A little glimpse of the FaMiLy

My auntie Jen is super into family history! My auntie Jen has also somehow managed to raise 4 little boys to be equally as excited.(I know they are pretty much all bigger than me now but they will always be my "little" boys) So for my cousin Chet's 13th birthday he wanted to do a temple trip down to cardston to do baptisms.

We had a fairly large crew organized to go however due to Work, illness and other issues there ended up being six of us. which consisted of Papa (my grandpa-far right), Me, My auntie Jen, Chet, Uncle Thornton, and A.J.(also cousin). We still managed to get all 122 family names done though! that my aunt had brought with. it was cool I love the cardston temple. SO BEAUTIFUL!!

Take a close look at this next picture....these are the big windows on the side of the temple.

If you look near the top 2 outside corners you can see the 2 great big owls that were hanging out on the temple all day. At first I thought they were fake but then when I got closer they started moving and making crazy noises. they look small in the picture but they were flippin huge!!

It was Chet's birthday on the 23rd and my dads Birthday on the 26th so my family decided to do something fairly random to celebrate.

Cody & Levi

Auntie Jen & Mumsy

Wicked witch of the west (lost my broom had to improvise)

Amy, Cody, Chet, Levi
This is one persuasive little lady I don't know to many women who could get 3 guys t wear high heels in public like that! 

The 3 stuges
Uncle Marty, My Daddy, Papa

A.J.

We all loaded up into vehicles and drove to Greatfalls Montana for Lunch hahaha. We had a lot of fun! I love random activities like this and especially when my family gets involved! We drove 4 hours had some lunch did some shopping....raised some havic in Montana then headed home! All in all I'd say it was a fairly productive day!!

I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!!



Driving SOLO

So 3 days after I got back from Montana I decided to take a nice little drive from my parents place which is in southern Alberta, to Boise Idaho to see a friend of mine. I headed down on a Thursday morning and decided to take the scenic route down. When I got to the chief mountain border crossing and told the customs officer that I was driving to Boise for a day to see a friend he got suspicious… our conversation went something like this:
Officer:so your driving to Boise for a day? By yourself?
Me: yes
Officer: what for?
Me: to see a friend
Officer: male or female?
Me:male
Officer:hmmm how do I know your not coming down here to work??
Me:because I'm coming back on Saturday.
Officer: so let me get this straight you live in spruce grove, and your driving all the way to Boise Idaho by yourself for one day??
Me: yes
Officer: I can't let you go until you can prove to me that you are going to come back.
So I'm frantically searching my car for some kind of proof that I'm not tryin to illegally emigrate to the US. How in the heck do you prove something like that?????
Eventually I ended up giving him my U of A I.D. card and had to give him my whole life story about my teaching contract before he finally let me cross. Apparently I'm suspicious. So I made it across and headed through glacier national park. I loved the drive so much the week before I couldn't resist taking that way again. So made it through glacier and kalispell where I stopped and tried to fix my cell phone, because once I crossed the border I had no service until I got to Boise
(13.5 hours with no cell phone =death)
so after kalispell I headed to Missoula where I stopped and picked up a GPS thingy (which I returned in Great Falls on my way home, since it had served its purpose. haha) and then from Missoula went to Boise. It was a beautiful drive the whole way I was driving trough mountains and along lakes and rivers and through trees. So very nice however it took me 15 hours to get there! Haha normally I cant even drive from my house to my parents house which is only 4 hours away without stopping for a nap or something… but somehow I managed to go all the way to Boise without stopping other than for bathroom breaks and the occasional sandwich.

So I made it to Boise had a good visit with my friend…although it didn't make me any less worried about this particular individual I was glad I went and was able to have some fun. Which included going out for "soul" food or "Sole" food I dunno anyway that was fun I ate the ugliest things ive ever touched in my life.

CRAWFISH!!!

EEK My friend knows that I am deathly terrified of any type of sea food so he makes sure everytime we see eachother we have to have sushi, or crawfish, or something sickly creepy like that

 

The chef was soooooo FUNNY!! I loved him and infact I might go back to Boise someday for no other reason than to have some of chef rolands Sweet potatoe pie FREAKING DELICIOUS! it was like a party in my mouth!

So anyway the time in Boise came and went it was fun/sad/happy/bitter/much needed. haha.

Anywho So I decided not to take the scenic route home and took the Main interstates all the way back to Canada...Would you believe it only took me 12 hours!! and I stopped along the way and did some sight seeing!! such as:

Stopping in Idaho Falls to check out the newly renovated visitors center...(and maybe to pee lol)

It was pretty cool. I also stopped and took some pictures, had to gas up 3 times cause I was driving like a bat outa hell, and stopped to return GPS in Greatfalls as mentioned earlier.

Anyway heres where it gets funny:

Canadian Border customs

So the Lady has about the same conversation with me as the american guy did on my way down to the US, however after she leaves the window to go and talk to someone she comes back hands me a slip and asks me to come inside. So I go in some dude asks me who I went to see in Boise, I told him the name of my friend, I'm pretty sure he looked him up on the computer and told me to sit and wait a few minutes. Then I get called back up and he asks whos vehicle I am driving? because as you know I totalled my Truck A few months ago, and have been driving my parents vehicle since. So I told them whos it was and he then asked to have my keys so he could do a search on my vehicle. I oblige and hand over my keys and take as seat as asked. about 20 minutes later he is still searching. It had been a while since I took a bathroom break so I got up and asked one of the other officers if it would be O.K. if I went to the washroom. She told me it was O.K. so I started to walk in that direction next thing I know another officer Yells "STOP RIGHT THERE!!" and some sort of alarm thing goes off. so I stop Immediately stop and wait while they call the officer doing the search in my vehicle. He says I'm good to go and they let me go. I thought nothing of this.........until I got home and told my friend at school what happened at the border. He happens to have a sister that works at customs in the airport, and he informed me as to how incredibly lucky I was and how asking to go the washroom is the biggest mistake of all time at customs because the officers get even more suspicious.......So that day at the coutts border crossing could have turned into the worst day of my life......THANKFULLY I did not get violated and was aloud to go on my merry way. So keep that in mind next time you get searched at customs! I am so nieve sometimes!!

Conclusion of Montana Phenomenon

So we woke up in a soaking wet tent.

This is a picture of the giant puddle that was our tent in the morning when we woke up all the shiny spots are puddles.

Apparently Brett kept bringing me stuff to keep me warm and I slept hugging the emergency blanket he brought me and slept with a pair of warm socks on my pillow. haha I'm a little out of it when I sleep. So When we finally had the courage to get up it was 11:30, we were supposed to "check out" at 11 and were freezing and soaked and all we want is some shower tokens. So I stay in my nice cozy sleeping bag and Brett goes on a mission to find shower tokens. The Lady in the office hands him 2 tokens that are good for 6 minutes each. So Brett asks if he can have a couple more. when her husband walks out and says "6 minutes is a long time boy." Brett replys ya but I would like to get a couple extra just in case. old man says "your not listening to me boy 6 minutes is long enough" Brett turns to the woman and asks how much extra tokens are she says 5 dollars each. old man says "6 minutes is long enough boy" Brett pulls 10 dollars out of his pocket. Old man says "I don't think you realize how long 6 minutes is boy." Brett replies "Fine then!!" puts the money back in his pocket and comes back to the camp site. We each take a 6 minute speed shower and pack up the stuff. Seeing as its snowing we cant decide what to do. So we start to drive in search for food. and we drove and we drove and we drove some more. Finally we ended up in Great Falls Montana... Went to Golden Coral for some lunch and drove 4 hours back to Claresholm. We covered ALOT of ground and had ALOT of fun for 3 days! it was a BLAST! and we are allready planning our next road trip.....this time were thinking of going alot farther. maybe New York, or Florida, who knows maybe even Nevada??? hahahaha  can't wait for the next adventure!!

Montana Road Trip part 3

The adventure continues..... But before I do that I need to insert: Today @ school in my CTS class aka: Career and Technology Studies class. My instructor asked how many of us knew what a BLOG was.... and thanks to Mrs. Stephanie Tobler... I was able to say I knew what it was hahaha not that I knew how to use it or what its intended purpose or audience was but I had a general idea of what they were! haha yay for me!!

Anyways back to my Road trip, I gotta get this finished up before I forget all the critical details:
So where were we? ah Yes we spent a lovely night at the Blue and white Motel.... Woke up in the morning had the most AMAZING pancakes ever....for those of you who are in close proximity to an IHOP get the new york cheesecake pancakes...SO DELICIOUS!! I'M IN LOVE. and I was a little bitter when I didnt get to have them before I left Idaho the following week but thats a whole nother story.So now we have ate and are ready to head to Logans pass for our hike... When ALAS adventure calls our name once more!!

Who could pass up an opportunity like this???? It screams EXCITEMENT!!

haha so A.D.D. took over our vacation once again and we had to check this out....

This "little" guy walked right in front of the car! COOL

This guy started to follow us for a while and I attempted to make a video so that it would appear that this bear was trecking through our campsite....however you will notice the lovely Bear whisperer ruins my attempt right at the end of the video by walking right up beside the bear. haha

So this was super fascinating for about the first 5-10 minutes then once you really start to think about it you realize that this little habbituary is pretty much the most depressing thing of all time....and your inner naturalist/ treehugger senses are triggered and you must leave... or else you are overwhelmed with a need to FREE THE BEARS!!

So Pressing onward it is time to head to Logans Pass where the real fun began!! "theLoop" hike which runs along the "looking to the sun" road is freaking AMAZING!! most beautiful view EVER!! it was fabulous the wild life was incredible!!!

HAHAHA K the gopher video was a joke...Brett gave me a pretty hard time for making that one. But up close it looked really cool cause the stupid little guy wasnt scared of us at all I was throwing stuff at him the whole time trying to get him to run but he wouldnt and up close you could see his little Jaw moving I thought it was cute. WHAT EVER BRETT!!!!

Anyway on a real note this hike was actually SSOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!

see what I mean.....this is the view for practically the whole hike! GORGEOUS!!

My efforta at the beggining of the hike to keep the pants clean and Dry....you will understand the significance of this statement later on...

 

Some actually cool wild life right above us on the trail...Brett wouldnt let me try to pet this one.

We saw tonnes of Big horn sheep on this hike and had a fairly close encounter with a couple....but thatll come later on... :)

So this Hike is started at the Logans pass visitors center, and you have the option to walk all the way along the trail which eventually brings you out further down the mountian on the looking to the sun road. or you can turn off the path about half way and hike up to the glacier over look. which is about a 45 minute Hike straight up, to get back down you hike back down to the main trail and either continue to the lower part of the road and get picked up by a shuttle which takes you back to the visitirs center....or you can just reverse your hike and walk back the way you came so you end up at your car.

This is roughly the beginning of where the trail turns off and heads up to the glacier overlook and it just gets steeper and steeper the further up you go.

This is my SAD attempt at being creative on the way up to the glacier overlook. O and did I mention that about half way to the turning point for the glacier overlook it started to rain...??? so at this point were soaking wet but "we came this far we have to make it to the top" So Brett being the gentleman he is made me where his jacket on top of my hoody and sweatpants....and he went in his Tee shirt and shorts.

I am not going to show many pictures of the top because the pictures dont do the AMAZING view any justice what-so-ever.

I LOVE this pic. anyway the View was incredible!! but I couldnt stop there so we hiked up even further to eat our lunch

Bretts Sandwiches got mangled everyday!! and who doesnt eat subway on the top of a mountain??

I took this picture pointing straight down from where we ate our lunch... it was a little steep! haha

Time to head back down....... Heres where it gets really interesting!!

So we get back down to the "overlook" from our little extra hike to our lunch spot and these 2 guys are there from Arizona. Were on top of a Glacier overlook=it is snowing. Brett is wearing T-shirt and shorts. So Arizona guy starts giving him trouble saying "Boy you better get down off of here before hypothermia sets in... I have an extra jacket I'll give it to you." Brett being stubborn as he is resists the offer. (Yes it was snowing.....however it was still only like 5'C out so not too overly cold) So home boy #1 says we need to get off the mountain while we still can!! "take the short way down to where the shuttle picks people up its only 2.5 miles down from the main trail." We say no thats O.K. well miss the shuttle. (the last shuttle heads up @ 7:00and our little stint with the Berenstein Bears set us back and we didnt start our hike until about 2. So at this point were barely even half way and its like 6 o'clock. Home boy #1 insists we take the "short way" down and try to catch the shuttle. then Arizona boy #2 comes along all decked out in his snow gear right from head to tow. And he sees Brett and says "Boy- you a fool, ain't no room for fools on these trails boy. You know how many people Die in Arizona every year because they dont prepare for the elements??. Boy you a fool. You need to get off this mountain Boy. and quick." babahahahahaa So they wouldnt leave Brett alone untill he agreed to atleast wear a rain poncho. so he did. Anyways so we say K thanks guys but were just gonna head back to the car cause we wont make it down to the shuttle. so we take off down the trail and run into a slight problem

But after we defeated the Big horn sheep... home boy #1 caught up to us and insists we go down to the lower level and he follows us off the Glacier overlook down to the main trail to ensure we take the "short 2.5 mile" trail down the mountain. So hes not giving up so we give in and go on our merry way don to the lower part. We walk and walk and walk and walk and finally we see a sign. It says not that were getting close but that were actually still 5 miles from the road!!!! So homeboy was WRONG!! and it would have been just as fast for us to walk back to our car....where we would be guaranteed to be able to get home. However were on our way down to the shuttle which we have allready missed. So we keep walking it keeps raining and snowing we are Soaked exhausted its getting Dark and we have no idea how we are going to get back to the car which is probably about 20 miles up the road on the Windy mountain roads. Finally @ about 9:00 we get to the road and have now missed the shuttle bus by about 2 hours, and we look Homeless:

So we do what any desperate stranded person would do... We hitch hike!! haha so CRAZY I know! But desperate times call for desperate measures!! So the most stereotypical montana hillbilly picks us up... and for the 20 minute  drive up th windy road we heard all about the lift and 35" rims that hes got on his vehicle and blah blah blah. So we finally make it bakc to the car...YAY!! homeward bound! Right?...

WRONG!

O crap were on empty, we dont have enough gas to get back to west glacier tonight guess were stayin in east glacier. So we start driving to east glacier. They are doing construction on the windy mountain roadsso there are parts where only one car can go at a time and there are solar powered traffic lights directing the traffic so each light is about 10 minutes long. Its dark there is no one on the road. we get to the light realize we have a wait so Brett puts the car in Park. We get talking soon enough the light turns green and Brett goes to put the car in drive and The shifter is STUCK!! So I burst out laughing! as Brett trys to fix the problem. So at this point we are both soaking wet, Freezing cold, Its pitch Black, There is no one around for miles, Neither of us have cell phone service, car is on empty, and now the car is STUCK in park. on the side of the flippin mountian!! hahahahahaha. So we try to mess with it for a bit. Finally someone comes along, Brett waves him down to ask for some tools... hes got nothing says sorry I gotta go...and drives away. A few minutes later another guy pulls up... we ask him for tools. Hes a bike repair guy so he hooks us up with some tools, we take the shifter apart to see what the heck is going on. Bike Man asks to see the shifter once its off and he drops it on the highway and all the little springs and metal shims go all over the road! so we find all the pieces and buddy figures there is not much else we can do so he sayd sorry guys i gotta go. we give him his tools and he's on his way. So now to recap:we are both soaking wet, Freezing cold, Its pitch Black, There is no one around for miles, Neither of us have cell phone service, car is on empty, and now the car is STUCK in park. on the side of the flippin mountian!! and the shifter is completely dismantled and we have no tools to put it back together!. At this point we have no more ideas....were stuck here till morning. Then Brett says "Kayla I'm droppin a prayer" haha so we did and cool thing happened not even like 10 seconds later Brett is like "hand me the owners manual" opens it up to a freakin picture of the shifter that says "if shifter is jammed turn to page whatever" so he does and it showed us the little emergency release slot that you shove a key into and then the car with shift into gear. SSOOOO FLIPPIN COOL!!!!!

BEFORE

AFTER

Anyway so were driving away and brett says " we are not telling anyone what just happened" I say O.K. crazy and thus I am blogging about it hahaha. Dont kill me Brett. Stephanie is the only one who ever looks at this thing. So its like 11:30 now and we make it to east glacier. A.D.D. gets us again and we spend like an hour looking at our pictures then figure hhmmm we better find somewhere to sleep tonight. So we get to St. Marys camp ground. Set up the tent and go to sleep (after over paying, guessing on our camp site #,playing with a stray possesed cat and unsuccessfully searching for shower tokens that is).

So its morning And were SOAKED!! turns out the little pop-up tent wasnt water proof! there was water everywhere!! apparently Brett was up all night Frezzing to death. but my super sleeping bag 5000 from the G-parents kept me nice and warm. anyway I'm getting flipping tired majority of the excitement has now been shared however I will probably be able to sum up the rest quickly in the morning. But I am Sick and I need to catch some zzzzzz's 

To be continued for a very short period of time cause this BLOG is ridiculously LONG!!! 

Montana Road Trip part 2

so the adventure continues.... We left Waterton and headed south. Shortly after crossing the border I saw a Black bear in the distance and as we drove by I screamed, "BRETT!!! did you see that bear??" immediately Brett slammed on the brakes in the middle of the highway and did a 3 point turn right there.

We got back to where the bear was and to my surprise wild life expert Olsen realized that this was not the threat that we initially anticipated.... and in fact this particular type of bear just so happens to travel around Montana in heards. The next heard we saw contained a Grizzly and two black bears weird combo....... I know right!

To this day I have not lived this one down, every Cow we have seen since then depending on the colour is a grizzly=Brown, Black bear=black, Polar bear=white, Panda Bear=black and white dairy cows. haha.
So we continued our journey to Glacier National Park....... Or as delerious Brett would say :

Gacier Natier perk.... 

We Drove to East Glacier in search of food and nothing was sounding appealing....so we continued the search to West Glacier. Again no Dice. We made it Kalispel and our A.D.D. got the better of us and we drove right through. We ended up in white fish and at this point we were so tired that we got sick of searching and went to dairy queen. Yes we drove all the way to white fish for Dairy Queen hahaha. So at this point were Exhausted its like 11 o'clock at night and we once again have no where to sleep, all the campgrounds were full....so Brett decided we were getting a hotel. All the hotels were full Except: The Blue and White Motel

YEAH!! the sign on the door says Blackjack you betcha we got a themed room! hahaha what the heck??This room was hilarious!!! SO TACKY!! it was awesome! in a hilarious way.

Like I said this was one classy joint. I figure a picture speaks a thousand words. When we woke up we went for breakfast @ IHOP mmmmmm IHOP how I LOVE you and your new york cheesecake pancakes!

We then started to head to Logans Pass where we would begin our Hike for that day....once Again we got distracted and ended up in

"THE BEAR PEN"!!

TO BE CONTINUED.....