Day 91 - Vinnie is a bad influence

Vinnie has this annoying habit of licking the balcony window.  Vinnie is a bad influence.

Because it looked so fun when Vinnie was doing it!

Big day tomorrow.  Its my 25th birthday and we are heading out on an adventure! Destination, unknown.  Trent has planned a road trip and left me (and Harrison and Vinnie) in the dark. Because we will be on the road Trent baked me a cake and gave me a present today. A Ukulele!! Fall is around the corner and a hobby for that time is welcomed with open arms. Maybe we will even get to jam with everyone at the Ukulele Orchestra (yes a real thing. Yes I love it.)

Harrison and I posing with our new toy

 Trent's beautiful cake. Brilliant improvising when he ran out of vanilla icing...

Harrison enjoying looking but not touching

Day 90 - Fire school

Nice slow day around the condo today.  (Planning for Emily's birthday on Monday :)

Since Harrison is now over 8 months old and more than 18 pounds we thought it was time for him to begin his fire training.  He has decided that he wants to be a firefighter just like mom.  Conveniently we found a firefighting uniform for him the other day in Kalispell.

All dressed up and ready for action.

First we do some ladder work.

Learning to climb.

Not afraid of heights.

Finally, made it to the top!

Now for search and rescue.

Searching.

Rescuing.

Success!

Harrison saves the day.

I'm bored, time for a nap.  (Like a true firefighter)

Day 89 - Flathead Lake

Another beautiful day in Montana.  Today we headed south of Kalispell to Flathead Lake.  First stop was Bigfork a small town on the lake.  At Bigfork there was a small trail down Swan River.  Made for a nice walk and views.  (Please pardon the spots on the pictures, we didn't know that the lens was dirty until checking the pictures later on)

A small trail off the main one led us down to a small rock cliff.

Harrison just couldn't manage to stay awake for the picture.

After the trail we made it to Flathead Lake.  With some struggles we managed to find a very nice spot to take a dip.

Water was clear, sun was shining and the red rocks at the bottom of the lake were very nice.

Vinnie was so happy to have a chance to chase sticks into the lake.

Water was cold, but Harrison still enjoyed getting in.

Very nice afternoon before heading back to Elkford.

Day 88 - Big Mountain

Today is the day, venture out and finally find the elusive Huckleberry. Half way up Big Mountain (ski hill in Whitefish) we finally found them.  Delicious!  Rumour has it, farther up the mountain you can find berries the size of a quarter.

At Big Mountain we tried out the trail to the top called Danny On trail.  Very nice views and a perfect walk to give Vinnie a chance to stretch his legs.  We were not able to make it to the top as we had too many other things planned that day.  We will be back to hike to the top and take the gondola down!

 Emily and Harrison enjoying the hike.

A view of Big Mountain ski resort and Whitefish Lake.  (The town of Whitefish is also off in the distance on the left hand side of the lake)

View up the hill was just as nice as the valley.  The huckleberries we found were in the red plants you can see on the hillside.

After the mountain we made it to the city beach in Whitefish.  The combination of beach, mountains, lake and big sky was fantastic.  Beautiful day!

Day 87 - Big Sky Country

Back to Montana today to see a bit more of the Whitefish area.  This time we decided to drive through Waterton National Park to get into the states.  Very nice drive!

To start off the day we did the Road to the Sun drive again in Glacier National Park.  This time we did it East to West for a different view.  The first thing we came to is St. Mary's lake.  You may recognize it from movies Forest Gump and The Shining.

Once we got to the top of the hill the sun was shining and the view was nothing short of spectacular.

Once we got to the far side of the mountain we stopped at a little village called Apgar.  Here we enjoyed some Huckleberry ice cream, frozen yogurt and Lake Mcdonald.

After the park we made it to our home for the next few days.  A cozy little cabin at the KOA near Whitefish and ready for a visit with some good friends also in the campground.

Day 86 - Emily's first fish

Big day today.  Emily caught her first fish.  (Flyfishing)

After teaching Harrison to fish, Emily decided to try her own luck in the river.  Caught the biggest fish we've seen out of the river yet!

Harrison, not happy that he didn't catch anything, decided to settle for dipping his toes in the water.

Back to Montana tomorrow for some camping and to search for their famous Huckleberries.

Day 85 - Deerborne Golf and Country Club

Emily and I decided to try out Elkford's newest golf course today.  Conveniently it is just down the road and they even allow babies.  (Harrison has never been golfing so he was very excited)

Disc golf of course.  (Cool people know it as frolf)

Just recently they opened up the frolf course just down the road from the condo.  Emily and I bought specialty Elkford discs from the visitor centre and the rest is history.

Excited for our new found hobby, we gave it a try.  The course has a par of 55 over 18 holes, we both probably shot around 100.  More practice needed.

p.s - We changed the settings on the blog today so that everyone can make comments.  Sorry if you've tried to comment before but couldn't.  Didn't know we needed to do that.

Day 84 - A taste of English

The most exciting thing that happened today is that we used english muffins (toasted) for the buns of our burgers.  Try it - you won't regret it - I promise.

Harrison is getting a little bit of cabin fever so we will definitely get him outside a bit more tomorrow...

Trying to escape...

Before his bath, a little delirious and a lot dirty.

After his bath, spotless and still delirious but much cleaner.

Day 83 - Absolutely nothing

Today we did absolutely nothing.  Sweet sweet nothing.

Harrison was very sad to see his Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle leave today.  The condo (and entire town) seems so empty...

We took the day to relax while Harrison spent the day getting into everything.  He needed a day like this... and so did we!

Day 82 - Fun Friday

With rain in the forecast today (and every day until next month) we were forced to stay inside.  Didn't mind too much considering the pace we have kept over the last few weeks.  Harrison loved the chance to crawl around the condo and try to burn a hole in his new sweat pants!  I'm sure tomorrow will be more productive???  (Or at least we will take more pictures)

Day 81 - Glacier National Park

View from the Hidden Lake lookout at the top of Logan's Pass.

Today we made it to Glacier National Park.  Despite a little hiccup at the entrance we managed to have a very nice day.  Two nights earlier Lucas and I carefully found and counted all of the American coins from the coin jar.  Exactly $25 dollars worth, conveniently the same cost as admission into the park.  The lady at the park gate wouldn't take our word for how much money was in the bag and insisted on counting out all the coins while the line of cars behind us continued to grow.  We decided to use Visa as it wasn't fair for everyone to wait for her to count it all out.  I guess them Americans aren't as trusting as us Canadians...  We will find somewhere else to spend our hard earned money.

Not willing to let the mean lady ruin our day, we continued on to the "Going to the sun" road.  A 53 mile drive through the park described as one of the most beautiful drives in America.  It was a little cloudy up in the mountains, but the drive was still spectacular!  Here are some of our photos.

A mountain stream at the start of the drive.

Lucas and Emily hanging out.

Mount Cannon peaking out of clouds.

Managed to get one good picture out of the drivers side window.

Not much room between the face of the mountain, the cars and the cliff!

So many mountains, waterfalls and glaciers.

Hard to pay attention to the road with so many things zooming by.

A spectacular road to drive on.

 The clouds hanging in the mountains made for some very nice photos.

Jim, Harrison, Emily, Ramona and Lucas