Our Wild West Montana Trip

This past weekend we took a whirlwind family trip out to Montana.  We flew into Missoula Thursday afternoon and got to hang out with Shannon, Dylan and Baby Ruby.  We felt like we had a good baby-holding edge on the rest of the family and got to have her undivided attention for a little bit.  We got to see experience some of what Missoula has to offer, with a visit to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a few rides on the carousel and some serious playground playing at Dragon's Hollow, and a sweet food truck gathering/concert.  Let me just say, you wouldn't think "food" when you think of Missoula but my expanded waistline says otherwise. Oh my. That night Dustin slept with Hank and Lyla in Dylan and Shannon's camper while I stayed inside and got a terrific night's sleep.  By the way, Hank did awesome sleeping on a big boy bed (except for one brief moment when he fell off the bed and Dustin had to do a little consoling.

The next morning we headed out for a family cabin outside of Dillon, MT.  It is super-secluded (no cell phone service!) and takes a looooong time to get there.  We had a day and a half with the entire rest of Dustin's siblings and their families and parents, along with Sherie's brother and his family and two of Dustin's cousins.  It's a good thing their cabin/lodge is HUGE and could house us all.  The cabin stay involved hiking, four-wheeling, fishing (which also resulted in Hank accidentally falling in some fairly deep water), hunting for quartz at Crystal Park, shooting, a dip in a hot spring, and lots of family togetherness and laughing. I love that our kids had some great experiences with things that are new for them or something we rarely do. The trip was really short, and perhaps poorly planned with a 3.5 - 4 hour car ride as soon as we got up followed by a 2 hour plane tide but the kids did AWESOME (especially when you consider they were drastically sleep-deprived as well) and we are now much cleaner and well-rested and ready for another adventure.