Here's a little of what we've been up to lately.

We took Owen's training wheels off his bike, and are trying to teach him how to ride.  We are really trying to teach him confidence, because he is not very brave.

 That is what he thinks about that!

 But he is a really cool kid.  When he is into something, he puts his whole heart into it.  Right now he is loving fish.  When we went to the Giant Springs Park, we also visited the fish hatchery there.  Owen picked up a booklet that lists the most common fish in Montana, and some facts about them.  He can name every fish, and quizes us on their size all day, if we let him.   Five of his top favorite are Shovelnose Sturgeon, Pumpkinseed, Arctic Grayling, Mountain Whitefish, and Paddlefish.  He can't wait until we get our fishing licenses so we can catch some of them! I told him we have to eat what we catch, and I explained how to gut and clean a fish.  He seemed okay with that. 

 

 We came across a common garter snake the other day.  Actually Nick did.  We were riding bikes to the firework stand and Nick was walking and almost stepped on the snake.  He jumped so high, I could hardly stop laughing at him!  It was so funny to me because I know that one of Nick's biggest fears are snakes.  We stopped to check it out, the kids thought it was pretty cool.  Now Owen is interested in snakes, too!  We researched the most common snakes in Montana, and learned that the only poisonous one is the rattlesnake.  We will watch out for those!

Here are the kids, enjoying a cool drink on a warm summer afternoon.  

 

We have had several really awesome thunder and lightening storms.  There was so much rain, the kids were thrilled!  We couldn't remember the last time we saw rain like this. 

It was literally raining buckets! We put a couple buckets out and they filled up in a matter of minutes.  We used the rain water on our "garden" the next few days.

I say "garden" because we only have a couple plants we planted on the side of the house.  We moved in too late in the summer to do any real gardening.  We have basil and rosemary that are thriving, and a tomato plant that shriveled up and died.  Luckily my mom bought 2 more tomato plants while she was visiting.  They were looking great an had tiny tomatoes starting to grow.  One morning after my run, I walked around the house and saw a bunch of birds fly from the plants.  When I got closer I saw that they must have chomped off the whole top of the plant and took the tomatoes with them.  I was so bugged!!

But I took care of that.  The next day I bought some "Bird Blocker" nets.  We are not sure if we will even get much out of this plant by the end of summer, but I had to do it to spite those birds.

One of the several "quirks" about this house is the lack of a sprinkler system.  We have to water by hand.  So there's another reason we love the rain!  But the kids are having a ton of fun with the sprinklers.  Jumping on the tramp when it is wet is so much fun!

Owen loves how he looks like he is doing super hero moves in these pictures, so I had to post both of them.

Last week was Nick's first full week of work as a new dentist!  We went to visit him during lunch on Friday.

 He is being kept pretty busy, and likes his staff.  He can see himself happy here for a while.  We feel so blessed about that!  He really does like what he does, and he feels good about helping these people.  Especially since the majority of his patients are on medicaid, and he's the only dentist in town that will accept it.  Doesn't this look like a Montana office?  There's a bear head, and a few other animals on the walls.  So funny.

Owen hasn't been his patient yet, but here he is trying out the chair.