Visitors!

Happy Holidays!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! I know I did. Very happy I was able to go home to Texas for a few days. But before that, I was lucky enough that I got in a few concerts, survived the fall semester, and had a few visitors!

First, before Thanksgiving, I was able to catch another concert. Eli Young Band, Jerrod Neimann, and Dierks Bentley came to town! I never thought I would see some many great country artists up here! Especially a Texas country band. I keep hoping more will want to see the great state of Montana. No, it's not Texas, but it's awfully close!

Of course, the night of the concert, was the one night it really snowed up here. We've had a considerable lack of snow, but on this night, you wouldn't know it!

My country concert buddy, D! It was snowing in this picture, but you can't really tell...

First up, Eli Young Band!

Then there was Jerrod Niemann...

And finally, some Dierks Bentley!

It was an awesome concert! Loved that I got to go!

When I got back to Montana from Thanksgiving, I was ready to set up my Christmas tree. It's the first time I've had a large one! Since college, I've just used this little bitty Christmas tree that my mom bought each of use when we were little. I had so much fun decorating a big one! So Christmassy!


Although, there was a slight problem with having such a great Christmas tree....





...the kitten developed an EXTREME liking to it. By Christmas, all the ornaments had been moved up and the lower branches were sagging, a lot. Well, at least we both enjoyed it, right?



A week before going home for the holiday, my sister and brother made the trip up to visit me in Montana! I was so excited, and we had an awesome trip. I was hoping I could show them what REAL snow was like. However, as I mentioned before, there has been a considerable lack of snow this year. All those predictions by (somewhat) reliable sources saying that this year there would be a ton of snow? Yeah, haven't seen it yet...

Anyway, after picking them up, I decided the only way to show them snow was to take them up Hyalite Canyon. Fun times!

After driving up the canyon, we stopped and climbed over the snow mound on the side of the road and played around:

Manda

Sisters!

We decided to take a little hike to the river...

Mike walking on thin ice. He was pretty brave and got pretty close to the river. Very brave, or not so smart... hmm...

'snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes!'

Since I live in a place like this:

We decided to take a chance at skiing. We ended up going to Big Sky, which I had never been to before. It was so fun! It took a few runs to make sure we all knew how to ski, and stop, and had awesome help from my friend D. After a few crashes and maybe a few run-ins with a few trees, they became pros!

Snow bunny Manda, and skier Mike!

All in all, a wonderful day!!!

And, what trip to Montana isn't complete without a trip to Yellowstone!

Manda had to make a snow angel before she left. Did a pretty good job...

It was such a great trip!

Manda wrestled the cat into taking a picture with her.

I had great dinners made for me. Yum!

Soooo glad they came to visit me! It was such a great start to the holidays!


-amyg

Reba Freakin' McEntire and Halloween!

Oh. My. Goodness. I was totally lucky enough to see one of my favorite country stars in concert. Reba McEntire. I grew up with her music. Like, literally. My dad is totally into the older country music, and every car trip insured Reba McEntire. And I got to see her.... live... anyone jealous? because you totally should be...

The Band Perry opened. Although their first number one hit isn't my favorite, they sounded extremely good live. Better than they do on the radio...



And then Reba came onto stage.... Yeah, totally lost my voice that night...

D got us great tickets!!!!

One of the highlights? The girl from the Band Perry came out and sang 'does he love you?' with Reba. I was in heaven...

'Oh my goodness... it's Reba. Freakin'. McEntire....

She sang all of her old songs. And I still remember the words to most of them. I loved it! The only song we didn't hear was 'Fancy'. But then...




She came back on stage for her encore in the red fancy dress!!!! It was amazing! I love that song...



It was such an awesome concert. I loved every minute of it. I never realized that I could see such great country artists up here in the great state of Montana. In a few weeks I'm going to see Dierks Bentley, Jarrod Neiman, and The Eli Young Band! Soooo pumped! And I just found out that Blake Shelton is making a short stop here in January! Definitely going to look into buying tickets for that!


As most of you know, this past weekend was Halloween. The past couple of years, I've been lazy and have just gone with my back up 80's costume. This year, however, I was inspired. My friend D was making a dinosaur costume from scratch, so I figured I could do something like that. I've always wanted to try making a poodle skirt. So I did. And it totally looked cute! It wasn't as good as the many my grandmother made, but it worked for the weekend, and now I have a new back up costume if I ever need one!

My Halloween celebration started on Friday, when I went downtown with my friend A after our Oula class (Oula is an aerobics class. It's really hip-hoppy, and a lot of fun and a great workout!). We went to a newly re-opened bar (the first, as I understand it, was kinda blown up a few years ago) and just danced the night away! This night, she dressed as a very cute lady bug.

Our drinks matched her costume! haha...

Just goofin' off holding our drinks...

We met quite a few people that night, including:

a lion tamer (we were being 'gangsta'. in montana. yeah, didn't really pull it off...)

And a few other costumes we didn't get pictures with (we were too busy dancing!)

The next night, we went back downtown . I stayed in my awesome 50's costume, but A went with her 80's aerobic instructor costume. Again, we danced and danced! So fun!

We met up with D and A. D totally pulled off her dinosaur costume.

D (dinosaur), A (gypsy, although the band kept calling her Jasmine...?), and A (80's aerobics instructor).

And as an 80's aerobics instructor, A totally worked out. She somehow found not just one, but 4 different shake the weights. Then she partied it up with the DJ...

Again, such as great night! And it's a good thing I partied it up over the weekend, because on actual Halloween I got sick! Boo. So now I'm trying to get over a cold and just working in lab. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and then it's Christmas!!!

-amyg