Winter 2020

Winter 2020

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Glacier National Park

I have 180 pictures from a 7 day trip to Glacier.  How do I even start sorting through those!  But I have too.... It must be done!

We arrived at our camp sight in time for dinner.  It was nice to get out of our truck.  We stayed at Fish Creek Campground.  Beautiful, wet, sheltered.  (huge difference from the east side of the park that we stayed at later in the trip).  Our friends had recently moved to North Dakota with a work change so we met them there and had a great double family trip.
Our first hike adventure was breathtaking.  4.5 miles RT to Avalanche Lake.  It was drizzly day which  turned out to be a blessing.  We got up to the lake and had a ton of waterfalls everywhere.  It was breathtaking.  The lighting was amazing and it was quiet and peaceful.   



We did a lot of hiking all week.  I dont know if I could even pick a favorite.  We hiked to St. Marys Fall and Virgina Falls.   4 miles RT.   So many people went only to St Marys Falls and didn't go on to Virginia Falls.  They missed out on all the beauty.  It was so nice.                                                                

St Marys Falls
Virginia Falls



We stopped at Logan Pass and wanted to do the Hidden Lake Overlook Trail but the parking lot was so full we couldn't stop until later in the afternoon.  The kids threw some snowballs and we realized we couldn't have hiked anyway since some of us had on open toed shoes.  That would have been some cold snow hiking.  We had driven the famous "Road to the Sun" on our way up to this point.  Lots of slow traffic and crazy curves.  We didn't want to do that road again.  Darren did ride it on his bike the next day.  I was worried for him the whole time.  He ended up coming down the road in the pouring rain.  He had to head straight into the storm.  and ride through it.  Pulling over to the side and finding shelter just meant he could be there for hours or 30 minutes so he rode through a huge storm and made it back to the tent and a hot shower.
We decided to pick up our tent and move to the east side of Glacier.  It was so surprising.  We went from Green lush to dry Utah looking scenery.  But it was so neat and I would recommend it to anyone.  We stayed a few more nights at Two Medicine Lake.  Our first hike there was to Twin Falls. We hiked all the way around two Medicine Lake. Beautiful.  We thought we saw a bear once and that was scary.  Carrying bear spray is scary enough... just thinking you might run into one.  The kids were tired so I just did a quick jog up to Upper Two medicine Lake.  Amazing.  Beautiful.  And peaceful.  (but that might have been the face that I didn't have 6 kids with me to entertain and distract as they hiked) We took a fun boat ride back across the lake after our 7 miles hike.  











The next day we drove up to Canada.  We want to one day make it to Banff national Park but we only made it to Waterton this time.  Would I say to do it again... no probably not.  It was super cold and rainy.  pretty... but not worth the time that day to sit in traffic to cross the border and then be freezing cold when we got out of the car.  A sunny day would have been better.  But the border between Canada and the US was cool.  You can see the tree line cut right through.

 
We had a really good meal... not cooked on a stove!  Abby ate fries and ketchup.  And then we all got a treat.  I chose the grizzlie delite. An apple cooked inside a pie crust.  relish!





On our way back from Canada we pulled into "Many Glacier" area.  It was a crazy storm in there, and the kids were done hiking for the week, so we didn't stop!  darn it.  But on the way out, a double rainbow appeared.  yeah!

The last day we let the kids just play and have fun at the lake.  Mike McBride and Darren and I all ran up to Aster Falls.  But these two athletic boys didn't want to stop at a waterfall. So we hiked/scrambled to the top of a cliff area and tried to not get blown over at the top.  We started at the bottom of the picture on the right and made it to the top of the mountain behind us.  Great views.  






We spent one day hanging out at Lake McDonald and West Glacier lake.  I laughed at this sign that was up.  It was telling the history of the area.  Not to many woman wanted to go live in cold Montana so they had a sign up... wives wanted.  We had some famous ice-cream.  Abby adored it.  We rented two little motor boats and road around the lake.  The sun came out right as we got in the boats.  There was plenty of skipping rocks this trip.





Abby did pretty well sleeping in a pack and play for a week.  She loved having everyone right there with her. I was ready for a solid good night of sleep by the time we got home.  Waking up to cover her and the kids many times a night got tiring!



It had been a great week.  But it was time to go.  Glacier was amazing.  We loved that we took a whole week to see it.  3 days would have been rushed.  6 days was relaxing and rewarding.  Thanks McBrides for the great trip.  We stopped on the way out of town and got food.  Real food.  Not heated over the stop food.  Oh we were happy!

Montana was beautiful.  Open space.  Mountains.  Big huge skies.  We loved it.




Friday, July 4, 2014

Balls Family Reunion

We came home from Pocatello and headed up to my parents cabin for a 4th of July reunion.  We stopped in Park City to ride our bikes to  the parade.  Lots of people, quite the event.  Darren had ridden his bike from our house up over the mountains to Park City so when we arrived at the cabin he was ready to get wet and cold. He wanted to soak those muscles in some cold water.  Tyler thought he would join him.  It took a little convincing to get Tyler to actually get ALL wet!

We are defiantly all an Apple family.  Without even planning it was all had our phones lined up on the counter.  I had to grab mine to a take a picture or there would have been 6.  BROTHER!

We went for a bike ride.  We played in the sand box.  Abby J brought me some flowers one time.  We sat in the rocking bench out front.  That bench has so many good memories for me.  Sitting and visiting.  Relaxing.  Watching people pull in.  Seeing cousins visiting on it.  I love that bench! The kids loved Aunt Nellie so much.  She is the party in the house!  You know we played way to much when even Tyler crashed and took a good nap in the sunshine.  Always good food to eat.  And church was delightful in Oakley. Darren took Nolan and I on a ride to Park City one morning.  Great mountain biking.




We celebrated Darrens 37th birthday.  Red Velvet cupcakes with blueberries on them.  The following week he spent his actual birthday riding a bike race named the CRUSHER.  He actually got sick because of what he ate the night before the race and couldn't eat at all.  So mile 25 into the 70 mile race he had to drop out.  Someone had to take him back to the start line because he wasn't going to make it.  Its hard when you train and cant complete what you had worked for.

Grandma and Grandpa brought up a fun craft.  The kids had a fun time decorating the "mitts" made out of milk jugs.  Lots of fun catch.


We had dutch oven, smores and campfire singing.  Aunt Nellie is so talented with music.  Ella missed Nellie so much she came home and practiced her guitar...If I were a chicken, I'd be a shaky chicken.....



These two little cousins are 2 weeks apart.  I am so glad they have each other to play with.