XC

Last Cross Country meet of the season. 

Homecoming 2015

HoCo 2015 in pictures.....

Goings on

Just my usual catch up post.  Here's what's been going on.

Seahawks games....

Jack on the cross country team. Oh how these kids make me laugh...

 A G-Prep dance with a friend.

A trip to the Spokane County Fair with Jack practicing what it's like to be an only child...( he's not a fan apparently!!!)

Max and Daniel spent a weekend on the lake including a midnight swim in very cold water.

And Ciara's is loving college life.  Some pics from her latest football game.

Freshman

The life of a college freshman.

This is Ciara's graduating class for Montana State University.  The photo was taken on the day before classes began out on the field at the college football stadium.  Such a cool way to take a class photo.

And this maybe one of my favourite pictures of the year.  Ciara at her first college football game with her peeps watching MSU crush Fort Lewis.  Go Bobcats!

Flat Ciara

Last post I mentioned that the wonders of modern technology allowed us to take Ciara along with us on our trip to Glacier even though she was actually at college-well I lied! We are not hi tech. You should know that by now! But we did take along "flat Ciara" in lieu of the real thing.

She joined us for dinner

For family portraits 

For patio time

And just sitting around the campfire

No substitute for the real thing but better than nothing.

Glacier

Leaving Bozeman was tough for us...but heading off for a mini vacation was a good idea to distract us from the idea of leaving our baby at college. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology we were able to take Ciara along with us ..but more about that in the next blog post.

It was a long trip to Glacier with lots to see in between. This was a sight on the interstate. Only in Montana. 

We finally pulled in at the KOA where we were staying and met up with some friends.  We had a great little cabin that easily fit the 6 of us and our friends had their own cabin.  The first night we were pooped, so we just put our feet up, BBQ'ed dinner and had a few drinks.

Our first full day we went down to lake McDonald and had a bit of a hike around. 

Then in the afternoon we went for a float along the river to celebrate Michelle's birthday.  Lots of bad jokes and laughs.

The next day we had an early start on a mission to make it up the Going To the Sun Road to the top of Glacier National Park.  Then a hike at the top. It was truly breathtaking.

Off to College

[WARNING - photo heavy post]

Matt's brother and sister- in -law got in to town just in time to join us for Ciara's last few days at home before she left for college. 

There was some fun on the boat and on the tube.

And an evening at the ballgame- complete with beer, chili cheese fries and hotdogs.

It was so great to see them and we were so glad that they were happy to come with us on our big adventure.  The drive to Bozeman takes 6 hours so we had to break it up a bit.  A stop at Wallace Idaho for a coffee and a huckleberry shake.

While in Montana we ate ribs at Famous Daves BBQ and lunch at my favorite store, the Co-op as well as a visit to the Museum of the Rockies.

Then we set about the task of getting Ciara set up in her dorm room.  There were numerous trips to Target, construction of furniture in the dorm hallway, setting up appliances, and grocery shopping. We were all exhausted by the end of the first day.  Thank goodness for early move-in though.  Thanks to the fact that only the marching band and the football players were allowed to move in early we pretty much had the entire floor of her dorm to ourselves to get set up.  I can't imagine how difficult it would be to try to do it all with 10,000 other people 

This is how her room looked when we were done.  Her roommate moves in today along with everyone else at the university, so it will be a little more noisy and busy from here on in.

When we left she was starting band camp...12-14 hours a day of rehearsals, tryouts and performances. So no time for her to sit around and twiddle her thumbs.

  Matt and I are still getting used to the idea that our baby has gone off to college and counting down the days until she comes home for Thanksgiving.