Big Sky 2015

It's already the middle of the week so I thought I better get this vacation post done before it's too far in the past to be interesting anymore.  If it is interesting at all...

Between my phone, my camera, and everyone else's phones and cameras there is a large assortment of photos and first I added the phone pictures and then my camera pictures, which put them at the top.  I arranged a few but these won't be in a very logical order.  Since I am a non-type A person I don't care about this at all but it may drive others crazy. 

We spent the night in Billings at a hotel before heading into the mountains.  This has been the tradition since I was a child and although a night at a hotel doesn't seem that exciting this night has always been a fun kick off to the trip.  There is a Fuddrucker's burger restaurant across the street from the hotel and since that place is gone from ND and was a family favorite when it was in Fargo it is always fun to eat there.  Well, this year, we were dismayed to walk up to the door and find it temporarily closed (there is another restaurant that overflows into the parking lot so it looked busy) because there had been a fire in one of the bathrooms!  So pizza delivery it was. 

That night we took the kids swimming. 

 

This hotel conveniently had a shallow wading pool and Tessa loved it.  She stood in her floaty ring and ran around the pool in circles for quite awhile. 

 

The picture below is the first glimpse of Big Sky as you drive along the highway toward the resort. 

 

It is always a thrill to see, especially on a clear day when you can see the mountain peak!

This year we had two condo units that connected to each other. It was a nice arrangement to have two kitchens, two laundry rooms and countless bathrooms.  There were five bathrooms in each house so we had 10!  What a dream!  There were also robes.  Fancy.  Here is my brother in his robe with my sister's daughter. 

Since we have the most kids we ended up sleeping in the bunk room with them.  So Ben and I shared  bunk bed.  He loved having the top bunk and I have to admit that I found something very cozy about sleeping in the little cave of a bottom bunk.  This is probably due to the nostalgia of someone who loved camp as a child and who lived in dorm situations for several years beyond the initial freshman in college experience.  Although, looking back, I don't know how we hauled our...ummm...exhausted...selves up to those top bunks in college. 

 The big event for us was Ben putting on skis for the first time!  Justin pulled him down to the base area in a sled the first morning so he could see us all in our skis and on the way he ran into a ski instructor and asked about the lift ticket policy for kids (they ski free!) and ended up signing him up for a lesson. 

I have more photos of him in his skis down below.

Here is the complex where he stayed.  It had one of the better views we have ever had  I think!

Here is a baby takeover in the kitchen.

Cousins!

Every year since Ben was only a few weeks old we have taken a picture at the base of the mountain.  They look thrilled, don't they?

The evening sun was not ideal for photos and they are kind of shadowed.  We thought hiding in front of that pillar might help. 

Children, look at the camera!

 

Our houses were filled with lovely touches.  They are pretty new and very modern.  Ours had a shuffleboard table and my aunt and uncle's had a pool table.

 

 

 

Here is my cousin and I on the first morning of skiing.  The weather was really nice this year and warm.  It was almost too warm and by the end of the week the snow melt was becoming an issue.  Personally, I don't like being outside in frigid temperatures all day so I liked this regardless of the lack of snow depth. 

 

Here is Ben and Grandpa in their matching outfits.  We had to joke about the recent "dress" controversy.  Does it look like they are wearing blue and black or gold and white?  Definitely gold and white...

 

Here we are out on the mountain at the same time!

This mountaintop bar and restaurant has been closed for a few years so it was fun to see it open again and the weather was perfect for outdoor breaks. 

Here is the little skier! 

 

We have a video from his lesson which is so cute but I can't figure out how to get it on here without a lot of work so I didn't add it.  I believe most people have seen it on Facebook or had it sent to them already anyway.  He did really good, which by three year old standards means that he didn't throw a fit, have a meltdown or get scared.  I didn't see him at his lesson but Justin observed from afar for a few minutes.  We skied with him after the lesson on our own and took him out for awhile again the next day.  I have to say that I really admire those teachers.  It is not easy lugging those little kids around! 

See that camera I am wearing strapped to me?  It's a GoPro.  Ben wore it also!  His footage is mostly me and Justin standing over him hauling him off the ground. 

Look at him go!  Skis nice and straight!  The instructor said that children don't have the strength in their legs to do stops and turns before they are four so they didn't get into that yet.  It was more about the enjoyment of skiing.  He did like it and continued to ask to go during the week. 

 

Here Ben is again on a tower of bean bag chairs in the movie lounge room upstairs.  It was a good place to it!

 

One morning I took these two out sledding.  It was uneventful except I just love the scenery. 

 

I'm still working on re-entering the real world after a week in the mountains.  At least the warm weather was waiting for us when we got home but now it is snowing today so Waaahh waaaaaah. 

 

Ben the 3 Year Old

We made it back from our trip to Montana on Saturday.  We came home to spring weather and spent all weekend playing outside.  I am so tired from everything and the time change that I have hardly managed to unpack anything besides the necessities and am just starting the laundry.  "Spring Forward" is such a beast. 

Before I tell you all the fascinating details of my family vacation (since everyone likes to hear all the details of other people's family vacations!) I have to devote a post to Ben's birthday which was last Saturday. 

He had two mini parties, one of which was at a hotel since we were travelling on his birthday.  He didn't care though.  Here are a few photos from his celebrations.

 

He got a t-ball set the weekend before we left.  I thought it would be awhile before this thing got any use but we were able to try it out this weekend!   It was pretty fun.  I was never a t-ball player myself so I don't think I am the best person to demonstrate this equipment.  I played softball for two years in the later elementary school years because all my friends did and it was just embarrassing since all my friends had played since the t-ball years.  This was followed by a few mediocre intramural and recreational league softball adventures which found me happily chilling out in right field.

 

Here he is with his first cake.  For his first and second birthday he had a cake made my me (recall the Allan cake from his 1st birthday and the construction site cake from last year!) but this year he had two store bought cakes.  This one was purchased by Justin's mom. 

We gave him a present before we left on Saturday morning so he would have a travel buddy. It was Curious George!  George was a hit. 

 

That night at the hotel he received some other nice gifts including this farm set with a machine shed from Justin (and me, but especially Justin).  He calls it his "tractor house". 

 

Here is his second cake, which Justin purchased at Dairy Queen in Billings, Montana.   It was delicious.  I couldn't have done it better myself.  Not even close.

 

Of course, no good birthday post would be complete without a few old baby pictures to smile over.  His are really special to me because our old house is in the background.  I still love that wood floor. 

 

 

Having a three year old is hard to believe.  Three is a transitional year when everything starts, such as preschool and little kids sports at the Y and Sunday school and all sorts of things.  I feel like it is a gateway between being a say at home mom of babies to being a mom on the go hauling kids all over town.  It should be interesting.  But it is good.  He is a big boy now who doesn't even wear pull-ups at night anymore and can run to the bathroom without even telling me.  It's crazy!  He can also mostly dress himself and his memory is getting so impressive.  I can't believe the way he remembers books and songs and things like that.  He loves to draw and build creations with Legos and "help" around the house.  He can also throw a major fit for no discernable reason.  Aaahhh...three year olds are the epitome of crazy.



Ben on the Ice

I feel as though I am neglecting the old blog these days.  It's not because I don't want to write anything.  It is because Ben quit napping so now I can't get anything done ever.  Without getting into it and sounding really whiny and like I don't enjoy my children I will just say that it's bad around here.  Conditions are deteriorating rapidly and discreetly stashing toys away has become nearly impossible.  He's watching "Curious George" in another room right now and I am stealthily using the computer before he figures it out and comes in here wanting to press various letters and numbers. 

So, let me see...what has been interesting in this house lately?  Ben went ice fishing with Justin and his friends last weekend. 

 

This is when they were setting up.  They each have a portable house with a heater so it's not so unfathomable to have a little kid out in the cold all day.  However, they did have to come up with some...interesting...alternatives to a toilet while he was out there.  I was impressed.  He really is trained now.  The photo above was taken when I dropped him off and yes it is in the middle of a lake.  It was my first time driving on a frozen lake!  Don't freak out Grandpa!  He loved to tell a cautionary tale of a pickup that fell through the ice on a lake near my hometown many many years ago. 

 

Here is a fun candid of Ben wearing Allan's Christmas costume. 

 

I am always embarrassed to behold the clutter in the background of most photos taken in our house.  This one isn't even bad.  I can explain most of it.  The shoes are from a drawer in the dresser where I stash all the slippers and baby shoes of various sizes.  Tessa loves to open it and empty it so there are mismatched shoes all over the house most of the time.  That blue circle is a coaster.  I have no idea why that is there.  None of our tables are worthy of coasters and I used to just use them for looks until Ben was old enough to take them and spread them all over the house.  This one was probably in his toy box. 

 

I was going to explain why the crib was full of blankets when I noticed that Tessa is in there!  I think she was supposed to be napping and Ben snuck in there to play with her.  He likes to throw all the blankets from that quilt rack by the crib into the crib. 

 

My big recent excitement is that I got jury duty for today.  When I called last night for details I found out my pool was off the hook although the trial actually is happening.  Although I have no problem fulfilling my civic duty I am relieved about today.  The child care part was going to take some orchestrating. 

 

We are leaving for a trip to Montana on Saturday so I have a lot of packing to do and also cleaning because we will have guests staying here the night before we leave.  So hopefully I will have one more post before then!  The day we leave is Ben's 3rd birthday so maybe I will do his birthday post before we leave. 

The Importance of the Mundane

When my grandma moved out of her house last summer my dad acquired stacks and stacks of my grandpa's calendar journals.  It turns out that my grandpa had been recording little facts about each day for most of his life and he had saved the calendars for years and years. Like 40 years.  Such things just fascinate me.  Thinking about how some small phrase such as "Maren's graduation" and "Tim and family left for overseas" can be just a glimpse into a much larger and very important story in a family history appeals to the history lover in me I guess.  Even the mundane entries about farming and weather give insight.  I suppose this same fascination is why I haven't been able to throw away my school assignment books from high school and college.  The high school books, which were school issued so we all had matching ones, are full of funny scribbles, notes and inside jokes between classmates that instantly bring memories flowing back.  And the college ones, which I generally purchased from the school bookstore because they had important school calendar dates and breaks already printed in them, are like a condensed diary of the endless fun and busyness of Greek life and the other fun school activities of an involved student who really did live life to the fullest during those wonderful youthful years.  Well, I made the most of my college years socially.  I wish I could say the same for academically.  I really didn't challenge myself the way I could have!

So, I try to keep this in mind on days when I feel like I don't really have anything to write about and end up just sharing pictures of the kids.  What they are interested in and like to do during a certain week could change my next week so I can look back on this post and look back into my life at that time.  I admit that I have to consult my blog posts sometimes when filling out baby books or trying to remember when they started doing something!  Speaking of that, this weekend I completed Tessa's baby book!  And by completed I made it to the last first birthday page.  There is still room for updating if necessary. 

Here are a few recent pictures. 

 

Here is Tessa looking at the "American Girl" catalogue.  The Carter's catalogue with all the pictures of babies was getting ripped beyond help so I found this buried in a stack somewhere.  When she saw this page she said, "Aaaaaahhhh baybeeeees!"

 

Here she is yesterday.  I realized all was quiet in the living room...too quiet...which as any parent or person who has been responsible for children knows usually means they are doing something naughty.  But she was just sitting on the couch reading!  The whole living room is like a book explosion.  Her first act every morning is to open the cupboards where the books are and drag all of the books all over the house.  It is insane.  Books are everywhere. 

 

We had two "kid" New Year's resolutions.  One was to get Ben toilet trained (success!) and the other was to take Tessa's pacifier away.  Well...that last one isn't really happening yet.  She just had a tough month of molar teething and wasn't sleeping very well so we didn't want to make it even worse for everyone.  And now she can put two in her mouth at once.  She's so gifted. 

Here is Ben this morning.  Justin built him this lego airplane/monster truck hybrid last night and he likes it enough that he hasn't ripped it to pieces yet.  He found a hair tie of mine laying around the house somewhere (they are everywhere) and decided it was a rope and then he decided he wanted more ropes so he hurdled over the baby gate blocking the master bathroom, went into the drawer where I keep my "ropes" and took all of them out.  And then he did this with them.  He's strange.  However, it is better than his recent favorite activity which is stacking all of the flat legos in the house into one big tower and then demanding that I take them apart because he bites off his fingernails and can't do it himself.  This has been driving me CRAZY.  I am ready to hide all the flat legos because now my nails are ragged.  I have started using my teeth to pull the flat legos apart. 

And finally, I can't forget about Allan.  Here is a picture of him from this morning with book and magazine wreckage in the background. 

 

Doesn't he look like a sweet, cuddly little kitten?  I know, he doesn't.  This is his "attack" face, with ears pushed back. 

Tessa at 15 Months

I missed the actual day, but Tessa's 15 month doctor's appointment is tomorrow so that reminded me that I should observe her being 15 months.  It's a doctor's appointment month so I guess it is kind of like a milestone, right? 

 

She is a very busy little baby these days.  She climbs on everything and loves to sit on the kitchen table.  At first this freaked me out but as the weeks pass and she proves that she won't dive off the edge I have given up and let her do it.  Fortunately, she hasn't figured out that the dining room table is equally accessible so it remains one of the few kid free oases in the house.  And yes, that word refers to an oasis.  I just had to look up the plural of oasis and this is what it is: oases.  It looks weird. 

 

She is saying some words, mostly kitten, baby, ball, book and read.  She loves to read and as soon as you sit down she is launching a book into your lap and saying her version of "read!" She also kicks back and looks at books on her own.  Today when I picked her up at the Y she was lounging in a bean bag in the reading corner and looking at a book.  Some days when I get there she has been sliding down the toddler slide head first so that was a change. 

 

She is good at following directions and will put something in the garbage can if told, will bring an item to me or Justin if we tell her to and if you say, "lets have a snack" she practically sprints through the clutter to get to her high chair.  If you talk about getting dressed she runs down the hall and comes back with handfuls of shirts from her drawer. 

 

She likes babies and one of her favorite "books" at the moment is a Carter's catalogue that came in the mail because it has pictures of babies in it.  She also loves to climb into her baby swing (which I think we can finally put away.  One less piece of clutter in the crap capitol of ND...)

 

Here she is trying to share a book with Al.  He's very interested in learning colors. 

 

She still looks like a baby because she still has baby hair!  I see other girls her age with full hairstyles and wearing ponytails and barrettes.  I don't mind though.  Once the baby look is gone it is gone for good so I am just going to enjoy her cute baby appearance while it lasts!  Styling a toddler's hair is a task I am glad to avoid as long as possible. 

 

I look forward to her appointment tomorrow as I do all of them, and especially because there are no shots this appointment.  It is fun to see growth and progress although I know she is pretty small for her age at least I know it's not because she doesn't eat like her brother at this age. 

Ben the Retriever

My parents have a Golden Retriever at the farm.  Retrievers are "our" kind of dog.  There has been a retriever at the farm for almost 21 years.  The first one, Penny, joined the family as a puppy in 1994, the second one, Chubs, joined the family as an eight year old adoptee in 2005, and the current dog, Wally, arrived in 2009 as a four year old.  He's still there.  Ben loves him.  He talks about "Wal Wal" all the time.  He even refers to dogs in general as Wal Wals. 

 

Here is Wall Wal himself, looking like the finely bred specimen that he is.  And I am being serious about that.  He is purebred but all signs point to him being the type of dog that people pay quite a bit for.  His previous owner was clearly kind to him and trained him well in a gentle way because he is so well behaved and doesn't jump on people, chase cars, or growl over his food or anything like that and he also doesn't show fear of people, hands, or men which some of our dogs have displayed which indicates that they weren't treated so kindly in the past.  Hoever, he said he never trained him to hunt but yet Wally still shows hunting insticts.  He points and when he followed my dad out hunting the fall after he arrived he sat down behind my dad when he raised the gun.  Very interesting.  Dogs really are very intelligent. 

 

Wally has this really weird habit, which usually happens during warm weather, where he submerges himself in the creek, his wading pool (yes he has a wading pool) or some other puddle and then goes to my mom's vehicle and circles around it while rubbing his body all over it.  He also does this to a tree trunk in front of the house but he really enjoys rubbing on the SUV.  As a result, the vehicle is usually decorated with swirls of water streaks in the gravel dust. 

 

Here is a picture I have from one summer afternoon when my mom was washing the car.  You can see he is going in for the rub!

 

 

The reason I am bringing this up at all is because Ben has started doing the same thing.  When he gets out of the car he walks around the car while keeping in contact with it and running his fingers through the winter grime that is always coating it.  So it is streaky and his coat is dirty.  I tried to take a picture of the streaks but you can't see what I am referring to in the picture.  It's just one of those weird things that is mildly amusing on these boring winter days...

 

We had an OK Valentine's weekend.  The kids were horrendously crabby and whiny and tantrum-y so 90% of the weekend was spent listening to crying, fit throwing and screaming.  Our Valentine's Day dinner out was at a burrito place because we knew a full sit down restaurant would have been a disaster.  It was fine though.  We are just in the transition period between the youthful college girls movie nights and card paying and drinking (referring to when I was single, not including Justin haha), the over crowded dinner dates, and the school Valentine box making adventures of the future.

 

Here are my Valentine flowers.  

 

I also received a live calla lily plant.  Hopefully it lives a long time! 

Here is Tessa with her hugging kittens!

I Got My Tickets!

Yesterday, I joined millions of Americans in the almost always pointless, complete long shot ritual of heading into the neighborhood convenience store and buying some chances at the Powerball.  If you haven't heard, the jackpot is the largest it has ever been, which I just saw in the news is now 500 million dollars! 

 

Nothing captures the imagination the way winning the lottery can.  When I was working, the group I worked with, about 10 people, would occasionally buy tickets together when the jackpot got huge. Fantasizing about what we would do if we won was a great way to pass the afternoon.  I have a Pinterest board devoted to the mountain lodge that I will buy in the event that I win the Powerball. 

So, after tonight, I will probably start the process of obtaining this lodge.  Here is a sampling from my Pinterest board:

 

 

Very nice...

 

 

How perfect...

 

 

Yes please!

 

 

Very rustic...

 

 

I have considered every detail! 

 

I let the machine generate my numbers.  I hope it wasn't a mistake not choosing my own!  I don't buy tickets very often since the price increased to $2 instead of $1 but I used to have some preferred numbers of birthdays and such. 

 

Good luck everyone! You still have a chance at the $1,000,000 for matching all but the powerball and many smaller prizes!

Morning at the "Mah-zoom"

We live in the state capitol and our house is a short few minute drive from the actual capitol grounds.  in addition to the actual capitol, the grounds include many other headquarters including the DOT (everyone's favorite), the state library, several gardens and statues, the governor's house and the historical society and heritage center and museum. 

 

I last visited the heritage center in 8th grade, during a class trip to Bismarck with our ND History teacher.  We were sooo excited for that trip and I'm sure the teacher and parent chaperones were too.  Because travelling with a bunch of middle school students is such a blast I'm sure. 

 

Since 2011 there have been major additions and renovations going on at the heritage center and it finally opened recently.  So yesterday, we decided to check it out.  With a one and a two year old.  Yeah, I don't know what we were thinking either.  But I knew there were lots of dinosaur bones there and also some bison so we got Ben excited by telling him he would see those things.  He ran with it, talking about how he was going to see dinosaurs, bison, and elephants (?).  The best part was how he pronounced "museum" which was is "mah-zoom".

 

This "mah-zoom" features a lot of science exhibits detailing ND's pre-historic days as a hot and steamy swamp similar to the Florida Everglades and the glacial Lake Agassiz that cut the flat farmland of the Red River Valley. (The town I grew up in is on the beach of the lake! Everyone says it and I saw it on a map!)  There have been bones of many strange prehistoric creatures discovered under the fields of ND including aquatic animals and it is quite fascinating although hard to fathom. 

 

 

Ben got to see lots of dinosaur skeletons (mostly replicas with the real bones displayed in cases) and also fish, birds and weird prehistoric bison and deer related species that are long gone.  There was even a mammoth so he actually did get to see an elephant. 

Here he is with the "mommy and daddy and baby bisons"!

In addition to the nature related exhibits there were many more modern exhibits about the energy industry, railroads, education and agriculture. 

 

There was even a modern tractor cab with the wheels removed so kids could sit in the driver's seat and drive in a stimulated field on a screen. 

 

Although the visit was fun, Justin and I agreed we both could have spent a lot more time reading all the plaques and smaller exhibits if we weren't busy wrangling children.  For example, did you know that in the 1930s the Works Progress Administration established a ceramics project that employed people to collect clay and create dishes and other ceramics like doll heads, figurines and decorative ND themed plaques to used in public institutions like hospitals, libraries, and schools?  I saw the collection and the dishes look kind of like a more delicate version of Fiestaware.  If I had a job with the WPA during the Great Depression I would have liked to be on a ceramics project! I love the way that history has so many specific stories within the major events that we study. 

 

Ben is still talking about the "mah-zoom" and wants to go back.  I can't believe we didn't go sooner.  It is free and right by our house and there is plenty of space for maneuvering a double stroller around the place.