Sun River, Rocky Mountain Front

Ed Sr. is guest writing this blog...so bare with me. Anyhow, the weather forecast for the weekend was pretty crappy to say the least. It was supposed to be high in the low 60's with wind and rain. Due to the weather forecast, our plans changed from camping in the Tobacco Roots up to the Rocky Mountain Front on the Sun River. Even after shifting from south of Helena to north, Autumn and I tried to limit the camp out to one night because of the weather, but Kim and Neil were hearing none of it as we had planned this weekend a month ago. So the Pattersons arrive at our house almost 5 minutes early on Friday (a Christmas miracle), we packed their stuff into the camper, swapped a small cooler for a larger one to accommodate the beer, and off we went. It didn't really rain much until Sunday, and it seemed to rain hardest once we got the rain shelter down and started loading up.

Kim and Autumn said they had been to this area as youths, but neither remembered it well. I had been up on the Sun River for work and knew that I wanted to come back with a fishing pole and a little more time. It was a great weekend. The wind blew like crazy, the evenings were chilly, but the fishing was great and the scenery spactacular. Great company and great food and Jr. had a great time as always. He is a camping fool.

Autumn even powered up and overcame her concerns about being in hard core griz country. We cleaned up well every night and even stored the beer/pop cooler in the camper at one point while we all went fishing. I had no fear since Selma and Maggie were there to protect us. Well, there might have also been a 357 and a can of bear spray.

We all caught fish, except for Selma and Maggie, who did their best to ruin the fishing for one and all. The Pattersons had better numbers on the fly rods, but we were happy throwing spinners when the wind was blowing.

Jr. did something wrong, so he was forced to wear a Denver Broncos hat and look sad. I'm not sure what he did, but clearly it was bad considering the punishment.

Kim and Neil searching for the monster trout.


Not a bad view from the campsite. The photo below is what we were looking at the other way.

What can I say. I was out for a stroll with Selma, and clearly in my happy place. Cheers, and wish you all could have been there with us.

**It is me. I couldn't let Ed have all of the glory. There are more fantastic photos here. Please look at them, print them out and live in their beauty, they cost us $40. I accidentally deleted them from my camera without copying them all to the computer - YIKES - so I had to download software that magically recovered them from our camera. Was it worth it? Yes. The lesson alone was worth it.

CORN!

Junior enjoyed some tasty corn for dinner.

Tomorrow he will enjoy sleeping in with his mom, breakfast with his mom and his morning nap in his crib. I switched my work hours to 11 - 5 so that he can spend mornings with me. He wasn't doing too well at daycare from 8-4. Hopefully 11-4 will be easier on the little man. I know it will be easier on his mama.

This change was just as he was starting to get a little better at daycare, BUT today Aimee took them on the Gates of the Mountains boat tour and Friday they went to Exploration Works, so he was out and about for the day and maybe bonding more to Aimee.

Pioneers

Pioneer Mountains are south of Butte, north of Dillon. Ed and I have always had a special place in our hearts for the Big Hole River and now we have fallen in love with the mountains in the heart of the Big Hole valley.

Junior loves to camp.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the weekend.Beautiful wildflower, it is probably my new favorite flower ever.

In Coolidge Ghost Town. Jr. was anti ghosts.

He also didn't like rock climbing at the ghost town, but he liked hugging his mommy!

Meadow with a view of the Pioneer Mountains.

Trying to keep the milk cold. Cheers to Beers.

Junior posing in front of the lupine.

The most handsome men ON THE PLANET.

Cute photo of Junior, less than desirable photo of me.
Isn't this one of the quintessential photos of a dad and his baby? It is going in my office.
Junior running along behind us.
Wino baby.

And Junior entertains himself with an axe.

It Is Time To Laugh!

Please enjoy this video of Jr. getting tickled at camp this weekend.

Hike

This morning, Junior, Selma and I took a nice little hike in the Mt. Ascention area to celebrate our last few days of part time work AKA mornings with mom. Starting next week I work from 8-3. So we will have afternoons, but no more lazy mornings where I sit and drink coffee while watching him eat his breakfast and both of us enjoy a little PBS Kids.

Anyway to the hike, it has been my intention since he was born to pack that kid all over the awesome trails on the outskirts of Helena, and I am ashamed to say, today's trip was only the second time on Mt. Ascention. I was all prepared to walk up there and be so depressed about the closing of another chapter in our lives, but I wasn't.

At first I could barely put one foot in front of the other, man that initial climb was tough. Junior plus the pack weighed at least 800 pounds and man am I out of shape. By the time I got over the huffing and puffing, my mind was wondering back to all of the great times I have had on Mt. Ascention. I thought a lot about Miles.

When I first started dating Ed, I would take Miles and we would go exploring the south hills. We would go further and further on the trails learning new routes and getting bolder until the days where Miles, Selma and I owned Mt. Ascention. There was one spring/summer/fall that we were up there at least 3 -4 times in a week. I was in pretty good shape and they were happy. Miles loved our hikes. He was mostly naughty when we would run into other dogs, but never got into any fights and always eventually came back. I remember playing hide and go seek with Selma and Miles to teach them not to wander too far away from me. I miss him terribly some days.

I also remembered seeing my friend Peg huffing and puffing on her bike up the trails only a few short weeks after she had given birth to her son Dylan. It didn't strike me at the time what an accomplishment that was, but now, I am floored by her ability.

I also thought about hiking with my many friends up in those hills and how great you feel after you are done, especially when you stop at the Blackfoot on the way home.

It wasn't until we hit the car and were on our way home that I remembered to be depressed about having to go to work in the mornings.

MIL and FIL

For damn near 7 days we were completely spoiled by MIL and FIL, or Grandma and Grandpa. We had so much fun with them it was terribly sad to see them go. I think one of my favorite moments during their visit was MIL playing with Junior on the slide. He would slide down and she would exclaim "WEEE!" He would say "EEEEE" back to her. He even muttered words that seriously resembled grandma and grandpa.

I also LOVED him hauling his grandpa's shorts around the yard with him.

We rented a pontoon boat and spent one whole day on Holter Lake. Oh it was amazing. Now both Ed and I really want a pontoon boat. SO MUCH FUN on a hot hot hot day. Junior loved being on the boat and took two really good naps even in his confining little life jacket. Granny bought him his OWN fishing pole. Awesome.

We also took him to the Lewis and Clark County Fair. The fair was pretty lame, but Junior seriously enjoyed the livestock barn. He particularly liked the ducks, chickens and geese. Not so much the turkeys or the cows. He called all of the sheep and goats "Selma". My whole goal was to get Granny to pet a goat, but no such luck.

The rest of the time we just kept busy entertaining that kid, and making sure he didn't fall off of the deck. There were lots of walks in BOB and Granny and Grandpa even got to take Junior to Walgreens and Safeway. Ed and I were beside ourselves with the freedom.

Thank you MIL and FIL for flying through Uzbekistan to visit us for a week. We miss you!

What's Up?

Both Jr. and I came down with some sort of summer flu/cold so that has been pretty consuming on my mind, but there is so much other great things happening. . .

Ed leveled and cleared our rocky weedy nasty back yard and installed sod for Jr. to have a lovely play area. I sure hope it lives. We still have a few yards of sod to install, but the start is amazing. Our tiered yard is SO handy sometimes and SO kid friendly. . . not. That is why sodding the lowest level was so imperative. Jr. needs a safe place to toddle around and play without us worrying about him falling off of 3 and a half foot retaining wall or even the 2 foot retaining wall. Ed also built a step to the second level, we already have a set of stairs from the lowest level to the third level, but everyone always would step up to the second level in a particular spot, so Mr. Crafty built some awesome, but sort of unconventional steps. Jr. has already mastered climbing them. Time will tell if they are truly the brilliant idea I think they are now!

**Gross rocky/weedy area in lower level near deck. NOT kid friendly.**
**Soft, beautiful, gentle sod.**
**The STEP!**

Ed also built me three very cool planter boxes over top of what used to be a weedy rocky nightmare. I planted raspberries on the end and in the boxes I planted tomatoes, basil, lavender, mint and rosemary. If nothing else it smells spectacular. In one box I just planted flowers, yellow, orange and red flowers. For the first time since we have bought this house, our yard is actually looking VERY NICE. It is amazing what you can do with a yard when you spend most of your evenings at home, and many weekends.

***See the shaggy potentilla bushes and the massive weedy/rocky area behind us. Ick.
***See the beautiful new planter boxes and the fragrant herb/tomato/flower garden with pavers between them.

That brings me to an interesting place, trying for the life of me to remember what in the hell I did with my time before my little turkey was born. I can tell you this, I certainly didn't spend two consecutive weekends in Helena during the summer. Nor did I find it darn near impossible to go to the movies with my friends. I am sure it will come as NO SURPRISE to all of you that post baby priorities change in a major way. I didn't want it to be this way, but as it turns out, it isn't so bad. I love my husband, I love my child and I love my Selma and now I get all of that every day. I feel like we are finally hitting our stride as a family, like we all have kind of figured out how all of this works and we are comfortable with our new place.

Well, I can't speak for Selma. Since Ed Jr. and Miles' death she is kind of a shell of her former self. Until you take her for a walk. HELLO! She is a wild cat on the prowl. I try to love her and be with her whenever I can, but she is kind of invisible these days. She either isn't around or just laying 4 feet away from me, instead of her usual 0 inches from me. Right now as I type I feel like I should be petting/playing with her, but Jr. is napping, Ed is biking and I need to capitalize on my free time. Okay, pet Selma with foot while type. Got it. Speaking of our beautiful gardens and Selma, she took it upon herself to dig into my lilly garden and make herself a nice cool bed. DAMN IT! I was just marveling on how my transplanted lilies were thriving in a dark dank hole between two bushes on the north side of the house and here comes SELMA. I guess that settles some debate Ed and I had about which dog was always digging in the flower gardens, although I still blame some of those on Miles. He would come in with dirt on his paws and nose. Labs!?!?!

One last tidbit and then I need to start cleaning our house - MIL and FIL are coming, so it isn't just a pick up our crap clean, it is a white glove at the Ritz clean, well, okay, more like a wipe everything down once and hope for the best clean because I have a shedding chocolate lab and baby.

Last night we left Jr. at his grandparents and went to a wedding for 5 HOURS! It was an incredible wedding between our new friends Erik and Sarah. I drank way too much beer and visited and visited with whatever stranger or friend happened by. I didn't have to chase a busy baby or worry about him breaking anything. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! I did miss him, and text his Uncle Ian about 400 times to make sure he was okay, but it felt amazing to be able to enjoy myself without worrying about him. He did great, it was his Streganona's birthday party and she had ALL of her family there, Jr. was surrounded by happy family. Plus his cousin Faith was there to play with him. Last night I put him to sleep at his grandparents house and when we went to move him to come home he didn't even wake up at all AND slept in his crib until 5:00 AM. At 5 Ed went and got him and then he slept until about 7:30 with us. AHhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Then it was my sleep in day, so I got to snooze until almost 9:30!

He must have partied pretty hard to be so tired. I know that I sure did!

Happy Birthday Adrienne!

Happy first birthday sweetest angel girl.

Little Mr. America

Junior loved hanging out with Liesel's family at Seeley Lake for the fourth of July. He ABSOLUTELY ADORED Liesel's nephews Cullen and Benan.


Benan asked Ed if Jr. had a brother. When Ed said no, Benan said "that is so sad." Benan also taught Jr. to golf and kick a soccer ball. My favorite Benan story was when I first met him he told me that he has had several head injuries and a couple of foot injuries, he tells me, "Yeah, I have a pretty tough life." I bet he does.

Words cannot describe how wonderful and welcoming Liesel's family was to us. I think it helped that Jr. was our family's ambassador. Everyone LOVED him. At first they didn't believe us when we told them that he was busy. Here he is trying his best to play with an axe, a knife, some matches and a beer.

Anyway, Junior played and played and PLAYED all weekend. He was so tired he slept for 13 hours Sunday night. And yes, we did keep him up to watch the fireworks over Seeley. Well, he was with us, but asleep in his Ergo.

He swam at Lake Placid. It involved a lot of crying. Jody and I made him walk to the car only to discover later that he had rocks in his sandals. Poor baby.

He LOVED the 4th of July Parade, but then who doesn't? It is a BIG parade in a small town. Benan scored Jr. an American flag. As with everything else, he used it for evil. He used it to stab Liesel's dad. The kids at the parade scored more candy than Halloween.

On the way home we checked out Lincoln and stopped for a little daddy/baby photo op near the upper reaches of the Blackfoot.

And as a bonus the petting zoo came to us.