J&J Adventures

I think we've mentioned that we're a little partial to the Porterfield kiddos. Sunday afternoon I made cookies and wanted to take some to Heidi. The little ones just happened to be outside playing so we hung out for a bit. 

Telling Jocelin where she cannot go...she loves that. ;)

That girl Jocelin has a mind of her own and doesn't like to be told "no." I just understand her so well that I cannot even get frustrated. We cannot say the same for her mother who manages to get frustrated with that sweet little face!

Adorable! 

Jocelin also discovered that she likes McAlister's tea during our visit. Whoops. I shouldn't have tainted her at such a young age!

ACTION SHOT!

We had so much fun playing in the yard with the little Js. I love their ages right now. Jax is like the Energizer Bunny. He never stops! I wish that we had that kind of energy without, you know, doing drugs. HA! Jackson had such a good time that he told Jax he'd come back later in the week to take him to the driving range.

Check out that form!

 Come Wednesday Jackson made good on his promise and picked Jax up for a trip to the range.

Tiger who?

He LOVED the bunkers...one big sandbox!

Such focus

Headed home after a successful trip

 Jackson was really impressed with Jax's talents! He also go his nose even further out of joint because people stopped to watch Jax hit instead of the usual show Jackson puts on himself. He even accompanied Jackson to the grocery store and was a good boy the whole time. God bless Heidi for trusting her first son to Jackson's care. ;) We were scheduled to have dinner with the Porterfield family that night anyway so I got to see the kids, too!

"I like acorn squash!"  

"I'll eat the outside if I want to!" 

"YUM!"

 We have a new recipe for acorn squash that is just awesome (recipe here) so Jackson made those and brought them over along with his new potato salad (SO GOOD!) and a fruit salad. Andrew made pork and Heidi made her famous chocolate cake. Let's just say we were eating well that evening, folks.

Jocelin was REALLY into the squash!

She stopped in at each person's plate to eat some!

Jax was messing around and made the seat fall over. He was so funny "freeing" himself from it! 

Jax was pretty tired from all of the excitement of golfing with Jackson so he went to bed a little earlier than normal. That meant Jocelin got to entertain on her own. She didn't complain about that. ;)

Adorable and tired little lady

Girls play so much differently than boys. She reads and pushes around dolls. It was so much safer than wrestling around with Jax. HA! Jackson claims to still have flashbacks of that stroller striking him (see the video from our last visit). :) Jocelin went to bed and we got to catch up with just Heidi and Andrew. That was nice,too. We love the whole family!

A few videos of young Jax hitting the range:

Jax liked being filmed...

until he didn't like his shot then he just threw his club...my kind of kid! :)

Color Me Rad and College football...life is good!

My friend Amber always talks me into the worst fitness related events (see: mini-marathon and bootcamp entries for proof) and she did it again with talking me into the Color Me Rad 5k.

Even MacKenzie hated the run. Ok, She hated the sunglasses. Whatever. ;)

I met Amber at 7:30 on a SATURDAY morning to head down to the state fairgrounds for the race.

It was chilly so Amber wore her snuggie. Yep.

Before and After

It was a really chilly morning,but the whole point of a Color Me Rad 5k is to get messy so I wore all white including shorts and just suffered through the cold. Once I started running I wasn't cold anymore, of course. Amber ran faster than I did so I ran it by myself. Note to self: don't run with Amber anymore! I posted a personal best on the 5K despite the stations you had to run through where they threw colored cornstarch at you. I guess people assaulting me propelled me through the course faster.

I hate skinny friends

After we finished playing around getting messy I headed home to get cleaned up to head to Upland for the afternoon.

BIG FOOTBALL DAY!

I HATE Texas A&M's quarterback, Johnny Manziel, for being a douchebag. :) This meant I got to wear my Alabama "Roll Damn Tide" shirt again since A&M played them that afternoon. If you'll recall I bought it when they played Notre Dame last year in the Championship game. Yep. So it was a little funny this year that I also had to wear my Notre Dame shirt (I lost a bet and had to wear it once) that evening because the Irish faced Purdue. It is the only game of the year where I root for the Irish and they actually made me sweat it out!

Madison was bored by the football

My Mom and Guy were still at a birthday party that we'd left a little early so we could enjoy a quiet afternoon of football. After all, Upland is where we go to relax and unwind. I guess everyone was really comfortable because at one point I looked around and realized that I was the only one awake!

Macy, Jackson, MacKenzie and Madison were all sleeping

Individual photos of my sleeping friends

"Are we really watching Purdue?!"

"I just cannot watch Johnny Manziel anymore. He's so annoying!"

That cracked me up. We ended up stay the entire day watching football or the back of our eyelids. It was nice to just relax and not have laundry or some other chore nagging at us.

The next day I got to have brunch with my best friend Shannon, love that girl, at First Watch. I had coffee for the first time in ages and it was SO good. I enjoyed catching up with Shannon before coming home to spend another lazy day watching football. I'm glad we didn't have any plans because shortly after I got home I got really sick and ended up home from work until Wednesday! It was awful. I'd been coughing since the 5K and just feeling a little off. We think I had a bit of an allergic reaction to the cornstarch or at least to breathing it in. I had a rash down my leg and was just miserable. Needless to say I won't be doing another run with color involved. It was nice to get a little extra time to recharge my tired batteries, though. Come Wednesday I was ready to do something even if that something was coming to work! ;)

Sabbatical

In exciting/ non-exciting news, Jackson is now on sabbatical. August 30th was his last day at the mortgage company. The rising interest rates have not been kind of the mortgage industry and they needed to lower overhead costs. We get it. Jackson hated it here anyway so I was actually kind of happy.   

MacKenzie is ready for a constant ball player to be home!

Jackson took it pretty well since, as I mentioned above, he didn't like the job. At all. It has freed him up to do fun things instead of working for a company he didn't believe in. Winning.

He stopped in one day to play with the Porterfield kids and Gunner!

He's stayed busy doing projects around the house and, of course, entertaining MacKenzie.

This is the life.

One of the biggest projects I wanted done to the house is now complete. Jackson worked with our handyman and replaced the countertops in our kitchen.

Before

Before

AFTER!

I got brave and added a white sink

I've managed to not get a redecorated and plumbed photo, but you get the idea. It looks SO much better now. I was so happy to have that project off the infamous famous Jenna Petefish to-do list. ;)

I've also enjoyed Jackson being home to cook for us since we're still trying to eat only REAL, WHOLE food. It isn't as easy as it sounds, friends!

Local, organic apple slices, farm fresh organic eggs, homemade salsa and guacamole = amazing breakfast

He's looking for jobs in Indianapolis, but I've asked that he take his time on that. I'm really interested in moving to a new university and that would be easier if he didn't have a job around here. I've been looking all over the country and hope to do some additional networking at an upcoming tax event. Yep, I'm pretty sure I am the only girl looking forward to 4 days of tax training. ;) Our neighbor recently listed their house for sale so we put a sign in our yard as for sale by owner just to see if we get any interest. Here's hoping that the Petefish Post has a new location SOON! :)

Leaving Montana

We packed up and left our little cabin in the woods this morning.


I think Jackson was more sad to leave it than I was. The WIFI signal was weak and not getting to watch the Cowboys vs. Giants really didn't please me. I guess I'm just a city girl these days. ;)
We made the 2 hour drive to Missoula early this morning so that we'd have time to hike again. We went back to the "M" to see if we'd be better at it on our 2nd climb and to see how many calories we burned the first time. Originally, I didn't think I'd packed my fancy heart rate monitor watch but I found it when we unpacked. :) We took a different route this time, though.
We burned 826 calories this morning!!! There is a fork right at the beginning of the hike and one way goes up the mountain through a series of switchbacks and one is more of an outright climb. We picked the outright climb today. By "we," I mean Jackson selected the outright climb and I hated him the entire time for that selection. ;)
We made it about halfway when I had to take a breathing break. I was amazed at the view on this side of the mountain and it was a much clearer day than last time so we loved it.
You can see the campus down below with mountains in the background. I kept thinking how smart kids are to go to school in awesome locations. Then I remembered that I went to IU (Btown rocks!), Palm Beach Atlantic (West Palm Beach/Palm Beach isn't a rough place either) and then the University of Denver (home of amazing vistas, too!). I guess I did alright after all. IWU was missing some views but I made great friends so I'll let it pass. ;) I would love to go back to school somewhere awesome, but alas I think I'll stick with managing tax compliance at universities so they pay me instead of the other way around.
Jackson is lucky I think he is handsome because I was not a fan of him at this point in the "admittedly a bit rugged" trail. He kept saying, "we are almost there!" Guys, we were 'almost there' the ENTIRE climb. I'm not sure how that works.
The view of the river was pretty awesome, though.
"WE ARE ALMOST THERE, JENN, LET'S GO!!!" (I'll save your eyes from my desired response to him at the point. :))
Finally. Finally. Sitting on my butt enjoying the view and apologizing to my lungs for not giving them what they needed: oxygen.

A 71 year old woman with emphysema approached us at the top and offered to snap our photo. I don't usually allow such things (I hate handing my iPhone to a stranger), but she insisted. I'm glad she did! We don't usually get photos together when we're out on adventures so it was kind of nice to have a decent photo snapped.

Note: Jackson hates this photo of himself and that makes me sad. Also, the lady climbed the switchback side 3-4 times a week to battle her "earned with two packs a day for 30 years" emphysema. Bravo, ma'am. She said hypnosis was what eventually allowed her to kick the addiction. I asked if she thought that would work for chocolate and she seemed to think so. I'll be finding a hypnotist when we get home! She was also an IU graduate so we loved her instantly. :)
I made a bad decision and checked my work email while recovering on the top of the mountain (first world problem, I know!) and got a few messages that annoyed me. I used that frustration to power through the run down the switchback side of the mountain.
We decided that maybe I was related to my big brother, Aaron, after all because I got in a zone and just zipped down the mountain (usually the toughest part because of my bum right knee). Perhaps I should always be annoyed before working out?
We stopped in at a Cracker Barrel to eat all of the calories we just burned before heading to the airport. No really, we have a tight connection in Minneapolis and won't be around food again until late Eastern time so we wanted to have a big lunch. Mission accomplished. ;) I made Jackson pose with our sweet old person car. I kept referring to us as, "Ma and Pa P." much to Jackson's chagrin. ;)
I wanted a photo of his strange mood on the way to the airport and I nailed it. He was a silly mess. Something about hiking and then getting a burger put him on cloud 9. Whatever works. Missoula has a tiny airport so we had plenty of time to get to our gate even though we arrived only 55 minutes before our flight. That's my kind of place!
Now we're cruising at 37,000 feet and have a 3 person aisle to share between just the two of us. Cha Ching. I'm loving Delta these days!
Susie got home from Africa today and will be getting MacKenzie from Bob, Judy and Boomer's for us. We can hardly wait to see her tomorrow morning. She sent us this sweet photo of herself this morning saying that she was excited to see us, too. Boomer's family is sure good about sending photos. We appreciate that!! Here's hoping our other flight goes as planned and we get to sleep in our own bed tonight. I think that's the only thing (besides MacK) that we've missed something fierce this trip.

Addendum to our paddleboarding post: Jackson was beside himself that I didn't share this story so I will do so now. After we left the dragon boat races we paddled back to a quieter (or so we thought) cove so that I could try yoga. Now, I keep my lifejacket on the ENTIRE time that I'm on the water because I'm not an awesome swimmer. Jackson believes in himself, imagine that, so he takes his off and attaches it to his board. Well we got in the wake of a powerboat and Jackson went flying off his board. Me? I was fine just riding out the waves. Jackson made such a splash that a ranger on a jet ski came over to make sure he was OK. He was, of course. The ranger thanked him for at lest having a lifejacket available and told him that since he was over 12 he didn't have to wear it by law but maybe should. I was paddling over to debate this over 12 comment when I heard Jackson say something like, "over 12 most days. Maybe not today!" at which the (very handsome!!) ranger laughed. Since he was fine the ranger started on his way but ended up spraying Jackson with his wake. I was cracking up. Jackson yelled and the ranger was laughing at him and went on his way. That guy is my favorite ranger ever. :) There we go, babe, now we'll never forget that story. You're welcome. :)

Casey's...

We got up early today with every intention of going hiking in Glacier National Park. Mother Nature had other ideas as it was POURING down rain. Bummer. We lounged around for a bit, stopped in downtown Bigfork for some coffee/ hot cocoa, and then headed to Whitefish, Montana to see if we could find a place to watch some NFL games. It was there that we stumbled into the best sports bar ever. Ever. EVER. (Sorry, Ale Emporium!)

THREE HUGE SCREENS WITH THREE DIFFERENT GAMES!

You guys, this place was amazing. It is called Casey's Pub & Grill and is right in downtown Whitefish.

Jackson drinking a $2 beer. One of many...

We were amazed at the multiple levels of this place. It is a new building meant to model the one that stood before it which had been the oldest building in Whitefish. It has the kitchen in the basement, the restaurant on the ground floor, the sports bar/ dance area on the second level, another lounge on the 3rd level with catwalks overlooking the second level and a rooftop bar. It was done with all of the best finishes and was just amazing. The weather was crappy but we snuck onto the rooftop to check out the views.

Just sitting in a bar ON A COUCH

They had COUCHES with comfortable throw pillows in the second floor sports bar area. The guy behind Jackson in the #37 jersey was the general manager and a heck of a nice guy. He was a Raiders fan and we enjoyed taunting him during the Colts game.

I had a few wardrobe changes throughout the day to coincide with the games... :)

We loved the chips and salsa and the sandwich we had here and were sad to leave, but the weather appeared to be breaking and we wanted to get in a hike at Glacier National Park.

The entrance to Glacier

I know. Montana is amazing.

Some lingering clouds got stuck in the mountains

I kept waiting to see a bear...I didn't. :(

Sad story: the weather didn't break. It started raining again as soon as we got to the park's entrance. 

"Yay! We made it!"

"I HATE THE RAIN!!!!"

We were SO bummed! 

We came all the way out here mainly to see Glacier National Park so for it to rain on the day we wanted to spend there was a true bummer. We also wanted to come after Labor Day so that the crowds would be more manageable but everything seems to shut down right after the holiday. That meant the free (with admission) buses that take you up the main Going to the Sun Road were no longer in service. There are private cars that will take you up but they're convertibles and wouldn't be much fun in the pouring rain. Also, we wanted to hike and the private tours don't make stops for that. We've decided that we will have to come back next July when it is definitely "season"  and give ourselves a little more time to spend in the Park. TEAR!

After that letdown we decided to head back to Casey's to watch the Green Bay vs. San Francisco game. The Packers lost, but it was an awesome game. We promised our waitress that we were leaving for real this time and headed home after the game. We thought the weather might break enough for us to get in one more hike around the cabin before heading out tomorrow but that was simply not the case. We are pretty lucky to have only had one really crappy day of weather, but it still is no fun. It did give me plenty of time to catch up on my blogging, though. Hooray! We're going to bed early tonight so that we can get up and at 'em tomorrow morning. We want to make the most of our time left in Montana before we head for him in the afternoon.