Summer Vacation

Last week we got to go on a vacation to Bozeman! Every year in June, all the firefighter hopefuls from all over the state gather in Bozeman and take a test. This year there were 994 applicants. You can't be hired as a firefighter anywhere in Montana without taking the test, and even then only a few are hired.

Monday morning Tyler took the written test. Out of the 994 people, they only let 300 move on to the physical test. I am so proud to say that Tyler got a 95% on his test. The high score was a 97% and there were only 5 people who scored higher than Tyler! We are pretty excited about his score and ranking in the top 1%! The consortium was scheduled for 4 days, written test on day 1 and then depending on how you did you were assigned a time for the rest of the 3 days. Well, Tyler was done with the whole thing by Tuesday morning and we had our hotel room until Thursday morning so I was pretty excited for some unscheduled, uninterrupted family time!

(while Tyler and I were playing cards on the bed, Alex got into the bag of pretzle rods and was loving life)

The weather was terrible but we still managed to have a lot of fun. We made it to the Museum of the Rockies on Tuesday which was great. We watched a star show in the planetarium that was facinating! My fantastic husband was so nice and took a squirming and screaming Alex out of the show after about 10 minutes so I could enjoy the rest of it. There were TONS of dinosaur fossils and exhibits, and a treasure exhibit that was pretty cool. We ended the day by going to Walmart and buying a pack of 100 playgym balls for Alex. It made her crib into a ballpit and therefore, the hotel room quite fun.

Fortunately, the bad weather only lasted the first two days (which seemed endless, sitting in the hotel room all day). Wednesday we went to Lewis and Clark Caverns (one of the things on our Montana Bucket List) and had a blast! We strapped Alex into the front carrier baby backpack thing and figured she would do well during the tour. Poor Tyler's back was killing him after the 2 mile, 2 hour tour was over. It was similar to the Timp Cave experience, but better by about 100x. I can't even describe the place, it was just amazing. My favorite part was where you had to slide down the 'beaver tail' it was seriously like a rock slide that twisted around stalactites and pillars and stuff. It was only like 3 feet tall so you couldn't just walk or hunch through, it was crawling or sliding! While there still were the steps and handrails, it was more of a rugged cave tour where you felt like you were exploring the place by yourself, ducking down, crawling and squeezing through places. Not quite a 'nutty putty' adventure, but a lot better than Jewel cave, or Timp caves. Anyway....

We had a blast at the cave, even though Alex got bored after about 20 minutes and was trying to free herself from the harness the other hour and a half. She was quite vocal in the cave, but mostly whining and jabbering instead of crying or screaming. Poor Tyler. Once again I got to enjoy the activity while he wrestled with the baby. After the caves we drove back to Bozeman and I dropped Tyler off at the Hotel to get a nap, while Alex and I went back to the museum and spent 2 hours in the "kids discovery room" it was a fun place and Alex had a hayday!

(The discovery center had a bunch of costumes, I thought Alex looked great as an Astronaut)
Thursday was our pack up and leave day so we decided to take our time, and explore the mountains a bit. Bozeman is located right next to the mountains, sort of like Provo. But unlike the entire wasatch front, instead of building houses right up the mountain as far as gravity will allow, there was a bit grassy plain leading up from the city. It was just beautiful. It made it so everyone could enjoy the view. So I plotted a course on google earth and hoped that those roads actually existed.

Once again I was so grateful for my wonderful husband and his patience. We missed the turn that would have taken us through the really scenic part of the mountain drive, and then ended up on a dirt road for about an hour. I loved every minute of it, Alex wasn't quite as enthusiastic, and Tyler was probably wondering why in the world we couldn't have taken the freeway home. We did end up at the natural bridge and went on a fun hike with amazing views. At that point I think Tyler decided it was worth it.

(the waterfall behind us is emerging from under a huge natural bridge. The picture doesn't do it justice, it's an amazing thing to see. Huge churning river disapears underground and then shoots out of a hole in the side of a cliff)

Of course the highlights for me were the strange times when everyone was calm, happy and not in a stressed out hurry! Walking around in Walmart looking for peanut butter, playing in the freezing cold swimming pool which morphed into playing in the super warm bathtub, playing phase 10 on the bed or driving around looking for a dinner place that might sell soup! It really taught me a lesson about life, and that I usually do find the most happiness and joy in the simplest places. A friend in one of my classes once told me (he was about 10 years my senior) that once you have kids, you have a lot less fun...... but a lot more joy. It's so true, overall I have never been happier in my life I experience true joy just about everyday, although the majority of my day's may not be very 'fun'.

(I just love Alex's face in this one)

(the bathtub was a lot warmer than the pool)