Cat Bath, Ski Lifts and Farm Animals

First, some pictures of Matthew as I played around with the camera Friday.

However, the real excitement of the weekend happened as I threw the diapers in the wash Friday night and I poured a cup of detergent. Realizing it was not our diaper detergent (really, who would have thought washing poop catchers could be so complicated!). I left the cup of detergent on the washer for our next regular load. BIG mistake. Iris apparently found it and maybe stepped in it or something. Truthfully, we have no idea how any animal could make such a big mess out of such a small cup of detergent. Anyway, James picks her up and notice she smells "mountain fresh" and is sticky so being dutiful pet owners, we give her a rinse in the sink, allowing her to claw the crap out of James and let her go sulk under the bed.

Being extra dutiful pet owners, we consult veterinarian Google and are instructed that if we don't give her a 20 minute bath (a 20 minute bath? Have these people ever owned a cat?) . . . or take her to the emergency vet (reasonable, but it's not like she drank it), or call ASPCA for a $65 poison control consult (really? $65?) Tide will likely kill her.

So, after being guilted and shamed by the internet, we compromised and decided to try a more thorough bath to get rid of all the soap residue so we could attempt to sleep without worrying and checking on the cat all night. Iris was not impressed by our heroic life saving efforts.



Not even a kitty cuddle in the towel pleased her.

Long story short, Iris is fine. We had a moment of panic on Saturday when we got back from our adventure and couldn't find her, but that was because she has figured out how to climb onto the tops of the kitchen cabinets and its one of the last places we think to look. Seriously, if any cat is slowly going crazy, it might be Olivia who as far as we know, wasn't involved in the incident:

Saturday, we participated in the Reach, Inc. Big Sky Trek on the team from James' company. It was a 3-ish mile hike at the Big Sky resort. The day was gorgeous and the hike was a lot of fun. We started at the bottom of this hill and ended at the top following the basin around. The elevation change is about 1150 feet.

Along the way there were tons of great wildflowers.

A view from the trail.

Little man seemed to enjoy the day. James and I also learned an important lesson about our backpack. Though it is nice in airports that we can carry Matthew and all the supplies, it makes a lot more sense for one person to carry a backpack with water etc. and the other to carry the 25 lb+ child.

Another view from the trail. The trail/road we came up on is in the lower lefthand corner of the picture.

There were sandwiches and music at the top, plus free rides on the lifts back down. We debated hiking down but we were pushing our luck with the first hour and a half of good behavior in the backpack so Matthew took his first ski lift ride down the mountain. He was thrilled for about 10 seconds.

And then cuddled and zoned out the rest of the way.

It was also the weekend of the Gallatin County fair so we stopped on our way home to check it out. I was shocked to find that there is a height requirement (that Matthew is FAR from reaching) to ride the carousel. . . even with your parents, so no first horsey ride for him. We did however check out the petting zoo:

And watched the racing pigs.

And met this adorable steer in the barns.

And this absolutely gorgeous chicken.

Matthew joined us for funnel cakes and sno-cones as is our fair tradition and what we were doing almost a year ago, only this time Matthew definitely didn't sleep through it! He thought the funnel cake was meh and is not a sno-cone fan at all. Thankfully he still prefers his broccoli and sweet potatoes to any sort of "treat". If only his daddy and I were the same. All in all an eventful Friday and Saturday with some more Sunday excitement to be blogged at a later date.