Summer In West Yellowstone

Every summer since the one we got married Joe and I have spent in West Yellowstone working. Before as students with the summer off and now with Joe as a teacher with the summer off (the reality of being a teacher is you need a summer job. It's nice that I love teaching too so we both understand that that is just the reality). It's a crazy schedule that we keep but somehow we survive. This summer seems to be even crazier than normal- primarily because we added a baby to the mix! It's hard on me not having much socialization and it's hard on Joe because he is working all the time. He works 10-3 M-F at the IMAX and then 4:30-11ish at the Playmill 4 nights a week plus a Matinee on most Saturdays. On his nights off from Playmill we usually have a million things we have to get done so it's not really much of a night off for him. Needless to say, we don't see each other much and I don't get much adult conversation. To earn my keep I do costume laundry twice a week and take care of all costume repairs (my sewing skills have improved greatly by doing this for the last two years but I still strongly dislike replacing zippers and have formed strong opinions about what fabrics are NOT appropriate for long run costumes). It's quite the adventure trying to do all of that with Michelle in tow but thankfully we have been blessed with a very good baby (most of the time- this last week not so much...). Oh and did I mention that the nearest place to really go for groceries of doctors visits or hair cuts, etc is 90 min away? yeah....

Right now you are probably reading this (if you are still even reading that is) and thinking Lesley is a city girl who is not too fond of the outdoors and hates being stressed- why on earth do they do this every summer?

Well, it's all about the moments for us. Do I love West? Truthfully? No. Do I love the friendships we have? Undoubtedly yes. That darn Merrill family has become family to us and they have this ridiculous power to get us to keep coming back (I think they have mind controlling powers or something). We also both love theatre and if you have to have a second (or third) job why not try and do something you love with people you love? No, life isn't easy for us, although a lot of people looking from the outside would either say that we have it easy or we complain to much. But ya know what? We are acutely aware of the fact that we are incredibly blessed. Joe has a teaching job that he loves, right now we are able to make it work so that I can be a stay at home mom to Michelle and second teaching brain for Joe (it's fun for me that we can discuss teaching and possible solutions to challenges etc.), we get to work with people we love in the summer, and we have been blessed with the cutest baby on the planet. Our lives are ever changing and completely unpredictable (me the planner with an un-plan-able life) but we figure it out somehow.

Oh and those moments I was talking about? Well here are a few that have been captured in pictures but truly most of them could never be captured. (Please pardon the totally random order)

 Hannah's birthday BBQ

 Daddy's girl

 Hey! We actually got a good picture of us!

 4th of July

Heidi's birthday celebration at the waterpark

 Going on a walk- yes, I promise there is a baby in there!

 Hey look! It's old faithful!

 I chose to put this one up because you can tell that i am not zoomed in on the bison, they are like that on the other side of the car too!

 Picnicing in Virginia city

 Swinging in the Nevada City Ghost town by the old school house

 Overlooking Virginia City (aka. the person taking the picture is standing on the graves of some oddly famous robbers who were made an example of.... yeah, this picture was probably more romantical before I made that note...)

 Getting tired of listening to the guy talk about the evolution of guns (cool part- he fired them all)

 But of course there is a Chinese goods store in the ghost town!

 Looking cool in a bonnet and Lauren's sunglasses

 Old Western family photo

 Love my baby girl

 Story time with Grandpa

6 month photos old western style

 Playing in the mud of a river by the McDonald's house on a lazy day (please take note that I, Lesley Sampson Bidwell, encouraged this activity)

 She is seriously such a daddy's girl- admittedly jealous sometimes.

So so so many other good times that we don't even have pictures of :)

AND....... HAPPY FOURTH ANNIVERSARY TODAY!!!!! WHEW! what a crazy crazy year it has been! (I will have to do a recap of the past year when we get home and things settle down a bit) Can you believe it has really been 4 years?!
Love you forever and for always, love you with all my heart, love you whenever we're together, love you when we're apart =)

Crawling

I guess I somehow failed to mention that on July 31st Michelle decided that she could crawl. She has been doing something very similar to crawling for a long time now but she finally has the legs and arms moving in conjunction with each other. Her belly is still on the ground a lot of the time but she is a major crawler now. She can get into just about anything in two seconds flat.

She has also been pulling herself up to her knees on stuff for a while, well Monday I looked up from what I was doing and she had pulled herself up to standing- eek!

Her front top teeth are also very close to coming in, there is no cushion left to her gums there but they seem to be taking there time finishing the process, not surprisingly.
So just to recap:
July 20- Michelle turned 6 months
July 24- She decided she could sit up on her own
July 28- She started solids
July 31- She is officially crawling
August 6- She can now pull herself to standing

Yes, I do believe that I have good reason to go a little crazy- and that's just what Michelle has been up to, never mind all the other stuff we have keeping us busy!!! I think it's about time to take a nice long long long uninterrupted nap, yeah, that's not going to happen.... Oh well. Our summer life is always crazy!!!!

Food videos

Admittedly these videos would be rather boring to watch if this isn't your kid but this is my kid so here are the videos of Michelle's first food experience.

FOOD!

Well, sorta food, can you really call runny rice cereal food? Anyways. On Saturday the 28th we fed Michelle some food for the first time. Joe got to feed her first since this was one first that we could control the timeline of and make sure that he was a part of. It was silly but fun to watch. I'm not sure how she felt about it, curious but still not too thrilled with it. We have figured out that she eats better in the morning or lunch time than she does in the afternoon or evening. Using the three days rule we decided to introduce a little avocado yesterday too just to see if she wanted a little variety. She was interested but I'm not sure if she really likes it any better than the rice cereal. Why avocado? I had read that it was a good first food for breastfed babies because the fat content is similar. I dunno, I figured it was worth a try.

Here are a couple pictures:

 who needs food when I have a bib?

Avacado- yeah, she was naked for this one, I didn't want to get it out of her clothes.

Kisses from Daddy

this was probably about two weeks ago. Michelle was way more giggly before I got the camera out but oh well. Oh and yes, Joe does have a faux hawk- it's summer, why not?! It is a little shorter now though.

July

I know some people that are really good at keeping a blog totally updated- I am not that person, but here is a little bit of an update.

For the 4th the Playmill cast had a bbq at the theatre and we watched some of the town fireworks from the sidewalk (you could actually see them really well, we had a really sleepy baby and so it just wasn't that much fun to stand outside warding off mosquitos). In West Yellowstone you can't do your own fireworks because the National Park is literally a stone's throw away but the town has a really awesome firework display so it's ok.

Last Friday Michelle turned 6 months!!! I can't believe it it is crazy to me how fast she is growing up. She is a major mover. What she does isn't a traditional crawl yet but she can go wherever she wants, she can army crawl when she feels like it but mostly she does a combination of a pounce and a scootch. She is really such a sweet happy baby- seriously, everyone that meets her tells us that (which we are quite aware of). I take her to the theatre often as I have to do laundry a couple times a week and sometimes we go for a show at night. She is such a theatre baby it is pretty hysterical. As long as we are sitting close enough for her to see the action she will squirm until she is facing the stage- by far her favorite are the dance/musical numbers. She also has many psudo aunts and uncles among the playmill cast- especially the Merrills. (Random tangent: apparently I am distantly related to one of them, well, that is he is related to a Cole in Preston, Idaho.....odds are, we are related.)

For a while now Michelle has been experimenting with the idea of sitting up for real on her own. Well, on Tuesday she just decided to do it and now she likes to sit up straight (like 90*). It still makes me nervous and when she gets distracted or tired there are of course, thuds.... but she is a trooper and is learning (although I could do with a few less, she catches herself when she falls forward, just not backwards).

 this moment was just too funny not to capture ;)

Who me? What? What did I do? Oh, right, I'm cute!

Yesterday I took her to the Pediatrician for her 6 month check up and shots.
She did pretty good but she got a fever that hasn't broken yet, no fun but she is a trooper!
Her current stats are :
Weight: 14.8 lbs 24%
Height: 27.5 in 95% (clearly these are my genes right? lol, I think she can thank Joe for this)
Head Circumference: 16.3 in 16%
She has slowed down on the growing but that is just fine and perfectly normal. She shot way up from her 2-4 month appointment so the slow down didn't surprise me at all.
Until now she has just been nursing and now she is going to start on some solids too- hello to stinky diapers.... not really looking forward to that.... But don't worry I promise to document her first food experience once she is feeling a little better. I should note- just because she is starting on food does not give ANYONE permission to feed her anything without my express permission. Yes, I am an overprotective Mama, but guess what I AM THE MAMA! (couldn't resist the homage to a certain sibling... hee hee)

Just a couple videos of Michelle (that is if technology agrees to finally work!)

enjoy the wiggle time!