Big Sky:Big Post

This is the most insane amount of pictures on The Phillips Phamily yet. I thought about making it into 2 posts, but that seemed harder. So, break it up or grab a snack and settle in. Its gonna be a long ride. I'll just tell you about our FANTASTIC trip to Montana with a daily account:

Saturday: We left our hotel at 4:30 Saturday morning to catch our first plane. Luckily, Daddy's lap was a good place to sleep. We got to Bozeman and with the time change, we were there way before lunch. We hung out outside the restaurant and enjoyed the perfect weather. Uncle Clint and Kanyon had a great time catching up.
Clint and Sydni live in Bozeman, so we went to their house to feed Kanyon and ourselves. Sayler was so nice to give Kanyon a toy to eat...a pig none-the-less.
After Kanyon ate, we jumped in Clint's truck and headed 3 more hours to Lewistown. Finally we were there!!!

Sunday

We enjoyed church (after Kanyon puked in the parking lot) and seeing friends there.

Here is Kory giving Kanyon a nice view of Main Street

Kanyon has recently started growing an Alfalfa. I love it.
Tye has a place on the other side of town with some cows that he's recently started running. We got a phone call Sunday saying one of his bulls had gotten in with the neighbors heifers. Oops. That meant we had to go find him and get him back to his own ladies. Here are Tye and Wes..oh man, it seemed impossible.
I stopped the 4 wheeler to take a picture of the view of town from Tye's place. A little different than where the ranch is. I think its very pretty.
Here is the bull...headed into the right gate. Good job boys. I just rode along for fun..no help.

maybe a better view of town
Tye and Wes talking things over. You will see lots of pictures like this.
all 3 boys talking things over.
OK, so then it was time to shut the gate which was near impossible. It was WAY tight. Here is Kory giving it a shot....
Then Wes (the laughing didn't help much)

Then Tye..

In the mean time, Gram was keeping Kanyon away from the mosquitoes.
And Kanyon got to meet Cooper up close and personal!
A little cowboyin' makes a boy pretty dirty, so he needed a bath in Gram's sink.

Monday: The work began. It was time to cut the hay and boy did they! The boys worked so hard. Us girls? Well ,we ran them lunch, drinks, picked them up, took them to a different field, or rode with them to keep them company. The boys enjoy doing hard work together, and I like to watch them enjoy each other.

Here is Kory running the baler

Kanyon's first ride in a tractor. He was a big help to daddy!

He was instantly very interested in knowing how this thing works, so Kory gave him the basics.

Riding along with Dad..this didn't last long. The tractor doesn't have a buddy seat (more on that later) and it was quite bumpy for Kanyon.
Helping Daddy drive
He's so good, he's already a trick driver.
I think Kory has been looking forward to this picture for a long time.
Uncle Tye came in for a break and Kanyon greeted him with a nice tweak of the nose

Oh man I love this picture.
We had FANTASTIC spike days at the beginning of the week!!

Here are the horses: Ranger, Rocky, Pace, Smokey, and Cowboy Uno

Tuesday: More work for the hayers! BUT...shortly after this picture was taken, it came a DOWN POUR!! That meant the work outside had to stop so we got to enjoy playing games and hanging out together inside. I was kinda glad it rained just for a little bit. It didn't put them too far behind, so it was just fine. Clint, Sydni, and Sayler also joined us Tuesday so we were ALL together!

This is the new swather. It has a very fancy buddy seat so the driver can have a buddy to keep him company. This is me and Tye. My camera bit the dust, so Sydni SAVED me and took lots of pictures for me!!!

Disclaimer: I did not know my outfit would be captured on film. I just threw on some of Wes's boots (these are the ones I love to wear) because I didn't think I would really need shoes. The problem was we had to run across the field in the pouring rain...not to mention the whole world is seeming me look like a ragamuffin, but I liked the scenery in the background.
Sayler was such a great cousin! She loved helping Kanyon swing...
Feed him with her My Little Pony bottle....
and pose for sweet pictures even though he kept pulling her hair. Good times with Gram

Eldon and Marilyn came to visit and Kanyon enjoyed Marilyn so much. She has been such a faithful "grandmother" to him...keeping up, praying, and loving him! She even gave him a great book about Eating "All Gone!" Maybe it will sink in!
kisses from Chief

Wednesday: This was the day after the rain, so things were kind of slow outside which meant a great time for fun inside! And it was a GREAT day because the Great-grandparents came over!

How sweet is this picture?

Here is Great Grandma Fae and Great Grandpa Bob with their great grands...
Hangin' with Chief
While we played Nertz, Sayler was so sweet to read to Kanyon! I wish I had this on video, she was so precious and I really think he liked it!
Out of order, but here is a 4 generation pic: This is also Generation 3, 4, 5, and 6 on the Ranch. We really had fun visiting with them.

Kanyon got pretty cuddly with Great Grandpa's ear. I thought this was just so cute.

Thursday: The ground was still a little wet in the morning, so we left the hay alone and headed over to Tye's place to move some cattle to a different pasture. We loaded up the 4 wheelers and 2 horses and headed over to gather and move them. Susan was Super Gram and kept Kanyon and Sayler so that Sydni and I could help/have fun! Once again, Syndi was a champ and took pictures since my camera is having a major problem.

Here I am and I promise I wasn't just riding around, I'm sure there were cows somewhere near...I hope. I was riding Uno, who is a better cattleman than any of us, so he pretty much knew what to do.

Me and Kory
Me, watching the last ones go through the fence...this wasn't the end, just one of some we had to go through to get to the end.

Kory

Super Gram came to where we were so that I could feed Kanyon and keep going. Wes took over on Uno for me. Once again, these boys were talking things over, making plans.
I really love this picture...more talking things over.
Nothing says "Lewistown" like the 4 Aces restaurant. It is a favorite because you can go looking as nasty as we did and not get kicked out. Clint, Kory, and Tye were nice enough to pose for me in front of the sign.
By the time we were through with lunch, the hay was calling, so here are the boys....yep...making more plans, deciding who is going to go where and do what.
side note: we put Kanyon's tube back in but he was still doing good eating. Taking his meds by mouth was the kicker. We're not quite ready for that and figuring out while traveling is not a good idea. So tape boy is back, but each day we're closer and closer!

Friday JULY 4th: As the nation celebrated, we celebrated too...it was Kanyon's Happy Home Day! If you remember, last year we came home from the hospital on July 4th, Kanyon's 100th day. We celebrated the first annual Phillips Phamily Independance Day! I have to include a few picture of the first anual, and then you can enjoy picture of the 2nd! What a great day!


Here we are about to enter our house for the first time. He was a tiny little 6 pounder.

The most overwhelmed I've ever been. We came home to a great crownd of friends and family. I just couldn't believe it, it was SO great. I was speechless.
Here was our welcome comittee. They had been out there in RAIN for HOURS waiting on us!
Sweet baby boy. I could go on and on about what this day was and is to us now, but I don't think I could put it in words.
Out of order, but here we are driving up to the house:

OK, on to this years Happy Home Day Celebration:

Helping Daddy play cards. He also got to visit with his Great Uncle Jim, but thanks to my dumb camera, I don't have a picture to show for it!

Lewistown was kind enough to have a fire works show in celebration of Kanyon's first year at home. They also had a parade, but out of control streams of pee and a dose of major spit up caused us to miss it. Oh well. We made it to the fireworks that night. It was cool and the wind was blowing so it was COLD. We had a blast though sitting out watching the firecrackers from the top of the hill. This is the original Phillips Fam plus Kanyon

Here is Kanyon with his Home Day sparklers (too windy to light at the time)
He loved his socks the most
Phillips Boys
One year later, here we are.

Sitting out in the cold wind wasn't ideal for Kanyon, plus it was 10:00 before it even got dark (11:00 Texas time) so he was tired. Gram and Chief were so great to keep him warm in the pick up.

Despite the late hour and Kanyon state of DEEP sleep, we set off our own celebratory fireworks

We spelled Kanyon's name in sparklers


Happy Home Day Kanyon (on yeah...and Happy Independance America)

Saturday: We left Lewistown at 9:30 am and headed to Bozeman to catch our first plane...it was late, flew to Minneapolis, waited for the plane to Dallas, got to Dallas at 10, got our bags, got our car, and headed home to Longview. We pulled in about 1:30 am. Sweet Kanyon never made a peep until we were about 3 minutes from the house! He was such a trooper on his 15 hour trip!!

Needless to say, his eating has been a little off today. He took an uncharactaristicly long nap after church and is settling back in to his bouncy seat. We had the best time! If you didn't make it this far, I totally understand....if you did, I hope you enjoyed..remember this blog is my baby book/scrapbook, so its not like I actually think you really care that much about every detail of our trip.


A spencial thanks goes to Kory for being such a big help with Kanyon today so that I could blog. And Kan's 2 1/2 hour nap was nice too!
Have a great week!