Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thankgiving!! The roads were clear and after a call where I lied up and down the wall to my mother (I called when we were just entering Billings, telling her we had just left Portland ;) were able to walk into the door to the excited exclamation of my mother!! It was fun!! See, Mark and I had planned to drive out after work on Wednesday, but on a whim, decided to take Wednesday off but just never got around to telling my family. We told dad, who was able to tip us off when mom got suspicious that we might be arriving earlier than planned. 

We had the car packed Tuesday night and after Mark worked until 12:30am and we grabbed a couple hours of sleep, headed out at 3am. Yikes!! But other than almost running out of gas (it was a rental and the needle dropped much faster than we thought, in a no-gas-station part of Washington), we had a really good drive. In Montana there was fairly recent snow, but the roads were clear so it was a beautiful no-danger drive.

Thursday we went to a 10am service at my parents church, had 20+ people at a 2pm dinner that was fantastic!!! We enjoyed some Guitar Hero 3 and Transformers on my parents 90inch projection screen that was incredible!! We stayed up late playing Guitar Hero and after what was probably a total of 8 hours, beat the medium level by midday on Friday (don't worry, we did go to bed Thursday night). We did manage to stay in our pajamas until close to dinner time when we changed to go to my aunt and uncle's for dinner.

Saturday I enjoyed an early morning coffee talking session in the Montana Room with my parents. Then we had dad's famous pancakes and talked for a bit before packing. By noon we all headed out for a night at Fairmont Hot Springs. It's normally a post-Christmas tradition, but we went early this year. It had been about 8 years since the last time I had been and we realized it was 18 years since the first time the family went. We did the normal dinner at Pizza Hut in Anaconda, where we drove around looking at houses. Anaconda is a cute little town that's near Discover, a great ski hill. The town itself is dying but we are all predicting it's going to take off in so many years and become the next hottest place. We dreamed about going in together on a place there... you can get a 2 bedroom for only 40k!! Although they are at least 50-100 years old and probably in need of work.

It was really neat to have Mark at Fairmont with us. The hot pools were all I'd hoped, although it didn't get much below 20 degrees so there wasn't as much steam coming off the outside pools as there could have been. But the brisk walk from the inside to the outside pools proved that the 20 degree temps were definitely cold enough!!

THANKS to my family for a WONDERFUL thanksgiving weekend!!

Filling up at a ghetto gas station in Lind, WA when we almost ran out... the burnt orange Cobalt was our rental car. You thought we'd drive all the way to Montana in the winter in the Mustang?? Hah!

Driving

View from the car. Beautiful!!

The dining room table set for dinner. My dad "made" the second part of the table the night before but cutting plywood to sit on top of a 6ft table, that matched the same lines as the dining table. I was impressed!

Mark playing Guitar Hero 3 on the big screen at mom and dad's. Their new family room set up is SWEET!!

Goofing around at our Pizza Hut dinner in Anaconda. We were the only ones in there.

The family at Fairmont right before we left. They are good people!

Fairmont

A random shot from the car. The scenery was incredibly gorgeous!! I loved this red barn with the white snow. Classic Montana. I love Big Sky country!!

The mountains and sky going over the pass that took us from Montana into Idaho. It was weird because the minute we crossed over into Idaho the clouds showed up. Otherwise it was a beautiful sunny day!