Montana Waterfall Adventure

 Mat and Carrie invited us to go with them on a frozen waterfall adventure in Montana. I had no idea just how cool this was going to be! Amazing is the only way to describe it. I fell in love with the Montana mountains, and I want to go back and run in this same area in the summer. We drove to Bozeman, and headed to the Gallatin National Forest. Hyalite Canyon is like a winter playground for snowshoers, ice climbers, ice fishermen, skiers, etc..

Our first waterfall was Grotto Falls. So beautiful!

The forest trail leading to Grotto Falls.

Grotto Falls. They had a recent snow, so half of the waterfall was covered in fresh powder.

Mark

Mat is resting on his soft bed in the middle of the creek.

Tricia

You could see right into these pillars of ice. Some spots you could get close to and hear water flowing or dripping inside the ice.

Mat & Carrie

One last picture before we moved on to the next waterfall.

The next waterfall was up the side of the mountain. It was quite a steep hike to get there. Dribble Falls was a popular one for climbers, and we got there in time to watch a couple climbers going up, and a couple coming down. It gave me a little bit of anxiety just watching them.  

Dribble Falls
Look closely and you can see the ice climbers.

Tricia

Mark

It was really steep, so I fell right away on the way back down. When I fell, I just kept sliding down the trail. We realized this was a great way to get down.

Mark's laugh in this video of us sliding down the trail cracks me up.

Right as we left the waterfall, it started snowing on us.

We think the next waterfall we saw was Amphitheater Falls. There were a few right in a row, so we're not positive which was which.

Amphitheater Falls

This one was super cool. We don't know if it has a name.

After touring around the trails in the area, we decided to be done for the day. We were starving, so we drove to Bozeman, checked into our hotels, and went to dinner. We ate at the Whistle Pig; a fun Korean place where we all tried bibimbap.

Bibimbap with purple rice.

The next morning we heading back to Hyalite Canyon to see Palisade Falls. This may have been my favorite waterfall of the trip. 

It had snowed a lot during the night, so all the trees were freshly frosted. So pretty!

😍😍😍

We had to snowshoe up the road just to get to the trailhead.

Carrie & Tricia

Mat & Mark

This picture doesn't even do the waterfall justice. It is so big!

Mark & Tricia

The view across the canyon was awesome!

A close up of the frozen falls.

After Palisade Falls, we started heading home. We took a detour in Big Sky to see Ousel Falls. 

It was a really pretty hike to the falls.

This was a frozen waterfall on the way to Ousel Falls. We had more fun at this one! We went behind it, and it looked so cool.

Mat, Carrie, Mark, Tricia

Behind the waterfall.

Mat & Carrie

Mark. Mat, Carrie

This was part of Ousel Falls. It was mostly covered in fresh snow.

Mat & Carrie

Mark & Tricia

One last picture at Ousel falls to end the trip.

I'm so glad we were able to do this. What a unique winter experience. We'll be visiting the area again for sure.

Sunday Themes & Family Facetime Cook Nights

 Sunday nights is when the family comes over for 'Come Follow Me,' dinner, and to watch a movie. I decided this year to have monthly dinner themes to give me some direction on what to cook, and to add a little bit of fun to the dinners. We also do a monthly movie theme for our Sunday night movies as well. I'm just recording these on my blog so I will remember what we did.

January Dinner Theme: Ethnic

Week 1: We were out of town for Noah's wedding.

 Week 2: Mexican-chicken tamale casserole, beans, rice

Week 3: Italian-spinach artichoke pasta, caesar salad, garlic bread  

Week 4: Asian-beef ramen stirfry

Week 5: Western-Texas BBQ beef sandwiches, tater tots

January Movie Theme: Stupid Movies

Week 2: Nacho Libre

Week 3: Napoleon Dynamite

Week 4: Hot Rod

Week 5: Rush Hour

Bailey also came up with a fun idea for us. Once a month we have a family face-time cooking night. We rotate who picks the recipe, then we all cook it on the same night, at the same time, and face-time at random times to see how it's going. We do a final face-time at the end to see if we liked it, what we would change, if we would make it again, etc.. Mason and Bailey picked the meal for January. We made chicken spaghetti from the Magnolia Cookbook. It was super yummy!

Chicken Spaghetti

February Dinner Theme: Restaurant Copy Cats

Week 1: Chick-fil-A nuggets, crinkle fries, and chick-fil-A sauce

The chick-fil-A sauce and nuggets were spot on. 

Week 2: Gone to AZ

Week 3: Olive Garden fettuccini alfredo, salad, breadsticks

This was a good one! The noodles were pretty close, but the salad was spot on! It looked and tasted exactly like Olive Garden!

Week 4: McDonald's Big Macs, fries, and shamrock shakes 

These big macs were spot on. too. The only difference is that the homemade ones are much bigger. I couldn't even finish one. But they looked and tasted just like a McDonalds big mac. So fun!

The shamrock shakes were yummy and super easy to make!

February Movie Theme: Ethnic

Week 1: McFarland USA

Week 3: Crazy Rich Asians

Week 4: The Help

The dinner and movie themes were really fun this month. I will for sure add these categories back in for next year. 

Mark and I picked our family face-time meal for February. We had Mark and I in Idaho Falls, Bailey and Mason in Boise, and Kim and Russ in Arizona. 

We made Mashed Potato Casserole with Crispy Chicken.

Our dessert was key lime pie. I've never made one before, and it was pretty easy and super yummy!

I can't wait to see what yummy food March brings us!

February Running

Save the Chubby Unicorn:

We wanted to jump on the bandwagon and do at least one virtual race during the pandemic. Steph found a great one for us. It had cute shirts, cute medals, and was for a great cause. Who wouldn't want to help save the chubby unicorns?!?

Steph, Jenn, and I met at the river, and ran our virtual 10k on a cold morning with 25 mph winds blowing snow right in our faces. Hahaha, good times!

Done!

We look calm and happy, but we were freezing our butts off!

Yay for the chubby unicorns!

Women's Runs: 

I love that we've continued the women's runs through the winter this year.

Our first one in February was gonna be a fun one. The plan was to run Cress Creek and then go to Hiese for pizza and hot springs. Cress Creek ended up being solid ice! I had my first fall of winter on this one. My headlamp wasn't working, and we were going up a hill. It was solid ice, and when I stepped down, and my foot slid right out from under me. I went down on my knees, but my feel kept sliding behind me. I ended up sprawled out on my stomach, and then starting sliding back down the hill. I even turned so I was going down head first. 😂I was trying to grab onto anything I could, but it was just ice around me. I finally came to a stop once I hit the mud. Amanda was trying to help me, but she was having her own trouble on the ice. We were laughing so hard! I'm sure it looked hilarious! The 'run' was slow going, but we eventually made it back to our cars in one piece. We went for pizza, but by the time we got to the hot springs, they were so crowded, there wasn't even any parking left. We decided to come back another night to soak.

Cress Creek
Amanda-Larissa-Georgina-Tricia

The sunset alone made it all worth it.

Our next run was an uneventful one around Snake River Landing.

Amanda-Larissa-Tricia-Stacey

Our last one of the month was around the Greenbelt. I thought I might end up on my own for this one, because it was crazy windy, but look at all these dedicated ladies who showed up!

Stacey-Allison-Georgina-Tricia

IFTR Group Runs:

I only managed one early morning group run this month. The first one was up Sagewood in the Blackhawk area. We had a beautiful fresh snow morning. We actually had a really big group, but only four of us made the picture.

The following week I was gone for me race, then I was too sore from my race to go. The last one of the month had to be canceled.