Would you like some chocolates?

OK, now imagine a sweet and adorable 4-year-old named Jackson (pictured with his new stuffed animal big horn sheep that he named Eric John Poff; aka Eric Curt Poff; aka Fancy Curt Poff) asking you, "Would you like some chocolates?" in a British accent. It was so cute and hilarious.

Curt and I got into Kalispell late Saturday night (Aug. 4). We got to Lake McDonald Lodge about midnight.
About 8 a.m. Sunday we were woken up and told we had slept long enough. Ugh!
Anyway, we met the whole family for breakfast.
Then we all packed up and headed to Many Glacier Hotel. On the way we made a few stops. We had lunch and took a nice hike at Logan Pass. We saw big horn sheep, mountain goats (mamas and babies), marmots and some other animals.
We got to Many Glacier Hotel on Sunday afternoon. There was a great lounge area with an amazing view. From those seats (with our drinks) we got to see some grizzlies on several occasions.

On Monday Susan took Madison to the doctor. She had an ear infection. The rest of us went on a hike around Swiftcurrent Lake. As we started our hike there was a sign reminding us that we were in grizzly country. We had a bear bell--aka bear dinner bell. Apparently if you are noisy you likely won't encounter a bear. We never saw any on our hike--thank gawd! The hike was nice and the view was amazing. We pretty much walked in a circle around the lake back to our lodge.
Monday evening we celebrated the birthdays: Curt's mom, Marilyn, turned 60 this year and Grandma Phyllis turned 80. We even had shirts to wear. So we had a nice dinner in the dining room and then cake for dessert.
Afterward we had a bellman take the family pic. In the area we took the pic they had tables set up with puzzles. Jackson, 4, loves puzzles. So we worked on one for a bit. Jackson put together some tough pieces. So I taught him, "Go Jackson. It's your birthday." He modified it to "It's my birthday. Not really. Party anyway."
The kids and I watched a movie before bed.

Tuesday morning we all had breakfast. Then most of the gang (minus Jackson, Grandma P and me) went on a horseback ride. Grandma P and I weren't interested and Jackson was too young. He seemed excited to have special time with me. So it worked out--I was worried he would feel left out. Jackson and I worked on the puzzle some more. Then back to mine and Curt's room to watch a movie and have "one piece of chocolate." At some point we decided to get ice cream at Heidi's. We invited Grandma P along. We all had some yummy ice cream. We finished watching the movie. Then everyone came back from the horse ride.
Most of us went to Heidi's to have lunch. Good ol' hot dog, cheetos and Huckleberry cream soda. (While at Many Glacier I had all of the huckleberry signature drinks: soda, martini, daquiri and margarita.)
After that I hung out with the kids while grandpa took a nap and grandma got cleaned up. Eventually I went down to the lounge area and met Curt for a drink. He had spotted a mama grizzly and her cub. We ended up seeing 4-5 grizzlies on the mountain. It was really cool. (And I was more than happy to be inside and view them from far away.)
Tuesday night we headed to an Italian restaurant. We had a yummy dinner. Back to the lodge. We all got in our jammies and Curt and I watched Peter Pan with Jackson and Madison. (Thank goodness we brought laptops to watch movies since we had no TVs.)

Wednesday we all headed out. We had our last breakfast together. Then the Philly Poffs and Curt's parents and Grandma all headed out. The Philly Poffs were driving back to Kalispell to catch a flight later that day. Ed, Marilyn and Grandma Phyllis were driving to Spokane to fly out the next day.
Curt and I got our stuff together, made a last visit to the gift shop and headed north.

We arrived in Waterton about 12:30 or so. Check-in at the Prince of Wales wasn't until 3 p.m. So we found a bar to have lunch in: Fiery Lounge. We tried a really good beer called Traditional Ale. I had an Alberta Beef burger. Good stuff! Curt had fish and chips. Afterward we walked around the town and then headed to our hotel to check in.

Thursday morning we headed to the marina for a 10 a.m. boat tour. We really enjoyed the tour. Our tour guide, Keith, taught us lots of stuff. He told us how to tell the difference between a grizzly and black bear. (Color is not always a factor.) He told us that there are 4 glaciers left in Waterton and 26 in Glacier. In 25 years they will be gone. (And what are you going to do about Global Warming Mr. President? Oh, that's right. Leave it for the next president to fix.) Anyway, the ride was really nice and beautiful. We stopped at Goat Haunt--which was on the U.S. side. (And in the photos I refer to this place as Ghost Hunt--oops! Oh, Goat Haunt population 10.) We didn't have a lot of time to walk around. Curt and I asked a guy to take our pic. He refused!!! He wanted to get back on the boat. What a weirdo! It wasn't like it was going to take 10 minutes. That is the first time anyone has ever refused to take a pic for me. Anyway, the ride back was a little windy--but still wonderful. The sun was shining. It was a beautiful day.
After the tour we walked around Waterton. Then we hit Zum's for a fried chicken lunch. Man, it was so good! Our server warned us that it would take 20 minutes because it was fresh chicken. She told us it was worth the wait and man, it was! After lunch we headed back to the hotel. I napped. After that we got cleaned up and headed to high tea in our hotel. The tea was yummy and the finger foods were really good. Later that evening we had drinks in the lounge and some appetizers for dinner (since we had eaten so much during the day).

Friday morning we got our stuff together. Took some last few pics. Then back into town for breakfast at New Frank's Restaurant. The food was pretty good and cheap.
After breakfast we headed south to Kalispell. We had a little bit of a wait at the border crossing. Santana questioned us. He asked us if we were traveling with more than $10,000. We both laughed. He asked us a few other things--nothing as amusing though.
We stopped for a hike at St. Mary's Falls. It was an easy little hike and gorgeous at the end. Then we kept on trucking and were in Kalispell by 2 or 3 p.m. We checked into our lovely Days Inn hotel with wireless Internet, TV and cell phone service!!!
We had a light dinner that night at a brewpub. I had cajun steak fingers and their homebrewed root beer. Both were delish.
Saturday we packed up and did a little shopping and then headed to Whitefish. We walked around and looked at some shops. It was Huckleberry Days there--so there was a little festival going on.
I found some p.j. bottoms with bears and moose. The moose ones weren't quite what I had seen. But they will do. I couldn't decide on which ones so I bought the moose ones and the bear ones. After that we headed to the airport. Had lunch. Went through security. No line. We got to our gate and saw there was a lounge in there. Sweet! Well, their definition of lounge is much different than mine and Curt's. So we just listened to our iPods and I knitted.

We got home about 11:30ish. Today we lounged and did laundry. And tomorrow it is back to work.
I may be editing this if I realized I forgot to write about something. This was a lot of stuff to remember.
Oh, I can't forget links to pics.
Mine on Shutterfly.
Curt's on Flickr, which are pretty much the same as mine.
And Ed's on Flickr. They all flew into Spokane to visit friends and then drove from there to Glacier.