Labor Day Weekend

Titus turned 13 weeks this last Saturday and we decided to take him for his first hike! Our adventure on Saturday was up to Blue Mountain Lookout. We hiked the last mile of the 8 mile trail up to the Lookout Tower, so we drove about 10 miles on a gravel road to get to the start of the last mile of the hike. Very pretty drive but the hike was even more beautiful. Tom carried Titus in our front carrier and he just looked around at everything, very alert. Looking at all the pretty trees and interesting things in the forest. He did get hungry on the way up and we had to stop so mommy could nurse him. Then we finally reached the top and it has a great view of different mountain ranges around us. The Lookout Tower is a working Forest Service fire lookout! I wish we could have climbed the stairs to the top but it looked a little scary to do with a baby. Then Titus got hungry again and then we headed back down after attempting many pictures with the sun shining so bright. Titus slept on the way back down, what should have taken us an hour and half for the whole trip took us about 2 and a half hours with a baby!
Then on Sunday after church and much errand running we headed to Rock Creek, east of Missoula, to hike there, hoping to see many Bighorn Sheep! We drove about 27 miles to get there, it was all paved roads which was nice. The area out there I noticed was very pretty and just about everyone lived in a cabin type home, which is one of our dreams someday, a cabin with some land! Right when we started our hike there we saw some Whitetail, course mommy couldn't get the camera out fast enough before they ran away. But we enjoyed that hike, we just hiked until we thought we should turn around for the sake of Titus. He got hungry on that hike too, and slept on the way back to the car. I am not sure where that trail took you for a destination but I think we will go back again sometime and try to find out. We also had packed some firewood in the car with some food and smores to enjoy for dinner but as soon as we got back to the car it started pouring. We never saw any Bighorn on our hike but we drove a little further up the road hoping it would stop raining and find a campsite to enjoy our goodies. We found a group of Bighorn near the road but it never stopped raining so we went back home. We will enjoy a campfire here soon with our goodies!
Titus is growing so big and no one can believe he is only 3 months old! I think he has rolled over at least a dozen times now since he was 8 weeks old! Three times just yesterday! And he is discovering his hands and feet and his voice. He generally sleeps about 10-11 hours at night now but he has been sleeping through the night for at least a month already. He has moved into his own room since he was 12 weeks old and that transition went really well for him. I think mommy was more worried than he was. Just tonight I got out his rubber duckies at bath time for the first time and was squirting him with them and he was laughing! Oh, he is so cute! Daddy gives him airplane rides and he loves it, he just keeps springing up off his feet cuz he wants more!

We hiked around this rocky cliff area, the trail was probably just at the base of the rocks and above the trees that are below, a lot of the trail was covered in shale.

The view below our Rock Creek hike, horses grazing, one of mommies favorite of all God's creation.

Daddy and Titus on our hike in Rock Creek, my two favorite men!

A view of Missoula coming back down the Blue Mountain National Recreation Trail.

Blue Mountain (fire) Lookout Tower, 50 ft., we wanted to go up into it but the stairs were very steep and at the top of the stairs the door was closed. But they say you can see 5 different mountain ranges from up there!

At the top of Blue Mountain, 6,460 ft.