Saturday Drive

One of Lauren's good friends from college is visiting Red Lodge this weekend, so Lauren and Blake decided to go spend the day with Vick & Trav. We met up and took a little day trip up the Beartooth Pass (it's on the way to the northeast entrance to Yellowstone National Park). Here's a picture of the mountains.
When we stopped to walk around, Blake got a kick out of the ground squirrels. One of them was kind of playing with her. It was playing, "boo boo" (peek-a-boo) as Blake would say. And, it was chasing her. She'd run after it and say "get-n-ya" and it would turn and run back at her. It was pretty entertaining. An older couple thought it was just hilarious, so they put a piece of cookie on the ground trying to get the ground squirrel to come out of hiding. They ended up giving Blake a cookie - SCORE!!! Here's the happy kiddo walking with her cookie.
more scenery
Hikin' like a big kid
Blake & Mom - it was a little windy :)
MOOSE!!!
We stopped in Cooke City for lunch and an ice cream cone. This was Blake's first time to have her very own to hold. Her first bite was out of the cone part of the ice cream cone. We finally got her to eat the ice cream without destroying the cone first, but she still managed to get it all over herself!
some mountain goats
We also saw some bison up close and personal when we passed them on the highway - they were walking right in the middle of the opposite lane of traffic. Travis took a couple pics, but Lauren didn't get any.

Well needless to say, by the time we got home Blake was in MAJOR need of a bath. For whatever reason, she started putting bubbles on her face and laughing. What a goober?!

Hope you enjoyed our pics!!!

Grandma Help And...

We got the chance to visit with Grandma & Grampy a few weekends ago when they came up to visit. It was so great to get to see them both. Grampy had to get back to work, but Grandma stuck around for a little over a week to help Lauren out. And what a help she was!!! Besides all the babysitting, cleaning, dusting and organizing, Grandma planted flowers in our flower beds for us and removed a ton of river rock out of the front yard so we could lay sod down! She also cleaned up parts of the back yard for us. All her hard work could not go unnoticed, so here are a few pictures to document her accomplishments.

Did I mention that Grandma also painted two doors for us?!

Here's a close up of one of the two flower beds that Grandma fixed up for us.

And the big project - here's the "before" picture of the front yard...notice all the river rock.

The "after" pic! Ahhh...such beautiful grass!!!


We were also lucky enough to be a stop along Lauren's cousin's, Brandon, super long road trip from LA to Indiana. It was so great to get to hang out. Blake was happy to give out some fist bumps and wanted "Bran" to "run in the towel" with her after her bath. After Blake gets out of the bath, Lauren usually holds up a towel for Blake to run into...kinda like a matador.

Blake is still our little chatter box. She is starting to use broken up sentences and learns new words everyday. She's into telling us where everyone is. "Blake tana, Momma tana, Grandma homa homa, Grampy homa homa, Chris and Katie and Collier homa homa". We get that a lot! "tana" is Montana and "homa homa" is Blake's version of Oklahoma. When she gets really excited we get some pretty odd looks when Blake says, "Grandma homo" instead of "homa homa". Yes, she's already said that a few times out in public...too funny! She's also working on counting, ABC's, colors and shapes. She can count to 2; her ABC's are "A...B...D"; she's starting to get a few colors right consistently but her default is "geen (green) and yeyow (yellow)"; and her circle is "yircle". Still following in Lauren's Uncle Shawn's footsteps with her speech :) Otherwise, she's an absolute joy AND she's going to be a big sister soon! Lauren is due January 30th with little DeCoteau #2. Hopefully, all will continue to go well with this pregnancy.

We also got a chance to visit with Bob's Grandma, Aunt Joyce and Dad recently. We haven't gotten any pictures lately, so we'll have to try to make a point to get some before everyone leaves town.

Hope all is well with each of you and your families!

A Parade & Poppers

HAPPY 4th OF JULY!!! We amped up our festivities this year which didn't really take much since we've been quite the party poopers the last couple years. Laurel has a parade & a really nice fireworks show. We've never made it out to the fireworks, and we probably won't this year either. But, we did take in the parade this morning. Blake absolutely LOVED it!!! Once she figured out that they were throwing candy & goodies she was all over the place. She was cracking us up! Here she is enjoying a hamburger before the parade.
It's a good thing we got there plenty early because the streets were lined on either side of us by the time the parade started.

The emergency vehicles including all sorts of fire trucks started off the parade.

Blake figured out pretty quick that if you wave you have a better chance of getting candy & goodies thrown your way :)
Taking a break from the action to enjoy one of the two Popsicles that she got at the parade.
Picking up candy
"FUN, Daddy!!!"
Blake showing off a sucker, some necklaces, a sheriff's sticker and a flag...all courtesy of those marching in the parade.
Blake picking up MORE candy. She ended up with quite the loot.
And finally, the prized beach ball. They didn't throw too many of these out, but one happened to bounce Blake's way and she took off running to snatch it up. We were laughing so hard!
Blake also had her first experience with poppers last night. We went out to the fireworks stand and bought some poppers and sparklers. The sparklers were pretty lame, but Blake had a blast with the poppers. She had trouble getting them to pop when she would throw them, so she resorted to stomping on them. Here's a video of Blake popping away.

Hope everyone has a happy & safe 4th of July!!!