The Treasure State

Well, I made it back from Montana in one piece. That's in spite of skiing for the first time in 5 years, and being flipped over in a dog sled. It is truly beautiful out there. The mountains are amazing! And the great thing is that there are hardly any people out there. I think the whole state has a population of 600,000 or something. When I got there on Tuesday, KJR picked me up at the airport and we went straight to the resort where Abby works. Well, not straight there...we had to stop at a tire place since KJR hit a boulder and bent Abby's rim on the way to pick me up and it had to be replaced before we could drive out to Big Sky. In KJR's defense, that little Scion might not be the best vehicle to drive out in the mountains of Montana! When we finally got to Moonlight Basin, I went to get hooked up with skis and didn't have to wait in line or anything, it took about a total of 5 minutes. Amazing.

Wednesday was spent skiing all day, and I was really pleased with how I did. That night was the hip hop graffiti jam at the cafe, and although there weren't a lot of people there, as Abby and Liz said, the people that came were the "right" people, and it was a good time.

Thursday when I woke up it was snowing! (the exclamation point is necessary since it hadn't snowed in over a week). KJR and I went dogsledding, and it was awesome. He decided to drive the sled and I sat in it, and the dogs took off. So there I am, sitting in a sled being pulled by dogs in the mountains of Montana while it is snowing. It was BEAUTIFUL - I felt like I was inside a snow globe. And then...an imaginary moose attacked and KJR felt it necessary to flip the sled and jump off and let me get dragged away (still in the overturned sled) because the dogs kept running. Supposedly KJR was fighting this imaginary moose and flipped the sled to save my life...hmm. For some reason, I'm not sure I believe his story. ha ha! :) Anyway, it was a great experience. For the rest of the afternoon we skied some more and I was feeling a lot more comfortable and did mostly blue (intermediate) runs all day.

I wish I could say that Justin seemed thrilled to see me when I got home, but he just smiled and continued playing with all his cool toys over at Maggie and Pop's. He had a great week and learned a new word - "hammer". Chris took him gymboree on Thursday and said he did well - he participated in some activities and other times just threw balls around the room and chased after them as usual. He's been great all weekend and is just a super happy child. He seems to get smarter every day, doing puzzles and stacking blocks and learning new words. I know I'm biased because I'm his mom! :) But he really is an amazing child.

Today was Corky & Allyson's baby shower - it was great to see them! There are babies everywhere lately, I've had three showers in the past two weeks, and have had three friends have their babies in the past three weeks. Ali is due in two weeks - I can't wait to meet little Julia when she arrives!

Have a good night!