My only 'goal' that I had for vacation was to relax and to blog. So, I thought that I better at least blog. Relaxing is not the word that I would use while vacationing by myself with 4 children, but it has been fun. Unfortunately, I haven't picked up my camera too often. I have been too busy chasing Megan everywhere. Here's a quick synopsis of our trip so far:
Wednesday: we finally got on the road about 8:30, 1 1/2 hours after our scheduled leave time. We had a dead battery in the Suburban to deal with. Probably from leaving the back hatch opened so long while packing. Who knows... Our Suburban is a little tempermental sometimes in regards to the battery. It must be a girl. Anyway, we made it to Spokane safely late in the afternoon and the girls swam in the pool. I usually send Brian down to the pool while I read, so this was a big step for me. The little girls loved the pool though, and it was nicer than I expected it to be because it was an outdoor pool in NOT the warmest of weather. We seem to have brought typical Oregon weather with us on this vacation. Not so happy about that. But I made it all the way to Spokane without having to stop for gas! Actually, I still had a quarter of a tank left, so that gave me a little bit more confidence in driving long distances.
Thursday: Left for Montana mid morning. We blinked and made it through Idaho. My Aunt and Uncle live about 50 miles outside of Missoula and we made it there mid afternoon (with the hour time loss). My aunt and uncle were at a rehearsal dinner for the wedding that we were going to on Saturday, so the girls and I just relaxed. Well, they played and I ran around after Megan putting things back in drawers and back up on shelves. I stayed up way too late finishing my book knowing that it was probably going to be the last time I actually got to read until we meet up with Brian.
Friday: The big girls stayed at my Aunt and Uncles house (and then later to my Aunt's daughters house--which I know technically she would be my cousin, but my Aunt and Uncle didn't get married until I was an adult so it's weird to think of them as my cousins) Anyway, she lives on a farm so the girls got to ride horses and such. I took the little girls to Missoula and we had lunch with a ton of family. Which it's especially fun chasing Megan around a restaurant. Or, trying to NOT chase her around a restaurant. Then we shopped at Target. (This is always a theme for me on vacations). Prior to leaving for vacation, I ran over our single stroller my car so I had to buy a new one) Then we hung out with family the rest of the day.
Saturday was the day of the wedding. I attempted to take the girls up to a ghost town in the morning, but got 3/4's of the way and realized that my gas gauge was on E, so I had to turn around and go back to town, all the while sweating bullets out of fear of running out of gas while in a 'dead zone' for my phone and having 5 kids in the car. (We had my niece Morgan who is the same age as Kennedy) We made it back to town and decided to try again later.
So, later we tried again. We made it to the top. To the treacherous top. It is way at the top of a mountain. No wonder it's a ghost town, I wonder if all of the people fell down the mountain while trying to get up it? We get to the top and it's raining. I have five little girls dressed for a wedding. I didn't know that you had to hike down a trail to get into the ghost town. We didn't do it. We packed back into the car and headed down the mountain. And then to the wedding. You'd think that in the middle of August in Montana you would have nice weather. Not so much, though that had definitely been the plan. It was an outdoor wedding, poor bride and groom! It rained before and after but stayed beautiful for the ceremony. Unfortunatly it was really muddy and Megan wanted to play in the puddles. We ended up packing up right after the ceremony and heading back to my Aunt and Uncles. Hayden was mad at me because she had some cousins that she wanted to play with, but the other girls didn't mind. So we went back and they played while I packed up.
Sunday: We were on the road by 7am. Out of guilt of bagging out on the first ghost town, I drove the girls to Virgina City (Montana) to go through another ghost town. The first road we tried to take was closed so we had a detour that added at least an hour onto the trip and then, accept for the candy store, it was pretty lame. Strike 2 on ghost towns. We then headed over Yellowstone. Lucky (or unlucky) for us it was 'get into national parks free weekend. My only real destination was getting up to Old Faithful, get a couple of pictures. So I asked the lady at the gate how to get to Old Faithful and she said to go up 14 miles and then hang a right. She forgot to add that it was another 16 miles after 'hanging a right'. So we get up to Old Faithful and did I mention that it was 'get into National Parks free' weekend? It was like going to the zoo on the first 85 degree day of the year. There was not any parking, there was construction everywhere. I had this fear of leaving my car and not being able to find it again, it was so chaotic. Thankfully for me, my kids were tired of driving around looking for a spot, so we left Yellowstone and went to West Yellowstone for lunch. I am such a lame Mom. I drive 45 minutes to the top of a mountain for a ghost town just to drive back down without seeing it. Then I did the same for Yellowstone. We did get to see lots of geysers though (or gooey geysers as Olivia calls them) and we saw 9 Buffalo and 3 elk.
Then we continued to Idaho Falls. Got our hotel, went swimming, hung out in our hotel room.
Monday: That's today! We had breakfast at the hotel, we are all freshly showered, I have blogged and now it's time to pack up and get out of Dodge. We are on our way to the Cluff's!
Sorry that there are no pictures. I will have to do that later. I ama one woman show as far as getting everything packed up and into the car and I only have 40minutes until checkout! (and I am not spell checking---so sorry!)
