions of running downstairs at 6am with my camera to make a fool out of myself. Sleep won out! I am too old
(and hopefully too wise) to be a groupie!

Day two, as we were driving through Utah, I felt as if I were going home!! I spent four years in Utah and loved it. I love the mountains, and as we drove, I wondered why in the world we were in CA for so long. We stopped in my old stomping grounds - The University of Utah in Salt Lake City (go Utes) and ate at The Pie Pizzaria. We stayed the night in Bountiful just out of SLC. On our way to the pool that night, someone opened the door on Micah's toe and yanked off her toenail. Micah has this thing with her toes...she hurts them and then she and I don't sleep that
night - she, because of the pain, me - because of the crying that goes with that pain. :)

Day three, the Blazer was not running great. It just didn't want to go up hills (not good - we're heading north!). Just before Pocatello, Duke the Dog threw up in the car! NICE! Brad was ahead in the Blazer, and Shaun stopped with the kids and I. We cleaned it all up and got back in the cars to go and the Suburban wouldn't start. I praise God for Shaun who knows all things car related! He figured out that the starter was overheated. We waited a few minutes and voila - on the road again. In the meantime, Brad stopped in Pocatello to wait for us and change the spark plugs. We pulled into some auto parts store, ate lunch, and did some repair work. Other than that, we had no more incidents and made it to Bozeman by Sunday evening where our dear friends, The Behrendt's, were waiting with open arms. Photos here.

Road trips with our family are always great. This time was no exception. Even though we had no CD player (it broke ages ago), the AC stopped working (in Southern Utah when it was 110 degrees out!), and all the adults were driving seperate cars, Dad (aka the treat guy!) furnished us with plenty of goodies and laughs. I love my family. I am so glad that they are mine!!

The Adventure Begins

We left San Diego on June 1st to move to Montana....not sure WHERE exactly in Montana we will end up, but we are thinking the Northwest corner. We have such wonderful friends in San Diego. I don't think that I have even felt more loved. Friends brought food all week long, showed up to pack us (Wendy Danskin packed almost my entire kitchen! Go Wendy. Funny, but my fine china boxes were the only ones that got squished in the move, and due to her fabuous packing, not even ONE was broken!!), and scrubbed the entire house. I didn't clean one thing!! WOW. My own professional cleaning crew!

We got out of the house later than we expected. The Curles, Scheppele, Gmyr, Gonzales, and Norvell families were there to see us off. Our last view of the neighborhood was Karen and Nick L'Heureux waving from their driveway! We will miss many things about San Diego - especially the great friends that the Lord has blessed us with. click here for photos