Family vacation to Glacier NP, Montana

Before Ben had to leave for bootcamp this past monday, we were able to take a week long family vacation! Destination of choice: Glacier National Park in Montana. It was absolutely gorgeous and the weather was awesome! We spent the week camping, hiking, sitting by the lakes and campfire, eating way too many granola bars and chocolate (me) and beef jerky (Ben), looking for and keeping out of the way of wildlife (depending on their size), hiking some more, and .... hiking some more.
Since Ben was the photographer, most pictures are of Andi and I. He also took about 700 of them, and since I can't fit all those on this blog here, I've tried to make a little bit of a selection. Because there were so many however I didn't put them in correct order - so they're sort of in reverse order.

Our last day in the park we wanted to do a small hike to a lake, then spend the day lounging by the water. However, a grizzly was on the lower trail we were hoping to take, leaving only the upper trail that led to a glacier (Grinell Glacier - see top of picture). Of course with me there we couldn't just hike a little bit of the trail but had to go see what this glacier looked like up close :) Needless to say, our lounge day turned into a not-so-much-of-a-lounge-day. hihi

It ended up being one of the prettiest hikes we'd done there so far though! Endless gorgeous wildflowers, and lots of pretty water falls ...

Weeping wall.

View from a up a little higher.

At the glacier! Pretty cool looking glacier, but we both agreed we have been pretty spoiled after seeing Alaskan glaciers!

One of the moose we saw.

Beautiful country, handsome man :)

Lower part of the trail. Some nice bear bushes right? I like to see bears, but only from a feel good distance. There were definitely some spots where I made Ben lead :)

We saw three bears on our trip - all three black bears. Luckily we never ended up seeing the grizzly that was on the trail we meant to take.

Black bear on the lake shore below the trail.

Another black bear that we watched swim across the lake!

Enjoying some downtime at a lake.

Andi got her baths in the dish tub :) Look at her rolls!

Andi playing with her Daddy during yet another hike. (btw. that red dot on her head is a mosquito bite :( )

Goose Island at sunset.

Andi getting some tummy time, looking at the river during yet another hike :)

Taking a break. Andi would usually stretch out on one of our shirts while I would plan the next hike :) (I'm so much like my mom :) )

Ben and I at a waterfall.

Andi and I watching the sunset by a lake.

The family on yet another hike :)

After a summer of lots of camping and lots of time hiking, Andi has already become quite the outdoor girl :)
....

Dragged from mountain to mountain in the babybjorn, she also got to enjoy meals with a view :) ...

... and diaper changes among beautiful wild flowers :)

Goat :)

Little dude.

Another goat, relaxin'

Another shot of the fam.

A more typical shot of the fam :)

Man we sure took a lot of these!

Look at that little face!

One of our goals as a married couple is to visit every national park in the country. We have already crossed off many of our list, in a bunch of different states. To keep track, we always take a picture at the entry sign:

Ben and Andi

Andi and I.

This was Andi's second national park (we visited Rocky Mountain NP when she was 6 weeks old), so I thought it would be fun to get her her own "national parks passport", so we (and later she herself) can keep track of which ones she has visited. They sell these things in every park, and it has a page for every national park on which you can collect the parks' stamp and date you visited it!