The Brown Family

We made it!! The final trip of our summer 2011! We took 6 days to take a roadtrip to Flathead Lake & Glacier National Park, both in Montana.

The occassion? My dear childhood friend Erica was getting married!! She made a beautiful bride and her husband Todd, was a great looking groom!! The ceremony was at her dad's house, a remarkable setting on Flathead Lake!

Hudson and Camden were looking their best...

The kids sat on the rock steps and watched the wedding from there.

And we took the opportunity (since we were all dressed up) to take a family pic!

After the wedding the kids had the run of the property... which for Emerson meant not going too far from mom or Dad.

For the boys it meant all sorts of crazy stuff.... Like doing flips off the dock! Go Hudson!

We had such an amazing time at the wedding and were so thankful to be a part of it!

The other part of our trip was Glacier National Park.

We had a perfect campsite less than a 2 minute walk to Lake McDonald. Is that a gorgeous lake or what?

Our campsite, complete with Camper (so nicely lent to us by our friends Mark & Kim!)

I LOVE morning pictures of the kids camping. Big puffy eyes, wild hair... LOVE it!

Here is Camden at Lake McDonald.

The water was pretty cold, but it didn't stop the boys from playing it in a bit. Emerson had her bathing suit on ready to go, but wouldn't touch the water.

The boys played baseball with a piece of driftwood and a rock. Thankfully nobody got hit in the head with the 'ball'

The boys taking an evening dip and 'bathe' in the lake...I think this was sometime after 9:00pm.

At our campsite Camden and Hudson enjoyed making "Candy" out of the tree sap. I don't think they ever ate it, but they were entertained for hours!

We took the second day at Glacier to go on a beautiful hike!! Avalanche Lake. It was about 5-6 miles roundtrip. I think it was the maximum for our family, but I also think everyone had a good time.

When we started out the hike Camden found the cutest little inch worm!! For Camden there could be no better start to a hike than to find some creepy crawly insect!

The beautiful turquoise water rushing through the red rocks was breathtaking!! Could have stood there for hours watching it!

And here is Hudson playing on the rocks RIGHT next to a raging river!! Mommy was a little nervous!

Family picture time!! I think Emerson was having fun despite her face, but before we even got started on the hike her nap time had already passed.

The layers in the rocks were beautiful!! Look at that huge cave!! Too bad its not accessible!

Avalanche lake gets its name because in the spring you can sit by the lake and listen to, and watch...all the avalanches fall around you. By late summer when we were there, The snow is virtually gone but several gorgeous waterfalls remain.

And the color of the water is so beautiful! (as is this little girl!)

Camden and Hudson got to fish on the lake which was really fun for Camden because he caught one!! YEAH!!

Pretty flower I spotted along the hike.

About 2 minutes before we got back to our campsite, 6 hours after naptime...she fell asleep.

One last picture of the kids and Lake McDonald before we start our roadtrip! Goodbye Glacier! We'll hopefully see you again real soon!

On our roadtrip home we stopped in this adorable little mining town in the middle of Idaho called Wallace. We had spotted it on the way out and it was the perfect timing to make a stop, have lunch and stretch our legs on the way home.

We got huckleberry milkshakes and played in the cool old car at the Red Light Garage.

We saw a lot, A LOT, of this on our drive home. But it really was pretty with the contrasting blue sky behind it.

We stopped in Moses Lake, WA for the day and spent the night at a campground there. The kids had no idea why we had chosen to stop there, but they were happy to be done with the road trip for the day. There were soccer fields right next to our campground so the kids got to play soccer!

Hudson got a hold of my camera and took this cool picture of the soccer ball in flight.

When we pulled into Moses Lake at 6:00pm, it was 95 degrees. By 8:30 it was still super hot so we decided to forgo the bonfire this one night and have hot weather smores. Which were graham crackers slathered in Nutella and a nice glass of cold milk! I think I liked them even more than smores :)

The real reason we had decided to stop in Moses Lake was to take the boys to a water park! Moses Lake has a fantastic water park and the prices were super reasonable too!! Our entire family had an absolute blast here!! We spent about 2-1/2 hours and then finished our roadtrip home.

This was the first time the boys had been on "real" waterslides!! they also jumped off of the high dive for the first time!

Matt tried surfing...

Harder than it looked...

Hudson tried boogie boarding but was pretty upset when he only lasted about 15 seconds.

Camden lasted about the same amount of time.

Hudson in action jumping off the high dive.

And that's a wrap. Our summer vacations in a nutshell. sad to see this summer go, but ready to start planning for the next fun trip!

Almost our last trip of the summer... I wondered why it seemed to go by so fast... now I see! It's almost October and I'm not done posting pictures of all of our wonderful trips!!
The beginning of August we took a trip to Ocean City, WA with Matt's Dad & Matt's sister Jenny.
We ate hot dogs over the fire... YUM! (with Mac & cheese on the side, of course!)

Aunt Jenny had a birthday party for all of the birthdays she missed this summer. What a treat!! Emerson blew out the birthday candles over and over before Jenny could get them all lit! Now that she knows that birthday candles are all about... she can't get enough!!

Aunt Jenny got Emerson the coolest silicone drawing sheet. You color it with dry erase markers and then wipe it off and do it over and over again. Super fun!

The biggest highlight for the trip for the boys was definitely skimboarding!! Despite the weather being fairly chilly, they were out there skimboarding as often as possible!