Taking a Break

Having left the clutches of Sin City, we headed north, to wide open spaces....and cold! Our friend Brandon called us early Wednesday morning to tell us he was heading to West Virginia with a load, and that he'd woken up to a foot of snow. (He lives down the street from us)

Well maybe he exagerated or maybe it melted a lot between when he left and when we arrived. But there wasn't quite a foot of snow. However, our area got more than Billings and the surrounding areas, and that morning they had installed the mandatory chain law for a 20 mile stretch of interstate on the east side of Billings. Thankfully that was lifted by the time we got back up there, because its no fun to chain up. All in all, I think we had about 5-6 inches when we got home. Here are a couple of lovely shots for you....winter travel in Montana.

This is east of Bozeman, MT on I-90.

This is about two miles from our house.

And then home sweet home.

Did I mention that Malcolm had a head cold last week? Well, I caught it, and was MISERABLE when we got back to Billings. Fortunatly they didn't have a load for us till this morning so we stayed home till just a few hours ago. We are much better, though not quite right in the head, so to speak. Malcolm is almost normal, but I've got a headache that won't quite and right now I'm feeling a little dizzy for some reason, so after this I might go lay down, unless the Tylenol kicks in soon.

You should see the mountain in front of us. Its snow covered, with the tops hidden in clouds, but the sun is shining on it too, so it kind of glows. Beautiful! I snapped a picture and will get it up for you later. I love this drive bettween Billings and Bozeman. Actually, as much as I love eastern Montana, I will admit that the western portion of the state is a GREAT road trip area if you just want to drive and look. I never get tired of it.

Ok, so back to home....Thursday night we were feeling better, so I wanted to sit in the hot tub. I'd passed the night before because I wasn't feeling well, and it was so cold. Well I thougth it was warmer, but I was wrong. Not only that but a wind came up while we were out there, which made it pretty darn near miserable once we got out of the water. Up until that point we were enjoying ourselves, just relaxing, looking at stars, listening to the dead silence (except for the whir of the hot tub motor)...it was really peaceful. And then I reached up to squeeze the excess water from the end of my ponytail, cause I can't stand getting my hair wet when I'm swimming or in the hot tub or whatever. I dont' know what the deal with that is. Its a "later in life" development think cause I swam when I was a kid. Anyway, so I reached up to squeeze the water out of my hair....and my hair was frozen solid. Yep, you read that right! Frozen, as in icy and crunchy hair. Hmmm....guess it was a little nippy out. Now I've had this happen once last year also. One morning we were staying at the hotel in Billings waiting on a load, and I took the girls out to potty that morning after my shower but before I dryed my hair, because I didn't think it was very cold. And in the few brief moments I was out there, my hair froze. It was funny. I'd shake my head and the frozen strands of hair would make little icy noises and tinkling sounds as they brushed against one another. CRAZY! So....ok...bad idea to go out with wet hair in Montana....but I just do it anyway. Too lazy and trying to cut corners I guess. Sorry! But it made a neat story, right?

And of course no blog entry at home is complete without my girls.

Ella having breakfast. How do you like the girls eating rug? It looks great under their "princess" food and water dishes.

Paris, who has an internal radar for sources of heat, quickly found the spot on the floor where the blower from the wood stove was hitting, and parked there for quite a while. The picture was supposed to be of Carlie Jean practically sitting on top of Paris, but she got up and walked away at the last minute. She seems to have the habbit lately of sitting ON the other two, particularly Ella. Carlie just goes over and plops down on top of her all the time.

Ok, thats it, and my head is really hurting now, so I'm going to go lay down maybe....or look at scenery out the window. Hope you all have a great weekend.