Trip to Canada and Montana

Well, we made the big trek to Canada last week and had a good time. First we went to Canada for Joel's parents homecoming from their mission. We stayed there on Saturday and Sunday of the previous weekend. The kids had a great time riding horses, 4-wheelers, and going to Waterton for an ice cream. Sunday we went to church and listened to Noel and Sandy speak in sacrament. They did a great job, you can tell they miss the people out in Wisconsin a lot and really enjoyed their time out there. After church, we all went up to Diana's grave (Joel's mom who passed away in 1994) and talked about memories of Diana and took some pictures. It was a really special moment for the family. The littler kids had no idea what was going on and were jumping around on the headstones, etc. but the older kids understood what was going on and I think it was kind of neat for my kids to see where their grandma is buried and hear stories about her. Kinlee is named Kinlee Diana after her. Monday morning we headed down to Montana to stay at the cabin in Bigfork next to Echo Lake. My kids just look forward to this vacation every summer so much that now we have been going twice each summer. We will be going again at the end of the month. Each day is spent several hours down at the lake where Noel has a boat and Jon has a boat. They waterski, wakeboard, wakesurf, tube, etc. behind the boats. Dylan really took to wakeboarding this year and was able to get up and go all the way around the lake. Kinlee still loves the tube rides, especially when she gets dumped out. She's a crazy woman on the tube. She tried wakeboarding too for the first time but wasn't able to get up. She was pretty frustrated. I hope she'll want to try again next time. Kaitlyn even liked the tube ride, she laughed the entire time and when we pulled back in to shore, she said "Again?" Kaitlyn pretty much followed her cousin Madilyn around the entire time. They play so cute together. Anything Maddy did, Kaitlyn had to do too. At the lake the kids caught turtles in a shallow part of the lake and played with them for a while and then put them back. There were about 7 or 8 they had at one time. Kinlee wasn't afraid to hold the turtles at all. Kinlee handed a baby turtle to Joel and it pooped on him. heehee :) Tuesday it started raining in the evening and didn't stop until the next day. Sleeping in a tent while pouring rain is about the last thing in the world I ever want to do again. It sounds like someone is dropping rocks onto your tent and everything you own gets wet. There is no way to keep the water out when it is pouring that hard. I was a little perturbed that we didn't rent a trailer at that moment, but we got dried out the next day. Needless to say, I got very little sleep that night. Amazingly, Kaitlyn and Christian slept right through it all. Dylan and Kinlee had their own tent to sleep in but that night they both slept in the cabin. Kinlee is very afraid of thunder and lightning storms. Friday, the 4th of July, we went to a big pancake breakfast they have at the church in Bigfork and then we went to the annual parade there. This is the only parade Joel will ever go to because almost everyone in the parade throws candy. Even whole candy bars are thrown. You have never seen Joel so excited to be at a parade. He was whooping and hollering so they would throw candy his way. Of course he was doing it for the kids. :) The kids just love that parade for all the candy, necklaces, toys, etc. that they get. One truck was even throwing out toilet paper with their company's name on it. That was kind of funny. At the end, we had a big garbage bag full of candy (that all the cousins gathered together) to take back to the cabin. After the parade it started pouring rain again for a couple hours, but it cleared up by nighttime so everyone could go down to the lake and watch fireworks. All around the lake many fireworks displays were going. I stayed up at the cabin with my two youngest kids because they were asleep, but I could definitely hear the fireworks! Saturday was a beautiful day with perfect weather so our last day down at the lake was wonderful. It was hard to leave Sunday morning, especially knowing that when I got home I would have about 20 loads of laundry and would have to dry out the tents and sleeping bags. It's worth it though, so we'll be going back in three weeks. Below are two slide shows of our trip. All the pictures I liked wouldn't fit on one slide show so here they are...