7 months have come and gone. We are in the heat of summer now and really trying to enjoy as much time outside as possible. Rost definitely shares my love of nature so we spend as many hours outside as we can each day. He shares his love of fishing with his Dada and we both look forward to the day when he is out there holding his own pole in the water.
What a change this fourth month of life has brought in Rost. Scheduled tummy time is on its way out as Rost has all but mastered the task.
We finally finished work on the little house, which prompted a week of moving Aunt Joy & Uncle Joe out of their old (our new) home and into the little house. Uncle Joe was excited to get a new room, and Aunt Joy was happy to no longer care for “such a large house.” As soon as their move was complete, I got a few days to clean our new home out before we started moving our stuff, and life in. Rost got his own room, which meant we could convert his bassinet into a crib – a much-needed move as he was quickly outgrowing the bassinet.
It’s great to be in our own space, about 100 feet from Brian’s parents and another hundred from Aunt Joy, Uncle Joe, & Aunt Terri. Having so much family nearby feels great after living so far away from everyone for so long. Hopefully, my family can make trips out to our new home with the enticement of time with Rost and Glacier National Park only 30 minutes from our front door.
A quick photo dump from the month to follow. We’ve got a LOT of work to do around the property & are going to attempt as much as time and finances will allow this summer. Wish us luck! Not much else to say about them other than my kid is ridiculously cute. Thankfully he’s way more photogenic than either of his parents.
I drug myself out of the woods late Sunday morning to head into town to pick up the 26 ft U-haul truck waiting for me in Evergreen. Thanks to the help of my in-laws and their amazing friend John, I was able to have the entire storage unit cleared out in around an hour and the excess stuff we’d had stored around the Bennett house pack up in another.
I set out early Monday morning. The scenery -as always- was beautiful and the drive was relaxing despite the heavy construction and the giant vehicle I was soloing. My first stop was Missoula for a quick ice cream stop with two of my favorite people. 
After Missoula, I spent the next 3 days taking my time traveling down to Albuquerque. With only a few hiccups along the way, I was able to take my time moving our household goods from Montana to New Mexico. One of the hiccups involved our new house not being ready for us to move into yet, so I hired a few movers for a couple of hours to help get everything out of the truck and into a storage unit. I’m about to hop an earlier flight back to Ohio for a few extra days with family before picking up Brian and driving back across the country to start the next chapter.
My mother-in-law has been telling me about the annual family camping trip since before Brian & I got married. Finding myself not working and back in the lower 48, I planned a trip out to Montana to spend the 4th of July with my husbands family. It was a blitz trip in the woods before packing up the u-Haul and relocating our household goods to our future home in New Mexico; that’s for another post…
Load the car & write the note.
Grab your bag & grab your coat.
Tell the ones that need to know.
We are headed East.
The time has come to once again say my goodbyes to Montana. It’s always such a bittersweet moment when we part, but it’s time to step forward into the next adventure. We’ve yet again had some good times my old friend. I’m already looking forward to my next visit. Xoxo.
Becky is one of those friends who never seems to turn me down for an adventure, or in some cases a grand misadventure; which is precisely why I like her. She has many, many other charming qualities but the fact that she loves a good adventure as much as I do easily tops the list.
Not seeing her while I was in Montana was simply not an option so the first free weekend that we both had, I packed up the Jeep & headed south to her ranch just south of Missoula for some quality time between our two families. We’d both added some new members to our pack since last time we’d hung out and were excited for everyone – new and old – to enjoy each other’s company. As expected, the weekend didn’t disappoint.
Thanks for the great weekend Becky & Nate! We’re already looking forward to our next adventure with ya’ll. 
There is a park in my husband’s hometown that is FULL of ducks. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of – if you’re afraid of ducks that is. If you don’t believe me, just watch this:
Brian had taken me to this park once before. We had a surplus of buns left over from the Super Bowl party we were at and wanted rid of the carbs so we set off for Woodland Park and the gaggle of geese and flock ducks.
Knowing we were heading out of Alaska and into Montana for at least a month or so in the New Year my in-laws postponed Christmas until we got to their house. We arrived in Montana precisely three days after leaving our home in Anchorage & unable to wait any longer, my father-in-law declared that night to be Christmas. Although we were exhausted, we happily exchanged Christmas gifts with the family. My father-in-law surprised my mother-in-law and myself with a 12-mile loop through the Stillwater State Forest in the basket of a dog sled. Due to circumstances beyond our control it was nearly a month later that we cashed in our unique gift certificates, but the time spent with my mother-in-law and the dogs was completely worth the wait.
