Second to Last Day

Departure City: Billings, MT

Arrival City: Missoula, MT

Driving Time Today: 6 hours

Total Miles Traveled: 2,662.28

Number of Times This Morning that Someone Looked at Me and said, "Looks like you've got your hands full there!": 3

Best Part of the Drive: Getting to play DJ with the 8700 songs on the iPod (It IS my birthday, after all!)

Tanner's Quote of the Day: "Please, Mommy, I eat these mash 'tatos all gone?" (He was referring to McDonalds hashbrowns)

Jake's Quote of the Day: "Peace, Yo!"

Despite a relatively quiet drive- except for the huge, loud, slightly scary hail storm in Butte- we were all pretty tired by 5:00. It could have been the lack of food (it had been a long time since lunch) but I think it was also the cumulative exhaustion of unloading all of our stuff each night, setting up our cabin, finding dinner, trekiing to the nearest bathroom to brush teeth, putting out small sibling fires,etc... that finally sunk in.

For my b'day dinner I chose to take the kids to a McD playland- only because I didn't want to chase after Faith -who for some reason has taken to refusing (loudly) to sit in a highchair, preferring to crawl up on all fours onto the dining table. So, Brian and I got take out Chinese and snuck it into the local McD's (rebels that we are) and gritted out teeth while allowing the kids to eat approximately their 15th fast food meal in the last 10 days. It was a decision that saved us. Seriously. The kids played, we ate and recuperated, and felt ready to enjoy our final night together in our "cabinet" before setting off for Boise tomorrow AM.

The KOA campground in Missoula is rather funny. It is literally 500 yards behind a Ross Department store, bordered on one side by a condo development and on the other by a major highway. The positive side of that is that there is a Coldstone Creamery right next door to Ross which will be my b'day dessert just as soon as we can get the boys to close their eyes and surrender to the sleep that they so desperately need!

Downtown Missoula was really pretty with a huge playground right on the river next to a restored carousel. The kids loved it - Jake loved riding it, and TJ and Faith enjoyed watching Brian and Jake as they spun round and round (supposedly the fastest carousel in the U.S). Although I had really wanted to wander the streets of old town Missoula, shopping and drinking an iced coffee- with the tired kids it was not to be. "Next time," we said as we pushed the stroller with TJ and Jake riding on the back and Faith falling asleep in the seat.

We are all kind of sad that the trip is coming to a close. When I asked Tanner if he was ready to go home and sleep in his own bed and see Milo again he said, "No. I want to go sleep in cabinet again!". Jake, too, commented to me on the way to the campground restroom this evening that he was sad that we were going home tomorrow. Faith is another story- although she has held up amazingly well, I will bet that she will be ecstatic to see her crib tomorrow evening!