Stuck in Spencer

We left a little later Sunday morning than we had planned, but we were making good time. Until we hit Dubois, Idaho. We had been driving for almost 4 hours and we decided to stop for gas. At the gas station we were watching people come off the freeway from the opposite direction, their cars and trucks just caked with ice and icicles! Everyone we talked to said it was an awful storm through the pass. At the gas station the wind was ICE cold and blowing hard with a bit of snow, so we got back in the car and started heading towards the pass, we didn't get more than ten minutes away when we COULD NOT SEE A THING... not the car infront of us, not the road in front of us, not even the hood of our car in front of us at points! It seriously felt like a movie, it was very ominous and erie feeling. Luckly we made it to the next little town Spencer. Spencer is so small the only thing there was a small cafe- I think the name of it was "Cafe." So we made our way there, the snow was a really dry icy snow and it was blowing completely horizontal! So we went into this little cafe and they advised us to turn around and go back to Idaho Falls to stay the night. They said the storm was supposed to last for two days and if they closed the roads we would be stuck there with no place to stay since the only hotel was back in Dubois and that was just a little mom and pop place. So we turned around contemplating going home, if we couldn't make it through the pass for 2 or 3 days Tony would miss most of his class and probably wouldn't be able to take it if we did get there. We made it back to Dubois where strangely the weather was much better, we stayed at the gas station for a little while watching the people come off the freeway and talking to people. We heard there had been several roll overs and one man told us he had lived in Montana and Idaho his whole life and had never seen a storm that bad- his truck was covered with snowy ice. We decided that we would wait it out a little bit longer and if it didn't get better we would go back to Idaho Falls and hope we could make it through in the morning, because they said the wind in the pass wasn't usually as bad in the morning. We ended up waiting it out for about 3 and a half hours in the car driving around Dubois and then we decided to give it one more try. The cars coming off the freeway were starting to look better, at least it was looking like the snow on them was dirty and not as fresh. We also knew from our good friend Katie in Missoula that if we could just make it through the pass to Dilon, the weather would be fine. So we left and headed back up. The storm had almost completely cleared. The roads were wet and a little snowy, but we made it through no problems. We finally made it into Kalispell around 10:30 last night, it was a long drive but, except the last little stretch, seemed to go really fast. When we added it up we were amazed that we had spent about 13 hours in the car. Tayvie was out of the car for about a total of 15 minutes and Ayla maybe a half hour the whole trip, but they were AMAZINGLY good! They made the trip so much easier! Tayvie would fuss a little when it was time to eat and be changed, but then she would coo at Ayla for a little bit and then go back to sleep. Ayla did awesome, she loved "helping me" with Tayvie and holding her hand and patting her. She would tell Tayvie "we almost there Taybe." At the very end of the trip she started telling me she was tired but she didn't do any wining or crying at all! She did great! When we got to the townhouse she ran around the living room for a while singing and was so happy to be here. The whole trip she kept asking if we were going to "Hannah 'tana." In fact that's where she thinks we are right now is "Hannah 'tana." (My 2 year old's love of Hannah Montana is a story for another day). All in all, as crazy as it sounds it was a fun trip here, I'm just very thankful we didn't have to turn around and go home after all! :) So anyway, now I know the meaning of WHITE OUT BLIZZARD CONDITIONS! I wish I had a picture to post but if you open up your Windows Word Document to a blank page and stare at that that's about what it looked like!
P.S. I forgot to mention we were about an hour out of Kalispell and we almost hit a deer crossing in front of us!!! Glad that didn't happen! We were lucky...and so was the deer!

Good Morning!

This is Tayvie's flower girl dress for Marci's wedding! How cute huh? This little one kills me! She is so dang cute!

This is obviously Ayla's flower girl dress, she was much too busy being a princess in her pretty dress...and pretending it was raining to have a photoshoot this morning! Seriously most of the pictures I got of her this morning are of the umbrella over her face! It was so cute though, she kept saying "tut-tut it looks like rain!"

See what I'm talkin' about?

Quilting

My Grandma Haun has Marci's quilt for her wedding up, so we've been able to go to her house a few times in the last few weeks and help work on it. She has a closet full of toys that Ayla usually loves to play with but as along as the quilt is up she would rather "help" us. She sits right along side of us and puts her pins in. She's really funny, the other day we looked over and she had pinned some buttons to the quilt. You can see in the pictures: she takes quilting very seriously and is very focused! Tayvie can not yet quilt :) but she has been a very good girl too while we're there. It's been fun having an excuse to go visit with my grandmas.

Just In Case You Needed A Smile Today...

...here are plenty for ya:


(By the way these are her "Goofy ears.")

And here's just a sweet face incase you need one of those too:

More about Kalispell

Several people have asked me about this so I'll explain... an opportunity to talk about Kalispell? Of course I'll take it!

The company Tony works for, Semitool, is based out of Kalispell, Montana. Kalispell is near the Canadian boarder right by Glacier_National_Park. It's about an 11 hour drive from here. It's absolutely beautiful up there. Tony's work sends him up there to take classes on the robots and machines he works on, they give him a generous per diam for food, they pay for the hotel and rental car if we want one, and mileage for the whole trip. So while Tony goes to his classes I get an all expenses paid vacation at the luxurious Hampton! Seriously, we love the Hampton up there, they are so friendly, they have a nice warm pool, they serve a yummy breakfast every morning, they have a laundry room, and a free computer lab, and comfortable hospitality areas.

Plus I'll be able to do some exploring the city it's self is between two lakes, and the Big Mountain Ski Resort. And there's shopping centers, and touristy places and lots of fun little restaurants.

This will be our 3rd trip to Kalispell together, and this time we get to stay for 2 whole weeks. Which means we will have a weekend together to go exploring... hopefully this time we'll hit Glacier National Park. Here are our past_Kalispell_trips.

(It will show these two posts on top so just scroll down).

Why Are We So Excited?

WE GET TO GO TO KALISPELL!!!