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This may only be our fifth summer in Montana, but already we have multiple friends making repeat visits. The Merrills were last here in 2021 and we were excited to see them again. It’s the busiest weekend of the summer, and often it’s accompanied by great weather. We started with a few hikes in Glacier. Virginia Falls is always a hit.

On the trail up and back to the falls, there are several other waterfalls. I dared the kids to jump in the river, which is still glacially cold– I’d be surprised if the water temperature is much above 40 degrees. Naturally they did, which meant I had to as well. Jordyn required a bit of convincing from the group, but she finally took the plunge. It was so cold.

Once we’d done that, though, it was no big deal to jump off the bridge at St Mary Falls. Here are Nate and Matthew mid-jump:

I prefer a running jump off the cliff (not visible in the shot above). Regardless of how you get there, the water shocks you when you hit it. A few years ago I’d jump here with various friends (mostly their kids) and only saw a handful of other people ever do it. This time there was a crowd of at least twenty teenagers on the bridge, all taking turns. Apparently it’s become A Thing.

As the day wound down, we relaxed for a while on the shores of Lake McDonald.

July 4 was a big day, and we celebrated by going to the annual Bigfork parade. It’s always a bit comical because local businesses drive the parade route, advertising their services. A few politicians always make an appearance. We were just there for the candy everyone throws.

After the parade, I hatched a plan to be in the parade next summer. The kids agreed to join me, so we already have plans for their 2026 visit over the July 4 holiday.

The fireworks in Polson were fun, although the smell of distant gunpowder mixed with the smell of nearby marijuana. Hmm.

The weather turned a little wet, but that didn’t stop us from having a barbecue.

We had a blast playing board games and card games. This was a rousing game of Pit, which of course escalated into a lot of shouting.

We love the Merrills. I’ve known their three youngest kids since they were born, and we’ve shared a lot of adventures. In a year we’ll see them again in the parade. Happy Fourth!

Kyra bought a huge inflatable easy chair and loves using it on the lake. She ties it to a paddleboard and paddles out into the lake (it’s easier to paddle a board than a chair). Then she drops anchor– she actually bought a small boat anchor for this!– and climbs into her chair. She can wear her big sun hat and read a book while bobbing gently on the waves. What a life.

We left El Centro a month ago, and said goodbye to many friends. Woody, my lunch buddy and photography companion, decided it had been too long, so he and his wife Marilyn arranged a trip to visit us. They traded the 110-degree weather in southern California for the beautiful budding summer days of northern Montana. It was awesome to see them again so soon, and we showed them all the sights. We started with Flathead Lake:

Naturally we headed to Glacier, where they oohed and ahhed as we climbed Going-to-the-Sun Road up to Logan Pass. I love this shot of me and Woody exercising our cameras:

We toured downtown Bigfork and saw– you guessed it– the Big Fork.

They asked about the Miracle of America Museum down in Polson. In six years living here, we’d never visited it, so we piled into the car and gave it a go. I feel like it should be called the Miracle of Some Guy’s Rusted-out Junk, but I’m a bit cynical. Woody (a historian) enjoyed the historic vehicles and displays.

Marilyn is a retired English teacher and plays Scrabble online every day. She and I had played a couple games back in California, so I brought out my board.

She looks like she’s struggling with a word here, but the truth is she absolutely crushed me. She has lots of practice (I haven’t played in years) and knows all those unusual words that are useful in the game but never used in actual spoken English.

All in all, it was a grand time and we’re looking forward to getting together again soon… likely in the winter, when we’ll trade twenty-below temperatures here for seventy and sunny there.

A few days after returning from our mission, both Pepper and I were called to new positions in our ward. I’m a clerk, which means I’m responsible for exciting things like finances and recordkeeping. I was given a key to the church office, and went in to scope it out. I found this shelf of ancient tomes:

Wow. A book about MS-DOS! That pre-dates Windows. And WordPerfect? My favorite word processor, dating back to the mid-1990s. These are the manuals we’re keeping in the office. It’s funny not only because these books are for software that’s thirty years old and long gone, but because other people in the church (previous clerks, ahem) are afraid to throw them away. “But we might need it!” they cry. You’d hate to get rid of something and then find that you need it, right?

Well, I think these will be safe to toss. I guess it’s time for the new clerk to do some cleaning…

We’ve only been home for a few weeks, and it’s already time to start entertaining guests. Our friends the Gundersons asked to stop in on their way to Canada. We saw them in 2022 and again in 2023, and apparently the kids were bummed they couldn’t visit in 2024 while we were gone. It’s nice to be missed! We even had bonus visitors: Cindy’s cousin, and a friend of Rhys.

So of course we were thrilled to see them. The jet skis are a perennial favorite.

As is tradition, we also had dinner at Burgertown.

Fortunately their family enjoys board games, and Skull King is always good for a laugh.

Plans are already in the works for their 2026 visit. We love having friends who love visiting us.

As we were in the final few weeks of our mission, we visited Camp Wildwood in north San Diego. The camp is for church and family events, and has a whole host of entertaining stuff: soccer fields, pool, archery range, zipline, mess hall, and so on. A handful of senior missionaries manage the camp, supervising the stations and keeping everything running smoothly. Unfortunately one couple had to return home early, so they’re short-handed and desperately looking for help.

Pepper’s brother Randy, and his wife Nancy, recently retired and have been talking about serving a mission “someday”. Well, after hearing about the camp’s plight, Pepper called Randy and explained the situation. Not only would they be a ton of fun hosting youth and families, but Randy is a mechanic and incredibly good at fixing and maintaining things like the camp (sprinkler systems, pool plumbing, buildings, ATVs, yada yada). They’re perfect for this assignment!

After a couple days considering it, Randy and Nancy compiled their mission papers and sent them in. Within just a few weeks they’d been accepted, trained, and were on their way to San Diego! Interestingly, we finished our mission and headed home the week before they arrived. We didn’t overlap at all, but today we received this photo of them at the camp:

Yep, they’re official with their nametags. And this is the first time in the thirty years I’ve known Randy that he doesn’t have facial hair (full-time missionaries are expected to be clean-shaven).

They’re having a grand time, and it’s cool to chat with them about the people we both know from the mission.

At tonight’s board game session, Kyle brought his massive “big box” version of Terraforming Mars and he, Sonya, and I played for a couple hours. This game is quite impressive, with 3D-printed board pieces, a big rubber playmat, real metal pieces, sleeved cards, and on and on.

It was a lot of fun, and I managed to eke out a victory. Our Thursday-night gaming is awesome.

Sidenote: a few weeks after this post, Kyle passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. I’ll miss him.

Ahh, our driveway. It’s what allows us to have a magnificent view of Flathead Lake. And it’s one of the most infuriating things about our house. There are many stories here in my blog about the problems it’s caused. Now that winter is definitely over, once again we have a layer of fine gravel on the entire driveway– the result of sanding it during the winter months to keep it passable for Kyra and Hannah while they lived here.

I’d resigned myself to sweeping it again, which is a tedious two-day chore. But Hannah suggested I get a leaf blower. Hmm. If it’s powerful enough, it’ll just blow the little rocks out of the way. Since raking the pine needles every fall is another tedious chore, I figured I’d see what a leaf blower would do. I picked up a Husky electric model and went to work.

Sure enough, the gravel wiggled and danced and then slid right off the asphalt! It was still a slow job, but I was finished in two hours instead of two days, and didn’t have to push a broom a thousand times. The end result looks pretty nice.

I’m interested to see how it does against the pine needles. But at least my spring driveway cleanup won’t be as bad any more…

Now that we’re back, I have a list of house projects that I’ve been compiling over the past year. On that list– and something that seemed like a fun activity today– is getting a new hot tub. The one we have is almost twenty-five years old, and is starting to show its age. It leaks, several jets have failed, and it feels kind of cramped. I have no idea how much a hot tub costs, or how you even pick a good one, so the best way to answer those questions is to go to the hot tub store!

Kyra and Hannah like this one. It’s huge.

I like this one. It’s tiny.

Most of the time it’ll be just the two of us using the hot tub, but when we have company we’ll need something that’ll fit at least four people. We test-drove (test-sat?) this one and all agreed it was a good compromise between huge and tiny.

I’m not quite ready to place an order yet, but at least we have answers to our questions. We’ll see what happens…

Although we’ve finished our mission, the road home is long. That means plenty of time to stop and see people…

When our young missionary friends heard we’d be in Orem, three of them said “Hey, my parents live there– you should totally stop in and see them!” So we did.

Sister Packer’s parents:

Sister Tennis’ parents:

What a blast to spend a little time talking about these fine young women and the good times we’d had together. Parents always love hearing about their missionary kids, and we loved learning a little more about their lives and families. (Unfortunately our third stop to see Elder Searcy’s parents didn’t work out.)

Later that day we reconnected with a gaggle of friends from our days in Longmont. All of them live in Utah now, and it seemed worth throwing a party. The Nielsens, Robisons, Galazes, von Niederhauserns, and Bartholomews all congratulated us on the end of our mission. Interestingly, the Bartholomews just started serving a mission of their own in Heber!

It was also good to see Tara and her family. She and Trent came out to visit us on our mission…

We hung out with Cil and Jim…

And we met up with six of our senior missionary friends for dinner! They’d all finished their missions a few weeks before we did.

After a few more days with the boys, and a few pinball games…

… it was time to finally go home. We started the long drive from Utah to Montana. And when we crossed into Montana, I was reminded why I love living up here.

The scenery was so familiar, and yet it was strange to see it again after so long in the desert of the Imperial Valley and the green hills and beaches of San Diego. It did my heart good.

Back in Bigfork, the first order of business– even before unpacking the car– was to jump in Kyra’s shiny new car and head down the road to Rosa’s for some pizza.

Kyra’s been house-sitting for us, although she took a few days to visit us in San Diego last August. It was nice to see her again.

Yep, it’s good to be home. We sent this picture to all our California friends to let them know we’d made it safely back.