Summer Vacation Part I-- Montana

Though it still feels like summer, the truth is, summer break came to an end this week.  Gone are the simple pleasures that make summer so special...sleeping in, vacation, staying up super late, vacation,  eating lots of ice cream, and did I mention, VACATION?!  We have had such a non-typical summer this year. We spent the good majority of our time on vacation!  It is the first time ever in my life that I have been tired of travelling and I have felt super guilty for all of the Sunday's we missed being in our home ward.  But, even with the tired feeling that came and the guilt, I won't lie--we had an amazing summer!

To start our summer off, we were able to spend half of June travelling through Montana, the panhandle area of Idaho, Washington State, and Oregon.  Today's post will be about our travels in the beautiful state of Montana, more specifically Glacier National Park.

 

 

After driving ALL day, with a car that was packed to the brim, through the plains of North Dakota and Montana, we were super excited to enter Glacier National Park.  (And to have a private stash of FunYuns.)

This was our first time ever to visit this park and it was bbeeaauuttiiffuull!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went on a short hike to a waterfall and on our walk we saw the mark of a bear!

 

 

  I most definitely kept my eyes wide and my ears were tuned into the sounds around us.  I encouraged the kids to make as much noise as they wanted because "we were on vacation!"  (Wink, wink!!) 

Seriously, isn't he cute?! 

 

 We loved being near all the water and had a good time working at our skipping rocks technique.

 Love these kids of mine, even with the bunny ears and the cheesy grin!  (Taking pictures with the boys as they grow older is like trying to get a picture of your newborn baby's first smile!  It requires a lot of patience.)

 So I might be in trouble for daring to put this picture on the blog but I just couldn't resist.  They all thought that it would be funny to act like they were going to "moon" me as I was taking pictures of them.  This will serve them right!!

 Do you know what this cone-shaped object is?  Let me tell you that it spells DANGER!  This is a hornets nest and my adventurous boys and hubby thought that it would be a good target for rock throwing.

 

 At first they were standing quite a distance from it but could not get close to hitting it. 

But it didn't take long before they were drawn to move closer to the nest so that they could hit it. 

(I see a church talk analogy with this experience!)

 

I can't even remember who ended up hitting the nest but when it was hit, I knew it! 

 

Run boys!  Run!!  I am happy to report that no one was injured in this activity.

 

 

 I am one blessed woman!!

 

 I love the expression on Zach's face.  He seems to be conveying so well his attitude about me taking a picture of him.  "Mom, do I have to have my picture taken again!?"

 How do I even explain this?  I read a post by a friend of mine about how to raise nice boys.  One of her points was that of teaching them to be polite and not crude.  Somehow, even with all my trying in this area, my boys still find some crude things to be especially funny.  It didn't help matters any that Cody now works at a donut shop called Bearscat!  So, with our travelling through bear country, the boys thought it would be especially funny to put this on the dusty car! 

 Having an especially good time together!

 

Seriously, I think that I did pretty good at catching them doing such random things!! 

 

Part II--Idaho will follow soon!