Wednesday Sherry and Will joined us, and we headed for the program at the museum on rocks and minerals – one of June’s favorite things.  Alas, it was already sold out by the time that we got there, but we did get to go around back and join in on the panning for gemstones.  The kids love it.

We hadn’t made monster toast here in a good while, so yesterday Mason asked if we could make some for snack after we took Mallory to meet her ride to dance, ran by the library where June got her first ever medal in the summer reading program, and made a grocery store stop.  They made the colors really bright yesterday 🙂

Lindee had to work yesterday, and Jackson played in a golf tournament, so Mallory, Clara, & I headed over to spend the day at Historic Brattonsville.  They had all kinds of events going on for the kids, and the buildings were all open for us to go in & check out – and to get out of the heat.  It’s not one of those houses where the rooms are roped off & you can’t go in – you can just roam around to your heart’s content.  I loved this display of zinnias on one of the side tables.

Clara, of course, was most excited about the farm animals we got to see. She took this picture of the piglet.  We had a good time talking to the person they just hired to direct the animal husbandry at the farm.  All of the animals are heirloom breeds – the very kinds they would actually have raised during the 17 & 1800’s – and she had told us that they had recently sold off all their piglets, except for one they couldn’t catch.  That made us laugh – I guess it was this one 🙂

Addie and Lee decided to celebrate Independence Day on the 3rd, Sunday night, since that way they didn’t have to get up and go to work the next morning.  They invited us, and Lee’s mom & dad, over to join them.  We had hotdogs cooked on the grill and all the fixings, & then shot fireworks as soon as it got dark.  Get dark it did, though – you can barely see Mason holding his Roman candle in this picture.

The kids got in the pool to swim while they enjoyed the really big fireworks – and while they enjoyed the balloons with glow sticks in there. They really did glow – very cool!

Our girls’ beach trip is always such a highlight of my summer.  This year it absolutely was a whirlwind.  The others went a little earlier, but Pam, Sherry, & I didn’t get down there until late Wednesday night – Sherry & I both kept grandkids all day that day – and we headed home early Friday morning, but you just have to take what you can get when you’re trying to accommodate so many different schedules.  This year, particularly, since Becky had rotator cuff surgery Friday afternoon.  The Thursday we were there, though, was a beautiful day.  The town of Sunset Beach has a brand new park, with a lovely Veterans Memorial in it.  Here was the Navy kiosk.

After Becky & Charlotte left – soon after lunch – the rest of us went back out doing a little shopping, & then to check out the beach.  It was a beautiful day with great, great friends.

When the kids were here Wednesday – Charlie, June, Adam, & Mason – we headed into town to the Larne Elementary Library (if June and Mason went three times over the course of the summer they got a bracelet & got their name entered in a drawing for a gift certificate to the book fair in the fall, and this was their third time), and then went out back to play on the school playground.  It is SO nice.

While I was in Montana, one of Jeff’s projects was getting a tire swing hung up for the kids.  To say they were excited to find it was a huge understatement.  They played on it for hours both days they were here this past week!

Finally coming to the end of all the “basking in the glow” of our great week in Montana. That last day, while we were checking out Whitefish, we found the Whitefish Museum.  Was that ever a relief.  You know a vacation for me needs to include a museum :-).  This was a great little museum about the history of the town, and as the man who was working there told us, the town of Whitefish doesn’t have that long a history, in the greater scheme of things.  Since huckleberries were such a big part of our vacation, I loved seeing this 🙂

Every time we went anywhere on vacation, we drove past this cool old car, so on the last day we finally stopped to get pictures of it.  Meg & I went inside to ask the people at the jewelry store – it was sitting in their parking lot – about it.  It’s a Citroen, which I had never heard of, but you know, just in the week we’ve been home, I’ve heard about Citroen automobiles a couple of times.  How funny is that?  It was just an amazing week spent with some amazing people.

We got up Thursday morning & headed to the town of Whitefish to spend the day, before we had to put Olivia on the bus for Missoula & her flight home the next day.  I have to say, I didn’t really expect, while vacationing in Montana, to be able to spend much time with my toes in the sand.  They had a little beach right there in town, though, on the shores of Whitefish Lake, so we headed down to check it out.  The water was WAY too cold for us to even go wading – although apparently not for the kids who were out swimming in it – but it was lovely.

One really cool thing about Whitefish, this little town in Montana, was that it was the location of one of the last buildings Frank Lloyd White ever designed. How cool is that? We found it without too much trouble – possibly because there was a huge sign out front that said The Frank Lloyd White Building – and this was the plaque on the building itself. Just very, very cool.