Billings Montana!!

The drive to Billings Montana was long. 

but apparently only for me...

I drove with the 3 kids, 

all. 10. hours. 

 LOL! 

The kids actually did really well! 

Audrey would only cry when we were 45 minutes to our next destination. 

It was evident that Montana is BEAUTIFUL!! 

The sky was breathtaking, and pine trees go on for.ev.er! 

 

 We spent the night in West Yellowstone, which was about our half way mark. 

It's a fun little town. One we will definitely want to visit again.

We made it to Billings on the 21st. 

My very first impressions were that Billings is MUCH bigger then I had anticipated. 

I got pretty lost just getting off the freeway. haha. 

We eventually found our new house

(thank you siri) 

and were so excited! 

We have been truly blessed to live in the home that we do. 

We know that our Heavenly Father has had a hand in this whole experience. 

It was wonderful to have my parents here with us, when we first arrived. 

They helped us unload the whole U-Haul. 

Bless their hearts. 

We have heavy stuff. :) 

We only got a few days with them, and then it was time for them to go. 

We were sad to see them leave and hope to have many visits from family in the near future (hint, hint)

Our neighborhood is a dream. 

We absolutely love it! 

our next door neighbors are some of the nicest people we've met. 

and they just happen to also have kids Bowen's age, which has been another huge blessing! 

Billings is full of bike trails, and many connect right to our street! 

 

 (the path in our neighborhood)

(our house)

James starts school tomorrow, 

So we spent this last week playing!! 

We went to Zoo Montana! 

(the only zoo in montana) 

It was so fun, and really reminded us of that movie, "we bought a zoo". 

They had some great animals from bunnies and horses, to tigers and bears!

 ...and we even had a visitor for our picnic at the zoo.

can you spot her?

 We've played on the Rimrocks above our house a few times now. 

they are Beautiful! The bike paths up there are a few miles long and the views are amazing!

We've been eating our lunches on the back patio. 

The weather here has been wonderful! 

 (yes, james is eating a carton of ice cream. haha)

We also tried out The Oasis,

Billings' water park.

and had a BLAST!

 Bowen was all over this place. going down the slides, through the lazy river, into the wave pool, and we were constantly asking, "where's bowen". he was having the time of his life, yet the only time i caught up to him with my camera, he had stubbed his toe. haha. i figured i probably wouldn't catch him again, so this is the picture that proves he was there. haha. 

I love the 4th of July! 

We celebrated our freedom with some family fun!

 Red Lodge, ski resort. 

Red Lodge was a fun little town. Like a mini Park City, Ut. 

We had some great pizza at the Red Lodge Pizza Co. where Audrey sat in a high chair for the first time.

 she liked it. 

:) 

Then we tried out "Scoops!" 

it was Fantastic! 

 on the drive home, we even found Mater! 

James had some fireworks for the boys to end the night! 

 But then we realized we had a perfect view of big fireworks from our lawn, 

so we hung out there the rest of the night!!

We are loving Montana so far! The people have been exceptionally kind. Our ward is wonderful. 

We feel blessed beyond measure for this adventure we are on!!