Canyon Ferry

After a couple days in Bozeman, we headed over near Seth's old stomping grounds of Helena to take in some of the best water Montana has to offer.  My Uncle Jim and cousins were there and we had a great time.

Brian, Cayden, and Ryker

Kya could get used to Jim's toys

Ryker met a lot of cousins for the first time and had his introduction to the washer game

Yeah, it's a cool boat, but did you see this stick?

I always thought that between the leg strap was to keep the lifejacket from floating up, but now I'm wondering if it is to keep their soggy drawers up....

What was I doing this whole time, you might ask while others are playing with my kids?  Relaxing on the beach with a few well deserved beers and adult conversation after driving 750 miles with 2 toddlers and a dog.

Yep, if the engineer can't fix it, it's broke.  Time for a new squirt gun.

We've had about all the fun we can handle in a day, we can head back to Bozeman now.  Thanks for the great time Zinda's!

Bozeman and Billings

We got up early and hit the trails around Bozeman.

We found a great little park that the kids were excited to show Brian and Kara when they got home from work.  Yep, they knew it was there, but they hadn't played on it before so I'm sure they were just as excited to go check it out:)

Kya not so sure about the car wash

Ty and Nikki's stoop.  We stayed a few nights in Bozeman, one in Billings, then on to Wibaux.

Showing Ty his cycling skills

Guess who got shotgun?  Yep, Cosmos rode in the car.  Never thought I'd see the day, but it worked out fine.

We were prepared for a long road trip.  There was no waiting to find a bathroom with 2 kids and a dog for me.  It was HOT and there was no way I could have left Cosmos in the car while Ryker did his business in a gas station.  Once we got into Montana, we could just tie him to the doorknob of the car, but in Washington and Idaho, there's just too much traffic and too small of parking spaces for him to be safe.

Ryker told me that he enjoyed the view.

Yep, that's 99 degrees and it got hotter.  I love Big Sky Country in the summer!

 

 

First Stop: Couer d'Alene

We set off on our first great adventure together this summer.  A road trip to and around Montana.  Ty and Nikki were in Idaho for Nikki's sisters wedding so it was a perfect stop for us.  We left about 3am and rolled into Couer d'Alene at 11am.  We boated until the kids were tired then jumped back in the car around 4pm.  We made it into Bozeman around 11pm.  Ryker finally fell asleep around Butte at about 10pm.  He was up from 3am to 10pm with only an hour nap after boating.  What the heck?  In the morning, he said he couldn't sleep because he was too excited to go boating with Ty and Nikki.  After, he kept telling me he needed to stay awake so he didn't miss anything.  It's DARK kid!  Close your eyes!  I bribed him at Missoula, by letting him pick out candy if he would eat it then try to sleep.  He tried, but was still too wired to sleep for another two hours.

Cosmos enjoying a break from the car.

 

Ryker loving watching the wakeboarders!

They had just as much fun at the dock as on the boat.

Thank you Hoagland's for the perfect pit stop! 

 

Daddy's Girl

When Seth would leave when Ryker was little we went to great lengths to help him through it.  We recorded Seth reading books, had videos of the two of them playing, made Ryker a photo album with pictures of the two of them, and every night before he went to bed I told him his Daddy loved him and we'd talk about what he might be doing on the boat.  With Kya, it seems she's more attached to Ryker so we didn't worry about her as much.  Maybe she's just getting to the age where she's understanding or missing him more, or maybe she's been missing him a lot all along, but this summer she had a pretty tough time.  She found some pictures of Seth this summer and was really sad.  She would carry them around with her and it was difficult to get her to snap out of it.  I printed a bunch of pictures of her with him for her to keep and showed her a bunch of the videos of him reading books.  That's about the only thing that would make her happy sometimes, but then she would want to call him even if just to listen to his voicemail message.

She loved this one of Seth playing with Ryker as a baby.

She would carry this Zune around all day sometimes and play it over and over. 

At Play

These two lucky ducks have a fabulous playroom.

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Stewart, they have these great organizers.  Someday, hopefully they'll figure out how to put stuff away in them.

 

Kya  really came into her own style this summer.  This was her berry picking outfit for the day.

 

I soaked these punks!