Playing catch up because GRANDMA'S HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My mom arrived yesterday and we are sooooo excited! Ok I'm sooooo excited, Chopper's just excited, and Megan -- well she's not sure yet.

Actually, she's not too freaked out -- see? She has taken to Grandma really well -- better than she took to the Whittacre grandparents. And I'm not saying that to be rude or anything! I think it helps tremendously that my mom is here in our house and is there when she wakes up and goes to bed, etc. It isn't a strange place in addition to strange people like our trip to Virginia was.

So our first excursion today was to Fort Missoula. It was built back in the mid-1800s and has served not only as a miltary fort but an internment camp for Japanese and Italians during World War II and then a prison for military personnel awaiting court marshal. I think that the funniest thing was that in 1896 they arranged the 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps to "test the military potential of bicycles." After several short trips and then biking all the way to St. Louis (!!!) they decided the bicylce "offered limited military potential, [but] it would never replace the horse." I'm sorry, is anyone else laughing?

It had a great little museum though on the history of the place and some cool influenza stuff for kids that made me wish I were still teaching history! And we wandered around the grounds a bit -- Chopper loved the train of course and Megan did pretty well.

And we have Grandma for 2 weeks! YAY!

This is just cute and I CANNOT take credit for the bow. My cousin EmmaJane makes them and sent a few to me. And they are completely adjustable!
Chopper decided Megan needed to express herself in ink. I discovered it when I gave her a bath -- at least it washed off!