"Big Sky" Montana: Days 1 and 2

Miguel and I are spending the week in Montana with my family. We spent Saturday traveling. After a connecting flight in Salt Lake, UT we made it to Missoula, Montana. We met up with my sister and brother-in-law who drove over from Seattle. We ate lunch in Missoula at a place called Tamaracks. I had some really good apricot beer. 

The boys trying to decide on what to order.

After we finished up lunch we drove for about an hour and half to our house in Lincoln, MT. The drive was just beautiful! I took the next couple of pictures from the car. Montana is nicknamed "Big Sky" and it is obvious why!

Rain over the mountains

This is our cabin in Lincoln.

There is a Leeper Motel in Lincoln, MT (my maiden name!)

Sunday we headed to the capital of Montana, Helena. It was a really neat town. Lots of local art. The city was pretty much dead due to it being a Sunday though. We ate some lunch and walked around a bit. The city had some really pretty details on all the buildings. The weather was pretty nice most of the time too.

I had never seen such white bark before!

Oh... I left Miguel unattended in a store and these sunglasses are what he came out with... haha. They make appearances the rest of the trip. 

Pretty architecture!

After walking around a bit, we got some ice cream. Mom's was the best... it was a basil sorbet. So yummy, but she got the last scoop. Miguel still enjoyed his ice cream though!

Right when we got our ice cream it started to pour down rain. So my thoughtful daddy went to get the car while we waited to stay dry. I don't sit still well sometimes, and this being one of those times I played with the camera and talked to Baby Ray. 

Telling Baby Ray what's up.

On our way back to the house in Lincoln we checked out this really beautiful cathedral in Helena. There really isn't too much to Helena... or the state of Montana... so I was surprised to see this huge church.

Check out some amazing pictures of Montana we took on our drive back to the cabin. It was breathtaking... the photos don't really do it justice. I think we captured some of the reason Montana is called Big Sky though...

Here are some shots of the wild flowers right out our cabin door!

Miguel chopped wood!

Oh and I cannot forget this picture... holy cow. I never knew you could see so many stars here on Earth. Seriously, we walked outside the first night and were knocked over with the smack-you-in-the-face beauty. And what is even crazier is the fact that this is a bad quality photo of the stars. I had never seen the Milky Way before either. One of my favorite parts of this trip was laying down outside and looking at the stars!