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!

5 Months old!

Our Andi is five months old today!

I think she weighs about 16.5 lbs (~ 7.5 kg), and is almost ready for size 3 diapers :)

Her 5 month traditional shot with Slungel:

Also, as I left the room to get my camera, I found Andi in this position, wrestling Slungel :) I guess she rolled to her side and grabbed him. (I also have a fun video of it - including her wrestling grunts - that I will post on her blog).

She is learning so much, all the time. It seems like every week we notice something else 'new' she is doing. She is almost rolling over from her back to tummy, is getting better at assisted sitting, she also can find her pacifier and put it in her mouth (though not always the right way around haha), and she has found her feet (see earlier post).

We still experience many 'firsts' too: first time in nursery at church, first time going to a track to help dad prepare for Army bootcamp (a fun event in which mom, I, "The Nazi" (another one of Ben's sweet nicknames for me), make Ben run intervals around the track. Hehe.), first time facing forward in the front pack, and ... first time eating rice cereal!!

Of course that event was also documented (video on her blog) {edit: apparently, the video is too large to upload on the blog, so I'll have to figure out a way to shorten it to post it}:

Mom apparently thinks this is a very serious affair (the look on my face) - but look how pretty that first bite goes in!

She didn't dislike it, nor did she make very funny faces or anything. Just sort of like "Ok, this is new, but I can handle it." As expected though, she barely really ate any of it, but instead had more fun playing with it, especially with the fun sloppy sound you get when you also put your fingers in your mouth along with the rice cereal:

:) (btw - look at that blonde hair that is finally starting to grow!)

Trying to give her some more, failing to do so, because of the fingers in her mouth.

Finally she figured that holding the spoon for herself and sticking it in her mouth was a pretty fun game too!

Finally, in order to not quite end the Andi picture extravaganza, some shots of her 'riding in the car seat' faces, talking to Aunt Liselotte:

"Hey!"

"Let me tell you about this one time ..."

"...and then this happened..."

Practicing her pouty, how-can-you-resist-me face :)

My sister is in the country!

Last week Sunday, my (younger) sister Liselotte and her boyfriend Dennis arrived for a vacation here. They'll be here for almost 4 weeks, two of which they'll spend on their own camping around Wyoming, visiting Yellowstone etc. (for which they just took off this morning). Even though the weather didn't necessarily cooperate all week, we had a blast. We went hiking in Happy Jack, hiking in Vedauwoo, we went down town, visited the Territorial Prison, chatted lots, they cuddled Andi lots, and we went camping for 3 nights in Medicine Bow.

Here's a few pics of the week (we have many, many, many, and I'm sure some more are to follow):

Aunt Liselotte playing with Andi (or the other way around?).

Hiking in Vedauwoo - Can you tell we're sisters?

Thursday night we took off for Medicine Bow for three nights of camping. We wanted to camp at Sugar loaf CG, but that was full when we arrived, so we headed to the not so pretty Ryan Park instead. Ben dropped us off there as of course he had to work on Friday. Friday morning, Liselotte, Dennis and Andi and I headed over to the Medicine Bow peak area to go for a hike. We checked Sugar loaf CG to see if a spot had opened up, and praise God it did! We immediately went back to Ryan Park to pack up the tent, and set up camp at Sugar loaf. It was a pretty chilly, rainy, windy day, with enormous thunderstorms coming and going, but still, off for a short hike we went:

Liselotte and I hiking the trails - Andi is under my coat.

Later that evening Ben and his parents joined us at the campsite, and in between huge thunderstorms and ice rain we cooked some massive T-bone steaks on the fire.... Mmmm.

Buddies :) Again, Andi is hiding under my coat, tucked away from the cold and rain.

Campfire atmosphere. It was so chilly that night! (ltr: Marilyn, Andi and I, Dennis and Tom)

Liselotte and Dennis on a snow patch.


Liselotte and Tom having fun :)

Sunday was a gorgeous day, so we were just going to take a short hike after breakfast, before returning home. Well, with two Mooiweer girls (Ok, one ex-Mooiweer) in the group there is no such thing as a short hike :). It turned into a pretty long one, as we all climbed up Medicine Bow Peak!!! It was so much fun! It's a little over 12,000 ft., so it was quite the climb! I also have to say it is pretty interesting climbing all those loose rocks with a baby in a front pack, all the while trying to protect her from the wind and intense sun!

Liselotte on top of the world!

Grandma Marilyn made it up there too!

Of course Andi, talented that she is, managed to make quite a mess of herself on the way to the top, so she ended up mooning the world at 12,000 ft., getting her diaper changed. (not easy either, finding a level, wind/sun protected, changing place on top of a rocky mountain peak!)

The family.

And climbing back down ...