Montana, Here We Come!

We were lucky! We were able to find plane tickets to Montana for Alegria and me for a steal of a deal! Only $260! However; there was a catch...the flight was leaving from Austin at 6 in the morning! Since the Austin airport is about 1.5 hours away, we had to get up extra early to drive over there. We left waking Alegria up as the last thing to do...after all of our bags and her stroller were packed in the car and ready to go...and this in hopes that I would be able to transfer her quickly from her bed to the car and manage to keep her asleep...

That didn't work. Alegria was so excited about being up in the dark with the night time lights of the city on, that she stayed awake the whole way to Austin!

Needless to say, by the time we were on the plane and seated, Alegria was so exhausted that she finally crashed...well...after a little fussiness, so we were all (all, that is, me and every person on the plane with us within earshot of her screams!) happy that she finally fell asleep! I tried bundling her up so that the lights of the cabin wouldn't wake her and she could sleep the whole way. Luckily, I got a snooze in, too. :)

When we began to make our initial descent, Alegria woke up. She was intrigued by the sight of mountains and clouds outside:

She loved playing with the airplane cup:

She even pretended the cup was a phone!

Gotta LOVE that Montana geography!

We were very happy to see Grandma and Grandpa Marlow waiting for us as we came out of the terminal! Unfortunately, Alegria's stroller was missing, so we had to wait a while to get it retrieved and returned to us. Thank goodness we didn't have any other baby gear with us that could also get lost!

On our way home, we stopped by Wal-Mart to get a few baby essentials that Cameron had suggested I forego packing...to lighten our baggage load. I was surprised that Alegria didn't fall asleep on the way!

Finally home, though, Alegria finally did take a short nap.

When Alegria woke up, Grandpa had put together a riding toy for Alegria that they'd bought for her and she enjoyed playing on that!

Her favorite thing, though, were the sheep! Grandpa's hobby is raising sheep and this year his ewes had a whole lot of lambs...I think there were about 10 in all! And they were still little enough to be super cute! Two of them, "Alegria" had had the privilege to name...and "she" named them Charlotte and Tiana...from The Princess and the Frog movie! :)

Petting Tiana:

Alegria found her calling in life...sheep herder!

Alegria was not scared one bit to get as close as she possibly could to the sheep! In fact, she got upset when we finally had to get Grandpa to bring her inside!

Once inside, Grandpa distracted her from being upset by building a fire. Alegria really liked that, too! It was something new and exciting that she'd never seen before (well, at an age where she could remember!)!

Then she and Grandma played with puzzles and toys:

What a tiring, but fun day of travel and seeing new sights! We miss you, Daddy, and wish you were here with us to enjoy Montana, too!!! We love you!!!