During my trip to the great state of Montana, I had the opportunity to go on a ride along with a trooper.  The ride along gave me a new found respect for the men and women of the Montana Highway Patrol.  I don't think people realize how important law enforcement is until it is seen first hand what they do day in and day out.  It was an honor for me to get a glimpse into the lives of such brave men and woman.  Most importantly, do them a favor and for God's sake pull over further when you break the law, you still have about 5 feet to spare...

Spending the 4th of July at my parents has become a tradition over the last few years.  In years past a neighbor would have a awesome display across the street.  This year they were out of town, so we relied on ourselves to  provide the entertainment.  Since we only spent 21 bucks this was about as good as it got.

Jamison and the kids hung out while I lit off our stash of fireworks.  And as promised my beard continued to grow into its glory.

Despite our meager firework performance the kids did have a good time watching the rest of the town set the sky on fire.  Montana is not quite like California when it comes to fireworks.

When the mosquitoes were not swarming the deck the kids loved to go out and play in the pool.  By far their favorite thing was dumping water on each others heads.  Emma probably got it the worst, but hey its only water right?

One of the first things we got to do with the family was go to the Kalispell Circus.  It wasn't in a tent which was a little odd, but it had everything you would find at any circus.  The guys riding the bikes in the cage were probably the coolest, and the kids enjoyed pretty much everything.

We got to take the older kids, including the son of a good friend of Tawny.  

It was great seeing Tayrn again, she has gotten so big!  I would say her favorite part was the cotton candy. 

The kids all got to go on a pony ride, which of course cost more than it cost to get into the circus.  I have been strongly considering training my sons to get into the Circus Business. 

There were a lot of good acts, here are a couple that the kids really enjoyed.  It was easier to understand that elephants and dogs are great, but a random Russian guy holding a lady upside down can be a little confusing to anyone.

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To start out our summer o' fun we headed to Sacramento to drop Christina and the boys off at the airport to fly up to Montana.  As everybody knows, Sacramento has a rockin Train Museum.  We stayed with some good friends Tony and Melissa, truly the nicest people you will ever meet.  They treated us to the museum, as well as housing us over the weekend.  Tony also made us some very delicious popcorn.

The train museum consisted mostly of old people reliving their glory days riding trains, but the kids had fun running around driving me nuts.  Lots of big trains that we could not take pictures of because our little camera does not work well in dim areas.

I spent the week away from Christina improving my rank in Halo 3, and eating out as much as possible.  Here are some photos of the train visit, and I will be adding some more posts about our stay in MT.  By far best thing so far was the ride along with Mike.