Saturday we drove to Billigs for some shopping to the girls and a visit to a Harvest Festival downtown. It was pretty nice and some fun things to look at for the girls. There were some locally grown veggies, pumpkins apples and also some crafts and foodstands. The food area had a little New Orleans smell and mood..( or at least how I imagine MardiGras...) with good bbq chicken and cajun cuisine among the streetfoods.. we ate Carribean chicken. Tasty!
As always in places like festivals its interesting to study people and their styles. I can say that the
' cool' girls in Billings ( age students and up) were wearing bling bling jeans with some kind of kneeboots leather or suede and were really maked up and curled their hair..since it was saturday
I assume that they were all going out later... I felt little unfixed with just mascara on..but didn't plan to go anywhere else than an afternoon harvest fest for kids...hihi..
Anyway, we also bought some presents for Natalie at the rimrock mall.
It's a good shoppingcenter!
They have a playarea for children so one parent can sit there and let the kids play.
For kids clothes you have children's place, gap, gymboree, crazy 8 and a big store, scheels, for all sports and outdoors.I hope I get to go there and just look for myself oneday, but that usually doesn't happen with the kids..there are a whole lot for me to buy so maybe next time...
I bought some clothes for Natalie at
Place and gap kids and a winterjacket with pants for jamie.
It seems like there are 4 major quality brands that people buy to their kids in this area, the north face, colombia,
Spyder and canadian jupa.
All 4 are supposed to be really good, and parents here are used to real winters so they know what keeps you warm anddry.
We picked colombia to our little wild girl.
I like that they have adjustable size so you get 2 sizes in one.
She got gloves from jupa because they were easiest to put on and fit her best..hopefully she'll stay dry and warm over the winter...
Spyder have really cool gear, and
I think we wil try them for
Natalie, but this time she refused to try anything on....
Spyder will make all clothes for the us olympic ski team to next winter games. so that's gonna make them extremely popular...and the reputation i already very good overhere.
Sorry for the weird looking text..don't know what happened to make the lines go crazy..
The other day, me and the girls took our regular afternoon walk or bike ride and almost got really hot! It was a beautiful day, probably the last with t-shirts on... sunny and almost 25 degrees.. so a real Indian Summer here ( like Brittsommar). And such a big contrast to all snow by Crystal Lake last week!
I've been told it was getting colder quick and that was surely right. After that day it's been cooler, a few mornings icy and today snow on the ground. So from now on we'll probably have more "Downsouth Swedish winter" until winter starts here..And we are going to have a real winter here..Today I told Natalie that she'll see more snow then she has ever seen before. So we are preparing for that! But first we hope for some more fallish days to come...
I took some pictures and as usual Natalie posed in all weird ways you can imagine!
After driving for 8 days and totally 2945 km (+- 10 km), we reached the goal for our roadtrip! We made it to Big Snowy Mountains and the ranch where we are going to stay. The ranch is located outside smalltown Judith Gap in central Montana, or actually 20 min east of Judith Gap, by the foothills of Big Snowy Mountains. Easy to find on a map right between Great Falls and Billings. This mountain range doesn't look so huge at the map, but it's quite big and the tallest peak is still over 2500 m. We have really pretty views of the mountains!
This ranch is family-operated, which raises calves and sell them when they are around 8 months old. Usually the calves get sold by end of october. They run around 750 cow/calf pairs of mainly Black Angus and some Red Angus. And like most all ranchers here, they cut their own hay. ( Alot of it!)...I don't know exactly how big this ranch is...( you don't really ask a rancher/farmer how much land they have..here or in Sweden.) but I've been told around 10.000 acres so around 4500 hektar..so huge!!
All cattle always goes outside, more or less in huge pastures. Usually they are up in the mountains until the colder season starts, then they come down to lower elevation before shipping and in time for start haying them. I think the rule in Sweden is that cows are granted 5 months outside, the rest of the year inside in a barn...if you don't apply for permission and pay quite alot of money. I know more and more farmers want to do it "natural" so we'll see if that will simplify the rules. Here you don't see any large barns...only small, sometimes half covered for calving or doctoring... so the cows live a natural life outside and almost undisturbed! ...
I put up some pictures from the cellphone, but tuesday we'll get better connection so I can put up real pictures from my camera....
(And sorry for my bad english and spelling...it takes a while to write with my phone..and I miss sometimes... )
Not ready....
We left Livingston in the morning and took a short trip to Bozeman. It was a pretty drive along the mountains. Bozeman is hometown for Montana State University, and you could tell that this is truly a place to be for outdoor enthusiasts.. Surrounded by mountains and nearest skiresort just 30 min away...Bridger Bowl. Bozeman had a nice downtown area with some really good shops for outdoorlife. Already now in september, we realized how much heavy winterclothes we're gonna need to buy...
Today we drove 297 km...the final day of our roadtrip!!
While we are here, Natalie is allowed to start "preschool" or it's more like headstart " forskoleklass". She will go three days a week 8-12 for no cost, including lunch. This is more like school but with some free play, but they have real "classes" like music, reading and writing, gym with different teachers and of course their own classroom. In her class there are 9 other kids. Here even the preschoolers name their teacher with Mrs Fuentes..not the first name. That's something new for us, but same all over the States... I think it's kinda sweet when my high school students call me "Froken Tina" or "Froken Allen" ...but I think it works perfectly fine with my first name. Just cultural differencies. I think in general that also reflects that US-scools are a little more strict than swedish. For example here the kids (older in general) get to go to the intendent and explain why if they are late for classes without a note from home or if they behave bad against friends or in class. After several times they get to stay after school or even on Saturdays... I will write more about her school later.
If we want she can ride the real schoolbus to preschool. Its a 15-20 min ride with 6 other kids. She really wants to do that so we'll see....all of a sudden she such a big girl!! ...
(hard for the mama..but I've had time to get use to it while she was in daycare at home..)
So that the parents get to know what they are doing everyday, the kids bring home a folder with information and work they' ve done to sign. It's a good way to follow the kids carefully. I guess that takes a little less time for the teacher with 10 kids compared with 20 or so..but it's really good!
Anyway, I found a "new" brand ( at least for me) Stephen Joseph, with really cute stuff! Since Natalie needed a new backpack I ordered one together with a bottle for water. The bottle is stainless and free from BPA, phtalates and pvc...Hopefully it's good quality!
