The Babbling Brooks

Two Is Better Than One!

Just before we left for Utah on the 8th of July Mama Whitetail brought her twin fawns to see us. John happened to look out and see them on our small lawn. Before I could grab my camera and get a picture of all of them together Mom and one baby had moved to the edge of the trees and the more curious fawn was left standing alone and wondering who the heck those people in the window were. We saw Mom again and were guessing she was hiding the fawns nearby. Since we've returned to Montana we've seen Mama three times and Legend is so excited about seeing deer. Last evening she was drinking from the bird bath and the night before that we could hear grass munching outside the bedroom, but it was too dark to verify it was her (gee, can you guess why it is tough to grow anything here???). This evening I looked up and there were the twins outside. Legend loved seeing them and they were just as curious about him. He was right at the open window waving at them and they didn't mind...Mom, of course, was watching from the edge of the lawn.

What's Up???

Lots! Legend has been with us in Montana for the last week and in Washington the week before. I'll be taking him home to Utah later this week. There's a lot to catch up on and I'll do it "soon" :)

No Time for Blogging!

Sorry I haven't had time to catch up! When we left home on the 8th we detoured through Glacier Park as the Going-To-The-Sun Road had just opened. It made for a long day as we traveled all the way to Provo that night and arrived just after midnight. Of course, there was a reason we did this...Archivers has opened a store there and I wanted to poke around inside:) We've had a great time with Legend...swimming and playing in 100+ degrees in St. George. We visited quite a bit with his new step-grandparents, Lydia and Willie, they are very nice people and make us feel right at home. The wedding reception on the 12th happened without a hitch although there were some doubts about arrangements that afternoon...more on that later. We arrived in Washington on Monday evening and have spent the last couple of days at Ocean Shores playing pirates, digging for treasure in the sand, and making S'mores. Brad has to be back at work tomorrow afternoon, so we'll be going back to Enumclaw for the rest of the week and home to Montana on Monday. More later!

The Reenactment

John had read about the Custer's Last Stand Reenactment somewhere and we decided it sounded like fun. He called sometime in May to book a room in town for last weekend and everyone just laughed. They fill up a year in advance. No problem, we found space in a private campground and decided to take our travel trailer. (It turned out to be a good experience as we were able to determine what kind of gas mileage we'd get with the new Explorer towing the trailer. Ahem, not so great...just over 12 mpg. So,we now know that if we are driving any distance or traveling we may as well stay in motels.)We got tickets for the reenactment on Sunday. It was hot and dusty, but fortunately the sun was at our back and John had thought to bring our large golf umbrella. We climbed to the top of the stands so we could keep the umbrella up and it turned out to be a good spot for the battle. We watched as Lewis and Clark met the natives on their way west, the pioneers circled their wagons, treaties were signed, and finally George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Army galloped across the hills to defeat Sitting Bull and the Sioux.

And here I am with my new best friend...did I mention that Custer lost?

Hardin, Montana

Last weekend we traveled to Hardin, Montana for Custer's Last Stand Reenactment and Little Big Horn Days. There was a parade in Hardin on Saturday morning and games in the evening. Here's a peek at the parade...

OK, those last two were not part of the parade. Hotel Becker was built in 1912 and is a charming building. Check out the Lariat Motel....isn't that Woody???

Saturday evening there were games and races downtown. We went to watch the fun. They started off with "pony"races, followed by egg tosses and finished up with bed races. If you look closely at the pony races you'll see that some of the adults and most of the kids are cheating. They carried their horses instead of riding. But the judges were watching and I don't think anyone got away with it!

Look closely at that last one. They were the winners of the bed race. They could see they were going to take the prize of $150 dollars and were so excited they just gave the bed a shove and let go sending it right into the crowd! We had a little luck, too. They were giving away prizes for answering trivia questions, etc. and also gave prizes to travelers. John and I won a country music CD for being the Montana residents that traveled the farthest!

That afternoon we'd visited the Battlefield of the Little Big Horn (it's no longer called Custer's Last Stand). I had been there in the 60's. I don't remember a National Cemetery there, but there it was. We drove out to see the battlefield and the graves before heading back to camp (We'd taken our travel trailer.)

It was a perfect time to visit the battlefield. It was in full bloom! We hadn't expected that.

And why do I remember that I was in Hardin, Montana in the 60s??? Because that's where I was when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and said, "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind". We were staying at the KOA campground and my Dad made us get our butts out of the pool and inside to watch history in the making on the little TV in the game room. Thanks, Dad!

Stay tuned for photos of the Custer's Last Stand Reenactment!

Happy Independence Day!

Hope everyone has had a bang-up day!

We'd planned to go to the fireworks show at Dickey Lake this evening. Things have changed and John is on his way to Washington to pick up his grandpa's rocking chair at Wendy's. She has been borrowing it to rock Zachary and Jacob. Now they are moving and won't have room for it. I decided to stay home and catch up on a few things as we'll be leaving for St. George very early on Tuesday. I may still go to the lake tonight...today's thunderstorms seem to finally be over.

Happy Birthday, Trevor!

Trevor is eight years old today! Hope you have a great day!

We're Back...

from our trip to Hardin and from the Never Never Land of the Internet. We had a huge storm Tuesday night. We must have gotten 6 months of rainfall in a few hours. The good news is that the dry wells John built to catch the runoff worked.  Wednesday morning we couldn't get online. After phone calls to our ISP, changing the modem, a visit by the phone company, etc. it appears the maybe our router took a lightning hit. It still works but the internal settings were lost and we needed to reinstall our Montanasky (our ISP) static settings. It seems to be working now, but I just had to reinstall them again a few minutes ago. Perhaps there is a new router in our future.

We had a fun trip to Hardin for the Battle of the Little Big Horn Reenactment. I'll be sharing photos here later.