Blogtana: The Montana Blog Edition

My 2010 holiday season consisted of 3 Christmases and a Hanukkah. The month of December kicked off the Chrismukkah season with Hanukkah being Dec. 1-8. During the second week of December, Shaun’s mom, stepdad, and sister were able to visit Chicago for Christmas #1. Sunday Dec. 19^th marked Walker Family Christmas in order to celebrate before Chuck and I went out of town.  I spent actual Christmas in Montana with Shaun’s dad, stepmom, and sister for Xmas #3. This year we were able to spend a full week in Montana which was quite a nice little vacay.

You say you’ve never been to Whitefish, Montana? For shame. I’d like to take some time to fill you in on highlights of the Montana trip; hopefully you will not become overwhelmed with jealousy.  If you happen to jump on a flight to Whitefish before you even finish reading this blog post, I would totally understand.

Like last year, much of our time consisted of playing boardgames, which typically results in me laughing so much my face hurts. We mainly played Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, and Boggle. The version of Trivial Pursuit that resides in the Hildner household happens to be from olden times (the 70’s) so I pretty much don’t know any answers. I mean who doesn’t know that Jimmy Durante ended his radio and television shows with the sign-off of "Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are." The Hildner siblings also remembered that Shaun built a ping pong table in highschool so we unburied it from the garage and had many intense ping pong tournaments. If you've never seen a guy in cowboy boots playing ping pong, you're really missing out. 

I obtained a new nickname. I don’t know exactly how it started  (other than the “Lor” sounds of both names) but Shaun’s family now calls me The Lorax which I think is pretty cute J Although I don’t see a ton of resemblances...

Shaun’s dad started a tradition several years ago of gathering the neighborhood on Christmas Eve to light luminarias around the pond. There are a total of 300 lights and it’s super pretty.


Not easy to see cause I'm a shitty photog, but the bridge is lined with luminarias

After setting out all the lights, we spend most of the time around a bonfire drinking super boozy delicious eggnog. Doesn’t get much better than that!  There’s a chance I actually had enough holiday spirit and eggnog to join in some caroling around the fire …but don’t believe every rumor you hear.

This year Shaun’s parents really wanted us to take a trip up to the North Fork (pretty much to Canada) to see their cabin and all the work they’ve put into it. I was pretty nervous about the trip for 2 reasons:

1.   No indoor bathroom, just an outhouse. We were only spending the afternoon but the drive is about an hour and a half each way so I figured I would have to pee at some point while there.

2.   The car gets parked at a gate off the road and then you have to snowshoe to the cabin. I have never been snowshoeing and when I asked Shaun how far we would have to go he said about 2  miles. That’s really far in the cold and wearing these things:

I like trying new things but in general I’m not very outdoorsy. This says it all:

The afternoon at the cabin ended up being really fun and not scary. Peeing in an outhouse was freezing but not the worst thing ever. As far as snowshoeing, these things were a lot more high-tech than the image that originally popped into my head:


Made of titanium? What?!

Also, Shaun is terrible at estimating distance. We only had to snowshoe about 100 yards, not 2 miles. One of my favorite memories from this trip is playing in the snow with Shaun and Erika and using the roof of the shed as a snow slide.

Several nights, we went out ‘downtown’. Downtown for Whitefish is basically 2 blocks consisting of some shops, restaurants, and bars. It’s so weird to go out and everyone at the bars knows everyone else. It’s basically a high school reunion every night since most people either still live there or were home for the holidays. On the plus side, Shaun’s house is walking distance to the bars and drinks are really cheap compared to going out in Chicago. One night instead of going out we played beer pong on the aforementioned ping pong table with a few friends. I got to experience Kokanee beer which according to Shaun and Erika was a treat at high school parties compared to the standard Keystone.

Let me inform you that Kokanee is disgusting. Fact. One of the reasons it may have been so awful is because we all sucked at beer pong so bad that by the time we drank our cups the beer was warm. But I’m pretty sure Kokanee is still gag-inducing even when cold.

Even though there are a lot of aspects of Montana that are easy to make fun of, Montana is gorgeous and I had so much fun all week. Hopefully a Summer trip will happen so I am able to enjoy Montana without 16 inches snow. Anyone else want to come along?