Montana Trip

Last weekend we traveled to Montana. We left on Thursday after work and spent the night in Idaho. We stayed at a hotel with nice rooms. The best feature (according to Dan) was the large plasma TV's in the rooms. The kids enjoyed having their own room; Rebecca even said that the roll-out bed was more comfortable than her own bed. Donald didn't enjoy the hotel much, but that's probably because he had spent all night strapped down in his car seat instead of crawling around. Shari was really excited about the hotel breakfast. She was so excited, in fact, that she decided to eat enough for three or four breakfasts.

The next day we finished our drive to Hamilton. It was a long drive, but the combination of a portable DVD player and individual headphones for the kids made for a quiet trip. We were up there for Grandma (and great-Grandma) Blodgett's funeral. We went to the family home for the afternoon and visited with aunts, uncles, and cousins. That night we went to another hotel and swam for a while before bed.

The funeral was on Saturday. It started with a family meeting. Dan's dad said a few words at the beginning and then invited people to share their memories. Everyone was kind of emotional, and only RaeAnn managed to say anything. Dan offered a family prayer to end that meeting. The funeral services were nice and gave the kids an opportunity to learn more about their great-grandma. They especially liked to hear how much she liked swimming and music. The cemetary service was next at the Hamilton cemetery and was followed by a lunch back at the church. The whole set of ceremonies was nice and gave us all an opportunity to remember Grandma. It's nice to know that she is back with her husband and other family members, but we will miss her. We are also really glad we got to go visit her last summer when we were able to.

After the ceremony, we went to Blodgett cemetary with the rest of Dan's family. It was nice to visit there and see his mom's gravesite. All of the Blodgett cousins were there, so we got a picture of them (Judy Gail was sleeping, so she missed it).

Sarah also decided to take a picture of all the brothers and sisters that were there (Craig and Brett weren't able to go).

The next morning we got up and started the long drive back home. We ended up making a lot of stops for bathroom breaks, but made it home eventually. The highlight of the trip home was lunch. We stopped at a restaurant in Idaho Falls. The food was good, and the kids had fun playing Mad Libs on their placemats. Of course, our favorite part of the meal was that the restaurant was called "Shari's Restaurant."