Montana and Kid's Day

Well, we survived our first vacation to Montana. Note to new parents, never travel with just one parent no matter who else you bring. It is way to difficult with 2 little boys, 2 teenagers, and a baby. Next trip will be with George, too. We had a great time. We have "misplaced" our digital camera so a lot of our trip pictures are on that camera. We arrived in Bozeman after a 7 hour drive. Normally it takes about 6 hours. The kids were so excited to see Grandmom and meet Grandpa and Uncle Bob and Grandma Mabel. Overall the drive went well. A lot of potty stops, but oh well. The kids had fun playing with Molly and Cozie, but at bedtime they didn't understand where Dad was. Caleb had little tears wondering "Where's Daddy? Come on Mom, Daddy" as he dragged me to the door to go in the beep beep to get Daddy. I just kept telling him that Daddy was with Reeses, Brutus, Kev and Malcom (Thanks to Emily B. post about her son).

Saturday we went to a parade for the Sweet Pea festival. They had so much fun catching candy and looking at all of the floats.















That afternoon we went to the park for the festival and we did watercolors, face painting, dancing, ice cream bars, and rolling down the hill.








Here's Caleb sporting his new hat and glasses with the face painting of the Ethiopian flag. The hat is the Yankees and just like Uncle Bob's.










Sunday Mom threw me another Baby/Child shower. The boys got to open their first presents. It was pretty funny! They were a little over stimulated that day as they were completely spoiled.










Monday the Raskells headed to Yellowstone Park. About 1/2 hour into the drive the wind caught our luggage carrier and ripped it off the roof! It was airborne for quite some time. Pretty awesome sight. I called Mom to come get it since our luggage rack was now broken. After that delay we continued on. Amazingly enough, we barely saw any wildlife. We saw a wolf, buffalo, elk and bald eagle. Not too many for usual Yellowstone wildlife. It was a long day and the baby did great till we got home and she cried for hours.




This is the four boys - Caleb, Nick, Giovanni (with his new eagle mask), and friend Grant - in front of the upper falls of Yellowstone.










Tuesday I took the two little boys to the Museum of the Rockies. It was a lot of fun. We saw dinosaurs, wagons, toys, they rode a saddle, pumped water, and played in the discovery zone. Then we loaded up the car with all our luggage. It was a tight squeeze for all of us. With losing the luggage "bubble" we had to fit everything we could in the car. Mom is driving the bubble and the rest of our stuff out this weekend. Then we headed home. All boys were spastic the last half of the trip. It was pretty comical having them scream out whatever words we asked them to say.

Here is a lot of what they can say now:

Good Night, In the morning (this is "See you in the morning"), I love you, Reeses lay down, Reeses no, Come here, Where is it?, Clothes Off/On, bath, pool, this one, yes, no, water, bedroom, table, fork, outside, inside, bicylcle, Spokane, Washington, America, Sit down, Stand up, clock, beeb beep (car), nite-nite, Potty, Horsey, Getty-up (this includes the boys riding the arms of the sofa's like a horse, or our backs, or their blow up bats), they can answer "What is your name?", spanking, lotion, soap, wash hands, wash face, brush teeth, brush hair (yes, they like to brush my hair, but who is complaining?), dinosaur, thank you, your welcome, phone, and thanks to Nick their older brother - Nice Butt.

I find it adorable that when I taught them Spokane, Washington, America they thought I was saying Spanking. :) I also showed them that they are Ethiopian American's and Caleb said "NO, American!" as he tapped his chest.


Last Friday the kids and I and their Aunt Linda and cousins went downtown to feed the ducks, go on the carousel and slid down the slide. Then, last Saturday the 3 little kids and I went to the PBS kids day downtown with a friend of ours and her two kids. It was so much fun! We met Clifford, Curious George, got balloons, made necklaces, lots of stickers, had pizza (boys' favorite), rode the carousel, went down the giant slide, and tried to feed the ducks, but they were gone. Life was fun. I was amazed at how well the 2 boys got along with their new friend Nick. They held hands all day and the communication was never a problem.


















From Left to Right: Caleb, Nick, Gracie, and Giovanni. All having fun at Kid's day!














In line for the carousel!












Even Sophia had fun, especially with her new game of making noises!















Caleb and Gio got to sit on a police motorcycle and sit in the police car! This is Caleb turning on the lights.










Here is Gio in the Police car. "Hi Grandpa, just like you!"









This coming Saturday we get to take the kids to the annual shoe shopping with Grandpa R. This will be fun as they want everything all the time!