The road to here

I finally have some pictures to share from the last few weeks! Enjoy!

Before Mom & I hit the road, we enjoyed lunch with one of my best friends, Bri, and her mom.
The next day we cross into Montana! See how open it is? Yup, pretty much how it looks.

Closing in on Great Falls....are those mountains I see in the background? Why, yes it is!

Meeting nephew Asher for the first time! By feeding him, hopefully he will associate me with
food and other happy things, but if not, I did inform him that as his Aunt, I will always have gum. I am not good for many things, but I can be relied on for gum.

Rebecca and me watching Ash climb all over Denali

True dedication is falling asleep with the bottle in your mouth...which happened seconds before this photo was taken. Seriously, how cute??!?!

He loves his bouncy seat!

Awww. Love him!

Ash & Crockett getting to know each other

A view of the Missouri River

Giant Spring

Two-foot long trout at the display pond at the Trout Hatchery

The handicap signs have cowboy hats! Bahahaha! Hilarious.

Can you tell I am obsessed? Look at those eyes!

Crockett says, "Look at how sad I am. When is Dad getting here?"

The three pups: Crockett, Kenai, & Denali

Trying on Mike's helmet. It seems kind of smashed-down to me and reminds me of a Lego-person's head. It also does not smell pleasant.

Dog Whisperer?

The night sky on the 4th of July. This picture doesn't really compare to the real thing, but I thought it was beautiful!

Parked along the river to watch the fireworks. Just below the dam at the bottom of the picture are the Black Eagle Falls. I couldn't get a very good picture at dusk, but they are really beautiful as well.

Just when we said, "Wow. Crockett is not afraid of the fireworks," he jumped up into my lap.

Together again! Woo hoo!

Crockett takes it all in

So far, we have really been enjoying ourselves. I think this weekend we are going to go to a state park not too far away and do some fly fishing. (When I say 'we', I mean that Mike will be fly fishing and I will be reading a book and hanging out with Crockett. I would like to fish, but I don't know how to fly fish or have a pole, so that makes it kind of a problem.)

As far as our waiting for a house goes, Mike went to talk to the Housing Office today and I have both good news and bad news. Which do you want first? Good news? Ok.

Good news: A house a block away from Jon & Rebecca's is going to be vacant starting August 9, and we should be receiving a call from Housing today officially offering it to us.

Bad news: Normally, you are allowed to be a guest of someone on-base for 30 days. We thought we would fall into this category, and would have no problem staying with Jon & Rebecca, but apparently since we are waiting for housing, that does not make us "guests" and we are no longer allowed to stay with them. We asked housing if we could not receive our BAH (monthly housing allotment that is part of your paycheck) in order to stay with our family, but they said no. Sooooo, we are looking for a place to sleep for the next month, since we'll come to J&R's during the day to take care of the dogs. The TLF on base is full, and all the cheaper options off base are full as well, so right now we are looking at shelling out some serious cash to stay off base. GAAHHHHHHH. So many hoops to jump through...it is just ridiculous. I know it is better to deal with this now than to get caught and be in trouble, but seriously. This year has been such a struggle! I thought it would end once we got here, but I guess not. We are both trying to stay positive, but it is really tough to continually get your hopes up, only to have everything change in a second. Prayers for our sanity are appreciated!