Foaling Season

The absolute best part of being in Montana in the spring time is seeing all the new little babies!

My parents breed and raise quarter horses, so there are always some cute little baby foals running around. Last night I got to witness up close and personal one of the new little colts coming into this world. I've always been around a day or two after the babies are born, but I've never actually seen it first hand. It was a really amazing experience.

I love to watch the relationship between the proud mama horse, who was struggling and in pain, but you could just see all the love she had for that little guy! The colt (News Prince) was so big and so cute, but he couldn't nurse from his mama until she lost her afterbirth, so he was hungry and trying to suck on my finger. What is so amazing to me is that they just know right from the start how to take care of themselves, how to walk, and find food... Once this little guy started walking, his mama was still laying down, so he started following me every step I took.

Isn't he just the cutest?!

Welcome to the world News Prince... You're going to like being a horse...it's a good life.

We're Alive and in Montana!

Sorry about the lack of posting. Yes we're still alive. We made it to Montana, Saturday evening, just in time to dye some Easter eggs, have a yummy dinner with the family, and have the hunt. We've been busy and lazy since we've been here. We're tying up some job stuff, but neither of us have started working yet. We still haven't sold our house in Texas, but I assure you as soon as we hear something you will too, because I'll be much too excited to keep it to myself.

Our last two days of our trip were spent hiking and exploring Arches National Park. We had so much fun. Hayden was absolutely in love with the big rocks. We took a million pictures and spent most of the day. Then we drove that afternoon up to Provo and stayed with my sister Erin and her husband Lars, who happens to be Dirk's best friend and ex-roommate. My other sister Megan and her boys and my brother Brinton also live in town, so it was a big family get together for about a day and a half. It was lots of fun. I got to meet Brinton's girlfriend, Josie, who is absolutely adorable and lots of fun. And of course we got to hang out with my best bud and ex-roommate, Julie. We also managed to squeeze in lunch at a Samoan restaurant with our friends Chris and Zoila from Texas (who were there visiting family). I also got to go to a BYU ballroom dance performance, for free of course (thanks to Erin). I really miss being able to attend all kinds of arts and cultural events there in Utah. Did you know the BYU ballroom dance team has been undefeated in competitions since 1982??!!! They're good! It was a very packed stay in Provo with lots of fun talking and eating, and staying up late.

It is so nice to be back in Montana again. It was a little weird at first to be telling people I'm now living here in town instead of just visiting this time. We attempted to get our drivers license, but forgot our birth certificates (oops!).... We're getting a little done here and there, but I think mostly we're still in vacation mode. I feel like my body is trying to break down on me, so I figure I'll take it easy until we start working.

Here's some pics from the last week.

First 2 Days

We are finishing up Day 2 of our drive up to Montana. It has been a LONG week so far.

Sunday we had an open house and nobody came :(

Sunday night and most of Monday morning, Dirk was vomiting and sick and left all the last minute prep work for the movers to me. :(

Monday our movers came. All 2 of them. For a 1,700 sq. foot house. And they thought it would only take 4 hours... 9 hours later they finished up! Because of the unexpectedly long day, I didn't get all my planning and printing of maps and information and itineraries typed up and ready to go.

Monday night all three of us slept (attempted) on an air mattress in a very cold and empty house. We should have taken our friend up on the offer to sleep on her couches!

Tuesday we started driving very early. We were ready for a good drive. Our last long road trip Hayden was awesome. This time he was crying and cranky and peeing through his diaper constantly. I think it had to do with the lack of sleep the night before.

After driving through ugly west Texas and making a wrong turn or two, we stopped at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico for a bit of a break. It was really cool going down 750 feet in a really fast elevator with glass windows. A little scary, but fun. When we got down into the caverns Hayden started bawling. He was sooo scared! He kept saying he was scared of monsters and bats. We were down there for almost 2 hours and about 30 minutes before we finished Hayden started getting brave and walked on his own and started pointing to all the really neat formations.

I thought THIS was the scariest part of the caverns!

Hayden has a very good eye and was seeing some interesting objects in the formations. Most of which I wouldn't have even noticed without him pointing them out. Except this one. THIS was a little hard not to notice and of course my 2 yr old son is the one to yell, "Look a giant booboo!"

My camera batteries were dying after about 5 minutes in the caverns, so after numerous attempts to get the flash to go off and have it focused at the same time before the whole thing shut off, this is what we got.

After the caverns we drove through Roswell, NM... totally not Alien exciting in the slightest bit. I was disappointed. We did see a little bit of alien life though... .....and I was going to upload the picture, but I realized I took it on my phone and don't know how to upload them yet! How's that for trying to convince you I saw an alien?!

We decided to take a different route up to our hotel in Albuquerque to avoid rush hour traffic through the city. What we ended up taking was a middle of nowhere "highway" (more like a farm road) where the speed limit couldn't make up it's mind and was constantly changing back and forth between 35 mph up to 55mph. I almost died. What little "towns" we saw reminded us of the back country middle of nowhere towns where people go to in horror movies and get murdered by crazy people. It seemed like it took forever to get out of there and back to an interstate. We were so exhausted!

We finally arrived at our hotel, the Hyatt Place, which couldn't have been better for us. It was beautiful and comfortable and all the employees were so nice. It was rated a 3 star, but was more like a 4 star without having to tip people! We got the hotel on priceline for about $8 more than the motel 6 down the road. It was definitely worth the $52 we paid for the night.

I absolutely love when a hotel does not have ugly bedspreads and art. This not only was pretty, but it was so comfortable. We all slept like babies and didn't check out until noon when we had to. This is a pic from the website, but this is exactly what our room looked like.

When we finally were kicked out of the hotel, we started on our drive through northern New Mexico. It was very windy and we seemed to be engulfed by a giant wall of dirt and dust for about 3 hours. We finally made it to Moab and drove strait to Arches National Park. We were running a little late because of all the high winds (and the late checkout) and I really wanted to be in the park during that perfect time of day for beautiful pictures. I think had we gotten there about 30-40 minutes earlier it would have been perfect. I still got some nice pictures on the way and a few in the park.

We plan on getting up early (not so nice hotel tonight) and spending a good part of the day exploring Arches and oogling and awwing at the really cool Jeeps that are here for Jeep week.

Hopefully I'll get some more pretty pictures tomorrow!! I soo wish I had a nicer camera for trips like this!!