BT 4.0: Oh Montana, how do I love thee?

Our time in Montana is winding down and I must say I've never been so in love with a state. I've lived in many states and visited even more and this is the first place that I've ever even once considered moving to exclusively based on beauty. It is an amazing place and I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to visit. We left Helena on Friday morning to make our way to Bozeman but before we left we took a 2 hour boat ride at Gates of The Mountains just outside of Helena. It was quite a long trip for little O's but she kept herself entertained with various surprises in my bag including several Dum Dums and a handful of bandages that she used to decorate herself. We saw bald eagles on this trip. It doesn't matter how many times I see one of them I am always in awe. The first time I saw a bald eagle was on a whitewater rafting trip with my family and Grandpa in the Tetons when I was in 4th grade (obviously it made an impact on me if I remember it that closely). When we were trying to show the kids them from the boat I wondered to myself if Milo would remember this moment as clearly as I remembered my grandpa pointing out the eagle to me. Both of the kids got to steer the boat with the captain's help.

When we arrived in Bozeman yesterday afternoon we went to the children's museum. We spent 2 hours there and the kids could have stayed much longer. You'll see from the pictures that they enjoyed the dress-up, crafts and the exhibit highlighting Bernoulli's Principle. You'll notice that Mark quickly showed the kids how to put their t-shirts over the blower to make them get puffy. I'm sure the other parents appreciated Milo passing on that nugget of fun to every museum-goer that would listen to him.

Today we fished and chilled out in all the mountainous glory. We finally gave up on any hope of explaining the sharp hook to Odelia and just cut it off so she just had a pretty feathery thingy and a bobber. She was just as happy and I was able to stop envisioning a fishing disaster. After a 5-star nap with the kids we went to Montana State University to see about getting some pamphlets for a friend and then out for dinner. We leave tomorrow to spend the day at Yellowstone and then camp at Bighorn Canyon. On Monday we meet up with a whole crew of our family and friends in the Black Hills. Yippee!

All these pictures are chronologically backwards which makes me twitch a little but I am too tired to put them in order so you'll have to suffer a little. Sorry.

Fishin' in Montana

Milo sandwich. This was our post-lunch break before Milo resumed his pursuit for a "Biggie"

Reel it in! No, seriously Mark, leave that branch alone.

Learning to fish together.

Odelia could be in the cuddle Olympics.

Hyalite Lake, MT

No hook.

Mark and I had a 2 minute and 2 second break where both kids were fishing and Odelia's hook was cut off. We snapped this picture as proof that they really do tend to an activity for more than a minute. I just keep telling myself that someday they won't want our attention so we best enjoy it now.