Trip to Montana

As a last hurrah of the summer (and the last chance to have Libby fly for free before she turns 2!), my mom and I flew to Montana to visit my sister Jen and her family for a long weekend.  It was a blast!

 The girls and I on our flight on the way there.  They did a GREAT job and I was so proud of them!  VERY grateful to have my mom with me to help, too, though! ;)

 Here we are on the trail right behind Jen's house.  It was beautiful and Libby loved all the animals we saw - horses, cows, and, of course, dogs!

 Summer works at a Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings selling crepes, so we went down to downtown Billings to check it out.  We gorged on crepes and enjoyed the beautiful flower baskets, too.

 The Stewarts have really gotten into swimming lately and were super excited to show off their skills.  Mention the word pool and Libby is in!

 Then say "hot-tub" and she's died and gone to heaven!  Syd actually got her to relax enough to float.  She'll never do that for us...Syd must have the special touch!  If only she lived closer!!!

 The next day we did our marathon one-day Yellowstone trip.  We drove the long way to get there and were so glad we did - it was gorgeous!  Here is Libby showing off her travels.  We were above the treeline at this poing and the views were incredible.

 We stopped for lunch in Cooke City, MT.  This is how the weather looked when we went into the restaurant, but when we came out it started pouring down rain.  It made for a fun adventure and Libby loved that, too!

 Once we got to Yellowstone, it didn't disappoint!  There were bison EVERYWHERE and this guy was our favorite.  Just cruisin' down the middle of the road like he owns the place!  How cool!

 The girls and I - as close as we braved getting to a group of bison behind us.

 We walked to this waterfall and then enjoyed an ice cream pit-stop.

 We didn't make it all the way to Old Faithful (that would have been an additional 3 hours in the car - to the 13 we ended up spending!), but we did get to see lots of Geyers at Norris Geyers.  They really are pretty incredible!

 We loved Yellowstone!  Imagine, not just the 7 people pictured here, but 2 more adults (Jen and Jason) in a car for 13 hours!  It was crazy, but soooo much fun!

We certainly enjoyed our trip to Montana are so grateful to the Stewarts for being such awesome hosts!  Thanks for a WONDERFUL trip - we can't wait to come back!