West Yellowstone

8/3/16 We made it to West Yellowstone!  Tired, and a little beat up, but we're okay.  Traveling with two rambunctious boys takes a lot of energy and patience.  We love them with all our hearts, but they're two very active boys.

Their parents have now joined us.  Their travels worked just as planned, so they met us at the hotel.  The boys were so excited to see mom and dad.  While the boys never whined or complained about being homesick or missing their parents, it was easy to see their eyes light up and their excitement on their nightly telephone calls or Face Time sessions.  So having them to touch and hold, and their voices made them very happy.

I can tell that their behavior is different when mom and dad are with them, but only a little.  They are good boys, pretty normal from my perspective.

Janice is doing fine now.  She's like a kid seeing something exciting and new for the first time.  She gets excited and grabs the camera to record what she's seeing.  I'm so happy that we are able to do a trip like this with loved ones.  She's loving time with the boys.

We've had one significant downer on the trip.  About 4am on August 1, my phone rung.  It was from my son in law.  He was on his way to work and he glanced at our property as he does every morning. He noted that the roll-up door to our shop was open.  He knew we were out of town and it was shut each day earlier.  Driving down the driveway and behind the house to the shop, he could see that the 4 wheeler always  parked in the shop was missing.  Someone had broken the locking mechanism and stolen our almost-new ATV!

He called law enforcement and waited on their arrival.  After 2 hours, the deputy arrived, did his investigation, found one partial fingerprint, and filed a report.  We have some suspicions as to who did it, but we know it had to be someone who knew we had one, knew where it was kept, and knew we were away from home.  Damn!

Initially we were pretty upset.  But after thinking about the situation, decided not to let a stolen 4 wheeler spoil our vacation.  It's a shame that there are low down thieves like that, but there are.  It can be replaced.

The other part involving the incident is realizing that in spite of a good lock and family being fairly close by, we're vulnerable.  I'm glad we were gone; it's just not worth getting hurt or worse over a 4 wheeler.  I'm thinking on how to make the garage and the rest of our property more secure.

While I'm writing about the less than fun topics, I'm also in the process of selling my townhouse.  I have a buyer, we've struck a deal, the home inspection issues are nearly all resolved, and the closing date is scheduled for a date that we'll still be on this trip.  I think we're down to one last issue--the renter had a big dog that stayed with her and her friend.  Unfortunately, the dog left the place smelling very doggy.  So I need to get the carpet deodorized refund what is left of the tenant's deposit to her.  Hopefully this phase of my life will then be over.

I'm sharing these two downer items just to illustrate that life goes on even when you're on vacation.  It will all work out....