July Fourth

This year we were lucky enough to have visitors over 4th of July weekend!

Ben's family made the all-day drive to visit us and we were able to do a lot of fun things together.

On Friday night, we walked around downtown and enjoyed art galleries and live music.

Saturday, everyone (except Karen & Abram) hiked up to the "M" for the U of M. It was pretty steep, but short. The weather was perfect!

(above) Alan, Ali, Zach, me

Zach and Ben explored up a little higher.

I don't think Zach likes to be in the limelight. :)

We arrived home just as Karen and Abram were finishing their walk.

After lunch, we found a place where you can "rent" bikes for free! We had fun riding up and down the Clark Fork river.

We took turns staying with Abram in the shade.

Abram loved seeing new faces and having so many people to hold him!

After riding bikes, we all got yummy ice cream at the Big Dipper...which we have yet to get a picture of.

On Sunday we took a lovely walk around our neighborhood to look at all the houses,

went to church,

had yam & black bean burritos for dinner,

played some games,

and had cookies for dessert.

On Monday, we drove up North to a really small town called Seeley Lake, MT. The lake was really pretty with a lot of boaters.

We heard there was a good 4th of July parade and people were staking out their spots hours in advance, so we were pretty excited for it!

Unfortunately, the majority of the parade was people waving on their 4-wheelers or pick-up trucks. Too bad we didn't know anyone. :)

It made for a good memory though. Luckily we had a good spot in some shade!

And Zach snatched us some free water bottles.

Alan & Zach stopped at a ghost town on the way home while the rest of us went swimming at their hotel.

That night, Karen so generously stayed with Abram while the rest of us left to watch fireworks.

Ben had an awesome idea to hike a little ways up the mountain in order to see the whole valley's fireworks. It was fun to watch...until we started getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes!

We're so grateful we could spend the weekend with family. It was so nice to have familiar faces here.

Thank you, Wade's, for making the trip up to spend time with us!