Oh no, not another one...

For some reason this happened... 

Just what we needed, a new puppy. Adam has been asking for a German Shepherd for a long time, so we finally found one. This is Drax the Destroyer, and let's hope he doesn't live up to that name.

Ok, so he hasn't been so bad so far. He seems like he may actually be a relatively intelligent dog. Let's just hope we can make it out of this puppy stage without to much damage.

Atop the Shining Peak

To the northwest of Missoula on the horizon is a pyramid shaped mountain formerly known as Squaw Peak. It was renamed a few years ago to Cha-Paa-Qn Peak, meaning "shining peak," due to it standing out above the others most of the year with it's snow covered top. It tops out at 7,989 feet above sea level and would have had some pretty amazing views if not for the smoke rolling in from the west coast forest fires. Either way, it was a nice hike on a July morning!

The climb to the top is a little easier when you're 18 compared to 37 or 65...

Had to scrambled over some serious jagged rocks to reach the end...

The view from the top

Fabulous Fourth Fireworks

The Fourth of July holiday in Montana was always the best. From riding bikes to the Golden Dragon fireworks stand to buy Black Cat firecrackers, to watching the big show at the Southgate Mall. What's not to love about a holiday celebrated with eating hot dogs and blowing stuff up? The Unbehend family has always done their own fireworks show in the field behind the house, and this year was another grand time. 

Paul had his own fireworks party a couple of thousand miles away on his short trip back to visit Texas. I guess the beach isn't a bad place to spend summer day!

Biking into July

It's been a summer so far, and it's been a Montana summer at that! We've been making the best of it, with plenty of family get-togethers, hikes, and bikes. We've been trying to gather up new mountain bikes for everyone in the family and have gotten out on the trails a few times now. Adam has taken to it like a fish to water, and Nolan has enjoyed it most of the time (when he's not flipping off the front of his bike and face planting). We've hit up the Kim Williams Trail along the Clark Fork, done the downhill trails up Blue Mountain, ridden the long road to Lolo, and looked for all the little off-road trails in the neighborhood.

Even the Miller kids have gotten in on the action...

Yellow Stones and Boiling Waters

We drove through America's first national park last year, but didn't get much time to stop and check it out. And I remember going to Yellowstone as a kid, but that was a long, long time ago, so when we went this past weekend it felt like a new place I'd never been. There's a reason it's so popular, it's really unlike any other place you can visit. From the massive waterfall carved canyon, to the boiling geysers and colorful pools, it makes sense why so many people would travel in from so many far away places.  We took the short drive down to meet up with Paul's friend Dean, whose family had taken the long drive from Corpus Christi to see it. The wait to get in was not as bad as some of the news stories would make it seem, but it wasn't always easy to find a place to park, with lines of cars circling the lots and fighting for spaces. We took a few short hikes, checked out the spewing fountains of hot water, and contemplated what would happen if the super-volcano ever decided to blow up. There was also some wildlife to see, including buffalo, antelope, elk, and apparently a bear that was somewhere in the woods, if you can believe the thousand or so people trying to take its picture. In all it was a good trip, and well worth making.

Found him.

First of a few waterfalls.

First of a few boiling pools of water.

Soaking in the colors at Grand Prismatic Spring

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone... definitely worth the hike to the top of the waterfall.

Took a ride in the fully automated electric bus... first of it's kind in the parks.

Unfortunately there were no mammoths at Mammoth Hot Springs. False advertising.

We didn't see any real wolves in the park, but we did check out the rescued ones at the Wolf and Grizzly center outside the park - another stop well worth making.