Parade and Park Lake (Family Visit, Part 1)

Hubs's parents have been visiting and they brought our nephew Cole and our nieces McKenna and Hallie. It has been so much fun having them here and just having visitors. The first day they were here we went to the parade and then the rest of the day was spent fishing, swimming, and relaxing at Park Lake.

McKenna & Hallie who are the best of friends.

Waiting for that parade candy. And they got lots!

Now for Park Lake...

Hubs getting the kids ready to fish. They were really excited about it. Hubs said that they finally were getting the hang of casting when they were about to leave.

These kids love to swim, swim, swim!!!

Tadpole hunting. There were hundreds of them.

Cole showing me his catch.

Just playing around!

Hallie and her beautiful smile!

Hallie swimming.

And my handsome husband!

It's a loooooong road to...Park Lake!

Sunday night Hubs and I decided that we wanted to take a drive and explore a little. We decided to take a road that went into National Forest past Mt. Helena. A few miles down the road it turned into gravel. We decided to keep going because it was so beautiful! Seriously! As we are driving down this pretty nice gravel road the houses become fewer and fewer, but every once in awhile a house would pop up. We go a few miles until we come to a sign that tells how far different little creeks and meadows are and it says that Park Lake is 16 miles. Hubs wanted to go to this lake because he said that someone had mentioned at work that they camp at this lake. I was the one driving and did not want to drive 16 miles on a gravel road. But we were trying to be adventurous so we kept going. After driving for what seemed like forever we came upon another sign that had the miles on it. It said Park Lake was 14 miles. I couldn't believe it, I thought we had at least driven half way there. I kept on saying "I am tired of driving!", and I got no response from Hubs, which obviously meant he wasn't offering to drive (both Hubs and I hate driving and we always argue over who has to drive). After more driving we came to a T in the road and there was no sign saying which way anything was (by this time I think we had driven probably 15 miles on the gravel road and about 8 or so miles from the original sign for Park Lake). So we turned right on a hunch, and not far down the road we saw a sign for cars going the other way and as we passed we turned to see what it said. It said that the Interstate was 5 miles ahead or Helena was 15 miles. So we had taken the very long way around to the lake. That made me even more happy that I was driving. So we finally came to a sign that said 6 miles to Park Lake, and then the gravel road got really bad and bumpy, my insides felt like they were put in a blender. I was thinking and probably mentioned once or twice that this lake better be something pretty to look at or I was going to be mad. When we were only a few miles away from the lake we saw 4 huge Elk and they were just staring us down as we slowly drove past. So we finally get there after about an hour and a half of driving 20 miles. There were alot of people there and yes, it was sooo beautiful as you can tell from the picture. There was even a really nice and beautiful camp ground there, which we now plan on going back to to camp. And then kindly Husb offered to drive home, how nice!