Montana... How we love thee!

Every September, we pull the kids out of school and trek on over to Montana to see Grandpa and Grandma Barker. We stopped halfway up near LoLo Pass to camp. It was in the 40's when we went hiking. Notice Zoe's breath fogging up the shot.




At the end of the trail, we found these amazing hot springs. Holland and Greer stripped down to their skivvies (yes we have blackmail photos for when they are dating) and pretended they were mermaids.

Here's the view we woke up to the first day on the farm. This is where Byron grew up-- and pictures don't do it justice.

Meet Grandpa Fred. He's a hair shy of 90 and we joke too onery to die. Byron spent a good chunk of our vacation working around the farm with his dad. The girls just run wild and love every minute.

And here are the girls with Grandma Kay. We had the best time. We visited Grandma at her store, went to lunch, met our favorite Montana cousins-- the Burtsfield's to play at a park (where Holland fell in a duck pond-- I'm not kidding), then went back to their house for a sumptious dinner and lots of playing.

Finally, here we are back on the farm with the star of the trip-- Sprocket. We rescued Sprocket last year on our trip to Glacier National Park. She was as skinny as a Greyhound and looked as if she had battled with a bobcat. We took the abandoned, starving, injured little pup to Grandpa's farm-- where he has fattened her up and renamed her Sweetie.

**Trip factoid: On our way to Montana this year we had another close encounter with a lost dog. We found a hunting dog wandering the highway up near the border. We took it to the nearest neighbor and called it's owner. This was only after Greer said and I quote "Holy Cow! Are we the royal dog catchers or what?"