Lost Creek and Georgetown

We left Anaconda and this is where my brain gets fuzzy. I thought we went straight to our Georgetown Lake campsite, but we have some pictures in-between of a park we visited called Lost Creek. We had great fun hiking in an area with gigantic cliffs on both sides, a river that was mostly waterfalls, and a giant bear cave! Deb was in her element.



The boys were in their element to once we set up camp. Fire-building became an art form over the summer, and our fire at Georgetown was a work of art -- not to mention being an exciting play-toy!



The last place we went together before moving to Wisconsin was this outlook over Georgetown Lake, with the Pintlar mountains in the background. It's a beautiful place, and it was wonderful to be back in our homeland and see that not much had changed since we left.

Anaconda

After our adventures at the mountain stream, we finally made it to Georgetown Lake. Sylvia was thrilled to be out of the car finally!



After setting up camp at Georgetown, we went to visit Deb's aunt Linda, and uncle Bob, in Anaconda. We had a nice visit with them and Lianne who happened to be there... and then Bob offered his wild off-road adventure machine to us!



Soon were were up in the mountains, and Noel was taking pictures of the views. For those who don't know, the first is a view of Anaconda from West Valley. The tall spire in the distance is not, in fact, a wizard's tower. Instead it's the smoke-stack of the Anaconda Copper Company. The second picture is of Mount Hagin, looking South from West Valley.





Our next stop in Anaconda was the fish hatchery, where they breed tens of thousands of fish every year and release them into nearby lakes and streams. They have a couple of pools in front of the building, where some of the largest fish reside. A couple were almost as big as Sylvia!

The Start of the Summer Trip

We began our adventure by driving from Wisconsin to western Montana. If our camera were with us for this, the pictures would have involved a lot of concrete (in the midwest) and asphalt (in the west), yellow paint road lines, setting up tents in North Dakota, and visiting some interesting US Plains parks like Fort Abraham Lincoln and a Mandan village. There would also have been pictures of Dan & Claudia in Rexburg, Idaho and the 4th of July parade there, along with many explorations of the Nature Park there.

But we don't have any pictures of that, so you'll just have to imagine. The first pictures we have are of Crystal Park. For those who haven't been there, it's a park made for people who like finding pretty rocks. Basically, you drive up with your shovels, dig, and take home whatever you find.

Sylvia insisted on getting to work right away!



Noel, Asher and Mattias were more serious, long-term miners.



The mosquitos, however, were nearly as big as Sylvia so after an hour or so we retreated and headed towards our favourite campsite, Georgetown Lake. This led us through some mazy mountain paths and we discovered a little stream that turned out to be very cold, clear and fast-running. It was very refreshing to see water doing something like that, after living in Wisconsin for two years and seeing warm, algae-ridden, sluggish water constantly. So we had to stop and play in it.



The more adventurous among us change into their swimsuits even! Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of that.

Lots more to come...

Asher's Birthday

Birthday season is upon us, with Asher leading off! He received a gift card to Barnes & Noble and decided that, instead of just buying a book and reading it, he'd buy a book and write it. Note the fancy cover - real metal!


The silly face is doubtless a warning of things to come. He's currently undecided what he'll write in it, but we'll certainly let you know as the novel unfolds.


Deb outdid herself again with a wonderful Quill And Parchment cake (chocolate, of course!) which was enjoyed by all, with ice cream.

We'll have more pictures soon, as we catch up on the past few weeks.

sorry for the delay in posts...

We would like to tell our fan base how sorry we are for not posting any of our recent adventures. Sean's laptop melted down this month, and we had to pay for somebody to recover our data (like family pictures) which Sean had not backed up. We don't have the capability on our other computer to load pictures to our blog. Sean has ordered some computer hardware to help us update our older computers... so we should be able to update within the next month. Thanks for your patience!

Spring Break Fun - Farmer Noel

We have some friends, the Tysons, who asked Noel to take care of their animals while they were gone on spring break. Noel has loved it. Sylvia also loves coming along on our early moring outings. Here are some shots from this mornings visit.

This is looking out at the barn and pasture from the house. The frogs in the pond decided to wake up this morning and sounded like a lawn mower. It sounded better the last couple days, when it was below freezing, and the frogs were quiet but the birds sang.


After taking care of the house animals (cats, fish, dog), Noel moves to the outside pets. She loves the bunnies. She has been begging all week for her own.

This is her favourite bunny. While Noel plays with the rabbits the horses see us outside, and Gjerte (a Noreign Fjord horse) comes over to greet Noel.
Sylvia has learned the names of almost all the cats, including these barn cats. She says that they are her favourite animal that we take care of.

The chickens has some eggs for us this morning. Noel likes to hold the freshly laid warm ones in her hands to keep them warm. Today we let Sylvia gather the eggs.

She was so excited. It was like practising for Easter. I wonder if farmers think Easter-egg hunts are dorky. The eggs we found were all different colors and sizes. I like the pale blue ones best.

Gjerte sticks her head in to see why we are taking so long with the chickens. She is worried we are going to forget about her breakfast.

This is Peanut. She also is wondering what is on this morning's menu.

Noel brings them a couple flakes of baled hay, and looks like a true farm girl. I wish I could buy her a farm for Chirstmas. :)


Feeding the chickens is fun. Noel fills up their feeders, then sprinkles some on the ground. Sylvia was shocked by how loud the ten chickens were. Now she just laughs, and crows back at them.

They have all sorts of different breeds. I think the chickens are beautiful. They are fun to watch.

This fellow though, is trouble. His name is Stew, and he didn't like Noel visiting his chicken yard yesterday. He attacked her leg, and left a nice beak-mark through her jeans. Sean says jeans are more than just a fashion statement for farmers. I can see why . Now we just keep clear of Stew. He makes our spring-break farm adventrue have an edge of danger in it. What more could you want?

The Trampoline joins the household !

Hurrah! I found a used trampoline for sale in the area, and rushed to get it. Our family really misses the tramp we had in Grandma and Grandpa's back yard. But, there had to be some dramatic twist in this unexpected blessing. The problem was that it would take a lot of work to put together, and a rainstorm ( with possible tornados) and then a blizzard were coming within the week.
Sean worked on the trampoline for hours on Saturday, and almost had it set up. Good job, fix-it man!


I had nightmares about tornadoes throwing all the trampoline parts that were still laying on our lawn through our house windows, so Sean kindly took Monday off, and finished assembling the trampoline. It was cold and rainy, but Noel and Mattias were a great help! Here is Monday's fix-it crew.
It was up by the time Asher was home from school. Sylvia jumped and jumped on the tramp in her snow suit. Everyone had a blast.

The kids spent all of their outside time jumping this week... and everyone got very tired. Sylvia started taking naps again! Hurrah, Hurrah!

Sylvia did lots of expert tricks, and hasn't broken an arm yet. I think this is a very successful purchase.


Then came the blizzard, to start off the kid's "spring break" from school. After the snow stopped, the kids shovelled the snow off the tramp, mopped it dry with a towel, and kept playing on it. I'm sure we'll have some acrobatic special pictures to post later, as the kids perfect their Olympic style moves with the warmer weather.