She's 8 today. . .

And it been a pretty good birthday so far.  On Friday, we (and by "we", I mostly mean the amazing Gwen--I did very little, in truth) threw a combined birthday party for Keilana and Paisley (who turned six).  We did a tea party, so there was a tea cup for each girl (thank you, local thrift stores!), pink lemonade, lots of pastel decorations, and some face painting and games.  She was in heaven.  It was great fun to see all the little girls in fancy dresses drinking out of their tea cups with their dramatically painted faces (no simple butterfly-on-the-cheek girls in this crew;  more of a my-whole-face-is-a-giant-butterfly gang).

We left for Anaconda late Saturday morning (or perhaps early afternoon? we weren't moving very quickly) and took the long way over.  And I do mean long.  It took us about three times as long as just driving the interstate, but we saw a whole lot of pretty country.  We kept trying to outrun the rain, but never quite managed to, until we got to Anaconda and then it was sunny and gorgeous, a perfect summer evening.  The family that Doug is renting from has five children, whose younger three line up with our older three. They got invited down to watch a movie and play, and that delighted them--an hour into seeing their new town they already had friends.

We had intended to go to the ward for the first time this week and introduce ourselves and hopefully meet a few people, but it turns out that they had Stake Conference this weekend.  Stake conference in an unfamiliar stake with four young children sounded, well, kind of awful actually, so on a whim we drove down to Rexburg to visit Rachel.  It was a the right decision.  We saw her apartment and met a few roommates, and then we went up to Idaho Falls and had a picnic and went for a walk around the falls and the river.  The kids loved the sunshine and the water and the temple, but mostly they loved getting to see auntie Rachel, and realizing just how close she'll be when we move (including a 10-15 minute potty stop in Dillon, it took us 3 hours and 4 minutes to get to her apartment from the house we're staying at in Anaconda).  It was really good to see her.  We all need us a little Rachel now and then (pictures to come, btw)

Today has been a full yet somehow lazy day.  We going sort of slow this morning (by which I mean everyone slept in til nearly 7:30!) and once we all got ourselves put together we headed to Washoe Park, which the kids and I have decided may be our new favorite place.  It's huge, with so many lush, leafy green trees, two large playgrounds, a duck pond, a community pool, a creek with paths and bridges running through the whole thing, and a fish hatchery off at one end.  We were there for a couple of hours and probably wouldn't have left except that everyone was starving.  After having some lunch (and taking some lunch to Doug) we headed out again, this time to the Super Slide!  Its just a big outdoor slide built into one of the hills in town, and when you sit on a wool blanket, you go really, really fast.  Other than climbing the stairs over and over, it was delightful and the kids already want to go back.  We found an old train car to climb on (always love hearing Dylan call out from the front of a train car, "I'm your friendly neighborhood conductor! All aboard!"  Seriously.  Totally melts me every time).  We found another awesome park, this one with a swinging bench, a human-child-size hamster wheel, and a fantastic view of the Smoke Stack.  We explored up some of the hills at the south end of town, where Keilana declared, "This is where I want to live, because it has room for horses."

To cap it all off, she got to have a hamburger and milkshake from one of the best milkshake joints in Butte.

We're gonna like it here.  We can tell.