Happy 1st birthday Koda!

Today is Koda's first birthday!  What a great addition she is to our family.  To celebrate, we made pink banana "pup"cakes and all the dogs devoured them!  Koda, you've grown a lot in a year and still a ways to go sweet girl!

More Yellowstone

You can't see Yellowstone in a day!  It's massive!!!!  It's also only one driving lane each direction.  Add thousands of tourists (and a lot of foreigners!) and that makes for a lot of down time in the car.  We mapped out our trips each day to make the most of it.  We packed a cooler and had a picnic most days- it was memorable!

Yellowstone

Yellowstone was amazing!  A true national treasure.  The topography was diverse and we saw many incredible sights!  Between Mammoth Springs and Old Faithful to all the pools and hot springs, it was truly miraculous seeing nature in this element.

Chico Hot Springs

We visited Chico Hot Springs while we were in Montana, it was less than 10 miles away.  It's an old resort with an open air pool that is really the hot springs.  The grounds were gorgeous with several options of things to do like ride horses, swim or enjoy a great meal.  We opted for the fun bar which housed a shuffle board table!  Mac got to see her parents in action and sadly I lost the game to Billy.

Montana- Hanging out at Story Ranch

We visited Yellowstone 4 of the 7 days.  When we weren't in the car, we really enjoyed just chilling at the house.  There are horses on this ranch and every evening around dusk they made their way to us.  Koda loved them!  At first she was frightened but by the end of the week, she was right next to them.  Also, we saw deer almost every day!  McKinley learned  how to use the binoculars and even spotted a deer we did not see!  (Daddy was so proud!) It was so relaxing to sit outside and look for wildlife with an incredible view.

Montana- Story Ranch

We rented a house in Montana for a week.  It was on a 11,000+ acre ranch and the family that has owned and ran the ranch for generations still lived there.   The house couldn't have been a better fit for us.  It was 30 miles from Gardiner and an hour from Bozeman.  The house was clean and comfortable with plenty of bedrooms and room to spread out.  The back porch overlooked the mountains and every morning we enjoyed our coffee on the porch.  There was a small stream next to the house that Mac and all of us enjoyed!   The dogs had room to roam and Koda became quite the outside dog :)

The Badlands

Our route from Missouri to Montana took us right by the exit for the Badlands.  Unfortunately, McKinley was very sick and fussy so our visit was brief.  But beautiful!  We arrived early in the morning as the sun was coming up and it was breathtaking.  We were on our way to Wall, South Dakota to the doctor (she did in fact have strep throat) and the drive was incredible.  Even though McKinley wasn't feeling well, she still talks about the Badlands today!  :)

Dallas!

We made it to Dallas and we are so happy we are here.  It was a crazy summer with many twists and turns but it was also a summer of adventure!  Looking back, it wasn't the way we planned on coming home to Texas but we learned a lot of lessons and used this time to travel and enjoy the journey.  Here is McKinley earlier this week playing in the pumpkins at the Dallas Arboretum.  Before I blog about that fun day, I'll re-cap our shenanigans in Montana and Wyoming- we took so many pictures,  prepare for a photo overload!

Cape San Blas - the food

Oh we ate so well these last two weeks! McKinley even tried her first fried shrimp - and she liked it! We went to Mexico Beach specifically to visit Killer Seafood and it did not disappoint. Our very favorite spot was the Indian Pass Raw Bar. It was close and casual and we went 5 times!!!!

All the Whalings love the beach!

That's right, I am not sure who loved the beach more- we all enjoyed it! Even Bodie who is not a swimmer ended up in the water! Abba soaked up the sun and water and Koda chased seagull after seagull! This was great exercise for all of us and Mac loved having her dogs on the beach. So did I. ;-)