Billings Trip

Blog Post Disclaimer:

As a whole on this vacation, I was absolutely horrible at remembering to take pictures of our time with people. Our entire trip was very relaxed, as we spent the majority of our time just sitting around chatting with people that we love and miss. So, most of the time, I was simply soaking up this together-time and not even thinking about taking out my camera. Quite a few of the photos on this blog post are ones that I borrowed from friends, and for certain events (especially at the start of our trip), I missed the photo-ops altogether! I'll try to fill in the gaps with my journaling (mostly so I can remember all the things that we did!), so I apologize if this blog post gets a bit wordy. :)

Our family was SO excited to travel to Billings at the beginning of August for our first visit back since our move 15 months ago. Most especially, we were eager to catch up with old friends and to see what Jaden and Cody remembered about their birthplace. At the start of our visit, we stayed with our good friends, the Carstens family. They were such wonderful hosts and provided a relaxing, comfortable environment for us. Jaden and Cody LOVED the ice cream bars and fudgesicles we were offered after dinner each night. Eating outdoors in the cool (non-humid!) Montana evenings was another great highlight for all of us!

Jaden, Cody, Janese

Our hosts, (who I didn't get pictures of, unfortunately) Brent, Vicki, and Janese spent a significant amount of time just playing with Jaden and Cody. The boys warmed up to their family right away! On our first evening, Brent sat in a lawn chair outside and sporadically sprayed water from the hose at our boys and his grandsons who were visiting. Another day, Janese stood in the same position on the driveway for at least 20 minutes and let the boys lay tiny rocks in a "trap" around her feet. Vicki brought out fireman toys for Jaden and Cody that they immediately tried out.

Cody and Jaden got so into their fireman duty of putting out fires, that Vicki drew a pretend fire for us to place around their home and yard for the boys to find and "put out." What a great idea!

On each evening of our stay, Brent and Vicki's other daughter Jenna (another good friend of ours) came over with her husband and three boys, Kody, Ryder, and Jace. Little Jace had been born after we left Billings, so we loved meeting this adorable little guy and seeing him walk like crazy already at 9 months! It was so fun for us to see Cody and Jaden rough-housing with the older two, Kody and Ryder. When we lived in Billings, these four boys weren't exactly at the same level of play because of their age difference. But on this visit, they had no problem wrestling and playing together. Kody was especially patient with our boys' roughness!  

The Four Buddies: Ryder, Jaden, Cody, Kody

On Saturday morning, the second day of our visit, I met my good friend Becky at a quaint new coffee house downtown. In the meantime, Jason took Jaden and Cody to a nearby park. This park was one that we had frequently visited during our time in Billings, but the play equipment had been recently renovated. The boys were just at the right age for it!

Notice their long-sleeved shirts in most of these pics? I had thrown them in as an afterthought on the night before we left and am so glad that I did! I had forgotten how chilly the MT mornings and evenings are, even in August. Jaden and Cody wore these shirts daily!! The cool weather didn't impact their playtime one bit.

After their time at the park and my visit with Becky, we had lunch at the home of Wayne and Connie Klundt. Connie is the church secretary at Trinity, so she and her husband became dear friends of ours. Connie has such a sweet demeanor, so seeing "Miss Connie" was always such a highlight for Jaden and Cody when we lived in Billings. This lunch visit was no exception. In addition to a delicious, kid-friendly lunch meal, Connie had a special activity planned for our boys. (Of course, I have no pics to commemorate her fun idea!) Connie hid brown paper lunch bags all over her yard and home that were labeled with Jaden and Cody's names. When the boys found their bags, they eagerly opened them to find one matchbox car in each bag. Doesn't this sound like a grandma who knows exactly what little boys like? Cody and Jaden contently played with these Matchbox cars the whole rest of our trip and proudly told everyone the cars were gifts from "Miss Connie." So fun!

Saturday afternoon, we attended a wedding ceremony for our friends Allie and Matt. Allie had been in youth group with Jason for 4 years and in my women's Bible study for several years too, so we were happy we could be there to help celebrate Allie's big day. At the wedding we saw our dear friend Jenn and her sweet little baby girl, Aliya.

Matt and Allie had a beautiful ceremony and were just bursting with joy the entire time. So cute!

We only got to enjoy a short bit of the reception that evening, unfortunately. Somehow, Cody got an upset stomach and got sick all over one of the reception tables. Poor kiddo! Not knowing what he had, we of course left right away. So... we got in on some social time before the wedding party arrived but missed nearly all of the reception festivities, like the first dance pictured below. We heard the reception was great fun, though!

Instead of dancing the night away, we spent the evening relaxing on the Carstens' couch watching the Olympics. Not too bad of a trade-off, I guess. Thankfully, Cody's sickness was very short-lived. He didn't get sick again and was even asking to run around and play once we got home. We tried to make him rest as much as possible that evening and even kept him home from church the next day, just in case. 

We were a little bummed that we had to miss out on seeing various families at church, but of course Cody's needs came first. Jason and I ended up taking turns attending separate services on Sunday morning, so we each got to see some families, at least. Our day on Sunday was very low-key. We had originally planned on going to a water park, but it was too cold (believe it or not!). We certainly didn't mind the extra down-time to make sure that Cody was healthy. Thankfully, he had a sickness-free day and seemed back to normal. Jaden, too, remained healthy. We spent the day playing board games and vehicles, building with blocks, putting out imaginary "fires," eating yummy food, watching more Olympics, and just chatting with our friends. Good times.

On Monday morning, we met our dear friend, Ms. Doris at Target since she wanted to buy a special gift for Jaden and Cody. Ms. Doris was amazingly generous and allowed the boys to each pick out their own Lego set. Cody and Jaden could not be more excited about their van/camper set and ambulance plane. While the boys started assembling their new vehicles, Doris, Jason, and I had some time to visit at her apartment.

Cody was so proud to show Ms. Doris his completed van.

We love this sweet lady and have so many good memories of time spent with her while we lived in Billings.

Ms. Doris also treated our family to a lunch out. We bought take-out meals at Wendy's and had a picnic at a nearby park (again, Amy forgot to take pictures...). We didn't stay too long to play because the park seemed to be overrun with yellow jackets that afternoon! We loved our extra time with Ms. Doris, though. We certainly miss her!

Shortly after lunch, we met the Carstens clan at the waterpark. This day was MUCH warmer and better suited for water play. This waterpark, the Oasis, is special to our family because its opening day was the actual day of Jaden and Cody's birth back in 2012. They share a birthday with a waterpark! The waterpark is not as ideal for young toddlers, so we only went to this park once while we lived in town. Jaden and Cody were at the perfect age to enjoy it this year!

In addition to this tunnel slide, the boys also loved trying out the wave pool and riding the lazy river on inner tubes. Thanks, Carstens family, for treating us to this exciting outing!

That evening, we moved our suitcases from the Carstens' home to the Boll family home for the second half of our stay. After a yummy dinner with the Bolls, we ate dessert at a BBQ for Trinity's youth board. Since we had missed seeing many of these youth board people at church on Sunday, the BBQ gave us a great opportunity to visit with them. We ended our night back at the Bolls, competing in a very close game of men vs. women game of Joker. The girls barely eked out a win! :)

On Tuesday morning, we visited Trinity church so we could spend more time visiting with the staff there. Connie had more hidden bagfuls of cars for Jaden and Cody at church. The boys were thrilled! 

We loved seeing Trinity's new large parking lot and updated furniture in the youth center, too. That afternoon, we spent time relaxing with the Bolls... trying out a new board game, Minions Life, and playing lawn darts outside. Need I mention again how gorgeous it was outdoors?? Jaden and Cody spent more time running around the yard than they actually did playing lawn darts, but I got a few pics of them trying it out.

Eventually, the kids ended their game and started trampoline jumping instead. We loved seeing these four boys interact together too. They all loved their playtime and seemed to get along so well.

Jaden, Micah, Cody, Noah

While the boys were safely jumping on the trampoline, we adults tried our hand at jarts, another version of lawn darts that isn't ideal for young kiddos. The boys all played well enough that we could fit in a couple full games.

That night, we had guy/girl events. First, the girls met at the youth center for book club. I so loved being a part of this gathering again. I miss these ladies dearly! We did talk about our Agatha Christie book briefly but spent quite a bit of time just in girl-chat too. :)

Jenna, Stephanie, Andrea, Becky, Cindy, Jenn & Aliya, Janese
Ruth, Samie, Amy, Lynette

Later in the evening, the guys met together for some poker. I'm sure the guys loved their guy-chat time as well. :) Wednesday was already our last full day in town. The time flew by quickly! We started out the morning by visiting Trinity School. Since we left, the school had completed some remarkable expansion projects-- adding on a preschool building, a library, a media center, a choir room, and an extra classroom. The new addition was absolutely beautiful!

Then, we met up with our goddaughter Ella and her mom Laura at Billings' new indoor trampoline park, Get Air. The park requires specific socks for indoor playtime, so we borrowed extras from Laura!

All three kiddos loved their hour of playtime here. The foam pit was probably their favorite, although Jaden and Cody had a bit of a learning curve trying to figure out how to maneuver their bodies out of the foam blocks!

This place was amazing and had all kinds of jumping opportunities.

Jaden was very proud of himself for learning to walk across this balance beam independently!

We then ate a picnic lunch with Ella and Laura at at nearby park and ended our time with them by visiting Ella's dad at work. Back at the Bolls' home, Micah showed us how he's become quite the reader-- even tackling difficult Star Wars vocabulary.

The boys, of course, enjoyed more playtime together. Noah proudly showed us his new, shorter cast that he had received that morning.

Our time in Billings had a perfect closure-- a large BBQ hosted by the Bolls with many dear friends. What a great evening it was to have one more casual chance to visit with people. And need I mention again, the weather was just lovely! :)

Jonathan packed his grill as full as possible with hot dogs and BBQ chicken. The meat was delicious!!

The Bolls have a perfect large yard for hosting. All the adults could spread around and visit...

while the kiddos kept busy running around the large yard, jumping on the trampoline, and playing on the playset.

Kenzie, Grace, Conner, Micah, Landon, Abbie, Amy, Jaden, Cody, Noah

It was remarkable for us to see how little Jaden and Cody remembered about growing up in Billings. They claimed that they didn't remember any of these little friends pictured above but of course warmed up to everyone quickly. We even drove through our old neighborhood one afternoon, and the boys had no clue which house had been ours. Nothing looked familiar to them! The only thing that brought back any spark of recognition was when we visited church the first time for the wedding, Cody's eyes opened wide and he said, "This is where we had the Easter egg hunt!" That memory surprised me because they had only participated in the egg hunt twice in their lives. I guess the egg hunt made a significant impact on little Cody! 

Because of the boys' limited memory of their hometown, we loved being able to share many stories and memories with Jaden and Cody throughout our trip. It was such a joy and an uplifting time to be around all these friends again. We treasure so many memories from our time living in Billings, and we still miss our friends greatly!