Red Lodge - Day 2

Day 2's adventure included Rialta driving a total of about 5 hours over Bear Tooth Pass, which is just outside of Redlodge. Once on the other side of the mountains in Wyoming, we stopped in Cooke City for lunch at a small lodge. Greasy, but good. The grease wasn't so good for the twisty drive home though. Terry almost threw up! But, we did foolishly attempt to play The Farming Game in the back of the Rialta. Not our brightest idea.

Here is a photo that Terry took on the way up the Pass

Here is the lookout near the top of the mountains

Noah was so excited...

Further up we stopped again above the snow melt. Terry was throwing it at me!

Good times

Pretty yeah? Lotza lakes

Red Lodge - Day 1

Mid-August brought us VACATION TIME! We went home for the first day of our vacation and the next continued on with Terry's family (mom, dad, sister, bother-in-law) to Redlodge, Montana. We all drove together, at the same time, in Jerry's Rialta! Upon arriving, we found that Terry's cousin, wife and 2 kids were also at the cabin so we enjoyed that night and most of the next day together.

Here is Terry carrying Evie as we set out for our first expedition, a hike up the road...

I am a huge dork and forgot all of Noah's jeans that I thought I had packed. So he was in his pajama pants for the first night and day. It was necessary b/c it was pretty chilly up there!

...our hike up the road turned into a hike off the road when we decided to scale the mountain next to us. Here Terry is crossing the small stream that also goes behind the cabin and supplies it's water. And that's Brett, Terry's cousin.

Peek-a-boo girl on daddy's back

We made it about half way up the mountain, which looks pretty high, but really wasn't. We took a harder "trail," that wasn't really a trail at all and we were tired out.

The Rialta crew

I like this one

Terry is doing his Gandalf, "You SHALL NOT PASS!" stance atop a boulder

The slightly thinner area below and to the left the open area is where we made it to. The way down was so much easier b/c we didn't take same way as we did on the way up. Phew!

Here is the front door to the cabin as we get ready for lunch. The cabin was built in 1940 and owned by Terry's great Gramma and now it belongs to his Grampa.

What does Evie do when I tell her not to go in the stream?

This is Rock Creek, which was just a short walk from the cabin and the smaller stream behind our house fed into it. That's Terry's mom on the bridge. His dad attempted fishing, but had no luck.

Evie was super tired and slept for 3 hours this day. Unfortunately she awoke at 530am the following morning and woke up Shari!

Here is the bane of my existence: The Farming Game. Okay, okay, it's not really, but it's not my favorite. It's a childhood "favorite" of Terry's which he forced upon us all. But we played the whole game which took several hours upon several hours, but it did end, eventually, thankfully. And Terry won.

Playing in the dirt and pine needle yard.

Jerry is playing "Washers" with Terry while Jesse and Shari watch. Jesse was just learning at this point but became so good that no one could beat him, which he too thoroughly enjoyed.

Noah wants a bow-and-arrow like this. We'll have to keep that in mind.

Terry is throwing his washer to the opposite hole in the ground. Oh and we took Snapdog with us, which was SO annoying. And the outhouse is pictured behind Terry.

camp out

Our church had a father/child camp out at the park at the north end of town, just a few blocks from our house, really. Terry took the kids for dinner and Noah stayed overnight - his first camping experience ever!

Here is proof that Evie was there...along with all the other kids

We had to buy a tent special just for this. It's the blue and orange one =)

And here's Noah not eating a s'more - he only wants the graham cracker!

beware the snake

I don't mind my son doing this. I was quite proud of him, actually. Evie was napping or else she would have screamed but Noah did quite well with some encouragement from his mama.

His friend Grant helped him. Grant is fond of every kind of animal =)

After he showed his mom, I had him put the snake back where he found it - the crook in our tree!

10. "before and after" dungeon

"Before" dungeon, which is the basement/lowest level and is below the front room. Up the stairs from here is the "downstairs" as we call it - well, we have TWO downstairs so we had to call this one something different, hence, Dungeon. So, all there is to notice here are the branches in the window.

"After." Yeah, it's pretty much all the same except for clean carpet, our stuff and Terry cut down the bushes by the front door. This is our room for extra stuff and is also an office.

"Before." Lots and lots of shelving. The door to the right is the storage/furnace room

"After." Yeeeeeah. Pretty much the same except for our stuff, which we don't have enough of to fill all those shelves. In the future this will be a good home schooling room though. Big dry erase board...

9. "before and after" guest bedroom

"Before" guest bedroom with old carpet and paint.

"After." I chose the same color as our old guest bedroom b/c I liked it so much. Perhaps saved me a little money too since I still had the can... There's also the new carpet.

"Before" closet and dresser.

"After." I guess all we did was take out that old mirror and paint behind it. And you can see that when we don't have guests that this is Snap's room =)

8. "before and after" downstairs

Here is the "before" view of the downstairs taken from the stairs. Notice the lights - these same ones were what we replaced in the rest of the house. We have yet to replace these two...

"After" view. We pretty much just scraped, cleaned and painted the walls and replaced the carpet down here.

"Before" looking into the guest bedroom. To the right is another bathroom, thought it's not pictured.

"After." The door with the fan is to the guest room and then of course the other door is the bathroom which still has a lot of work to be done - exhaust fan and new shower surround. But it does have a new toilet and faucet so that's something.

"Before" view of the built in shelving. I had almost wished that we took all this out, but it looks beautiful now... Notice the mirror and the cupboard to the left of it, as well as the cupboard underneath it and the criss-cross shelving.

"After" shelving. All those things are gone now! We took out the mirror and the cupboard to the left and under to fit the tv and dvd players. Herb and Dave removed the criss-cross business. JoAnn also painted these doors, drawers and shelves for me!

"Before" looking up the stairs to the front room.

"After" with two kids. Notice how I painted the wood "trim" stuff on the right.

7. "before and after" bathroom

"Before" upstairs bathroom.

"Before" counter top, tile and drawers.

"After." We painted the ceiling, walls and drawers. Terry's dad replaced the old spotted yellow tiles with clean white ones. We also installed a new light, toilet and faucet.

I like the new shower curtain