Father's Day Camping Trip

For Pete's first Father's Day, and Matine's 6-week birthday we celebrated by silly cheesy presents (a mug with Matine pictures all over it) and a camping trip with fellow 1st year dad Hermes and Emily and Sully, and of course our favorite boys - Caid and Brad (Laurie came too :))


We set up camp on some friends property along a very roaring and BIG Mill Creek.


We had a great fire for smores and keeping warm.


We feasted on some tasty elk and veggie kabobs for dinner, pancakes, eggs and sausage for breakfast, lots of hot chocolate, and of course more smores.


The boys chased each other and played "Indians" (cowboys and indians) in the tall grass, shot their bow and arrows, dug up stuff with shovels and were 100% BOY! So much fun to watch. Soon little Sully and Matine will be running around and a bit harder to "contain."

Caid was an excellent baby holder. He loves the little kiddos.


Matine LOVED being out there. It was hard to get her to go to sleep, as we could see she just wanted to soak in every little smell, sight and feel.


We will be doing much more camping with her. However, we had to laugh at ourselves - camping with a baby is quite different than our old camping routine - the suburban was FULL of miscellaneous kid gear. It took us a good 1/2 hour to get everything unpacked and organized. Now we know what we need (and lots of what we don't) and we THINK we can downsize the truck load a bit next time.


We also went for a hike up the beautiful West Fork of Mill Creek. Dad and Hermes did some skiing up this drainage this winter and it was fun to see it in the green of summer now that all the snow has melted.


Baby Matine made it up to about 7,500 feet elevation - not bad for a 6 week old gal! She even saw a very big pile of Grizzly poop! Luckily the big bear was afraid of us, we didn't see him (but was he watching us from a hidden spot??? Likely)!


The dogs - Brutus, Oliver, Gaucho, the Cox's Moggie and new black lab puppy Archie (cutest pup on the planet) all enjoyed the frolicking and of course, food dropped around the camp.


Little Sully and Matine were excellent campers and hikers - they slept in their tents between their parents, took their naps and generally enjoyed the wonderful fresh air and all the sounds and smells of beautiful Nature.



We had a great spot among the trees where we didn't have to worry about the sun and we were close to the Creek where the dogs enjoyed getting their feet wet.


We love summer in Montana! It is refreshing, wild and it makes you feel so carefree. We cannot wait to keep doing things with our little girl and showing her all the beautiful things of this world right outside her back door.



Cute new family - the Lynn's.

Our growing family -- notice Brutus on the far left - what is he looking at?

Cute, hot dads and babies!