For Father's Day we slept in a little later than we typically have been and made our way to the Bear Paw Bakery for some cinnamon sticky buns, white chocolate raspberry scones and apple danish. It was very yummy! Even though it was a bit cold and rainy, we headed off for our surprise activity…a horseback ride through the mountains! Liam, Odin and Kevin mounted their horses, Bugs, Thunder & Jasper and joined their personal guide on a one hour ride to Pyramid Lake. Unfortunately for Ainsley, their minimum age for trail rides is 6, but she was thrilled when she and Whitaker got to do a 20 minute pony ride around the stables and barn areas. Ainsley rode Lucky and Whitaker rode Cash. They had stirrups that actually fit their feet and they both chatted with their guides the whole time.

When the boys got back they said they didn't have too many mountain views with the weather, but they saw scratches on an Aspen tree where a black bear had climbed up so that was very exciting! While the kids played on some of the horse swings at the ranch after their rides Kevin spotted three elk walking across the parking lot into the woods! On the way back to the hotel to change Kevin spotted another black bear just on the outskirts of town so we stopped and watched it for a few minutes.

After making a couple of sandwiches and reloading our snacks it was off to our next hike, The Valley of Five Lakes. As the name suggests it's a hike that takes you to five beautiful lakes. For some reason I thought it was a flatter hike, which compared to what we've been doing it probably was and while there was only a 530 foot elevation gain I think we did it a couple of different times over the course of the three mile hike, so it definitely didn't feel flat! We took the loop counter clockwise and it was a good route to take because the lakes got increasingly beautiful as the hike went on. We took a lot of stops to take pictures and eat snacks so the three miles ended up taking us about three hours and even though the clouds looked super ominous when we started as we hiked the clouds burned off and it ended up sunny and warm and we all shed a couple of layers along the way! After our hike a coyote passed right in front of our car!

We were pleasantly surprised that the power was back on in our hotel, so we changed quick, retuned the flashlights we had borrowed and went to dinner at Montana's BBQ in town. Everyone had a good meal and our waiter fell in love with the kids, especially Whitaker. They got special treatment with drink refills, lots of crayons, and extra desserts! We tried to get the kids to bed early but after calling grandpa, reading Matilda and having everyone in one hotel room, it's 9:30 and three of the four kids are still awake! We have to leave at 8:30 tomorrow morning for our next adventure, so fingers crossed we can get up on time! -Keely