photography – Messina Musings

With Tim’s basketball season over, he was free to come and spend a week with us in Montana. Our week together consisted of 5 games of Settlers of Catan, a pretty difficult 1000-piece puzzle, a day of skiing in Whitefish, a trip to hike on the east side of Glacier National Park, homemade meals every day, and LOTS of NCAA basketball! It is so much fun to watch NCAA basketball with Tim because he is in the business….he knows some of the coaches and some of the players. If he doesn’t know them personally, he knows about them and can impart tidbits of information that I wouldn’t have known. It makes watching the men’s and women’s tournament so much more fun than watching on my own. Tim gave me his Big West Championship shirt, which I will treasure. He assured me he got other swag and will get a ring, so he could let me have his shirt I saw him wear on TV when they won. We also used his young, strong body to help spread 13,000 lbs of river rock in the flower beds around our house. We got about 3/4 of it done with those 13,000 lbs. We did this once before in our house in Bellevue, Nebraska and it costs hundreds of dollars for less rock than we already used here. In Montana, home of the river rock, it cost $87! Can you believe that? Crazy, right? Rich and I will finish out the last couple of areas on our own when the weather warms up again. The weather was great while Tim was visiting. The day they went skiing, it hit nearly 70 in the valley. However, winter is going to return this week for a bit. Our snow is gone but the ground is pretty soft and wet still. Anyhow, as Tim wings his way back to San Diego, I wanted to share some photos of while he was here. It is always so awesome to have your adult kids visit, and so sad to see them leave again.

This had to be one of my favorite spots we went in San Diego. San Diego has a lot to offer visitors. In Omaha, the Zoo Safari is something you drive through. It is not close to the zoo and you drive through several acres of land where buffalo and deer and elk roam free. It is quite a nice experience. The Zoo Safari in San Diego is quite different. It is also not located near the zoo…but about an hour north. It, too, is a sprawling area where animals have large places to roam. However, you walk through a majority of it. I got a LOT of steps in that day, but I loved every moment of it! They house their big cats there and they had twin 4 month old tiger cubs out for awhile to romp and play. They were little pistols! They practiced their pouncing and attacked each other and their mom. Their dad was in a jungle enclosure across the path and he was anxiously waiting for his kiddos to come out for their morning exercise with their mom. There were three lioness sisters. Their personalities were hysterical. You will be able to see quite clearly who the more difficult sister with a ‘trying’ personality was. We were able to see lots of rhinoceros and elephants and giraffes. It was a wonderful day and I hope to go back again sometime!