For 48 Hours, Missoula Was A Little More Fabulous

Hey y'all - 

A few weeks before Christmas, my great friend (and former bridesmaid) Brian and his boyfriend Tyler came to visit us from Los Angeles. 

Now, I love Missoula. Adore it. If I wanted to call up a friend to go hiking or fishing or protesting genetically-modified crops, I'd have no trouble finding a good candidate here. But since I left LA, it's been hard to find someone who just wants to drink a few strong cocktails and go to TJ Maxx to try on shoes while bitching about that girl we hate on that show we can't stop watching.  So when I picked Brian and Tyler up on their first morning here for breakfast and asked what they felt like doing, when they shrugged and said, 'Why don't we go to the mall?" I was beside myself with excitement. 

We packed a tremendous amount of activity into those 48 hours. We shopped ourselves silly - and I mean silly - because, for example,  Tyler just HAD to have this squirrel puppet at the toy store that he named "Frecklepuss." Frecklepuss was kind of a menace.

We picked you guys up from school, and then we all went to the carousel so Tyler could ride it with you. He spent most of the ride concentrating on not throwing up. Because I am not Tyler, I thought this was hilarious.

They came over to our house to hang out, and Laney was overjoyed to have a willing participant to play the role of her prince. Her usual method of prince casting is to tell Hagen, "You're my prince now!" which always makes him yell, "NO, YAY-NEE!" and hide in the other room.

Princess Laney and Prince Tyler had to plot to get their magic sword back from the dreaded sleeping Pirate Brian.

The grown-ups all went out for dessert and had fun taking pictures in some fake moustaches that Tyler had also picked out at the toy store.

Did you remember to tie that girl to the train tracks?

The next day, the adults went skiing.

It was great fun, because after our first run, Tyler admitted that he hadn't so much been in a competitive high school ski club so much as a social club of people who enjoyed drinking hot chocolate at the bottom of what happened to be a ski hill. 

That night, to celebrate our ski day, the guys invited Laney and me out for a fancy schmancy dinner. Being told that she could wear whatever she wanted for her big night out, Laney chose an Easter dress, a tiara, striped tights and glass slippers (a.k.a.clear jelly shoes).*

Brian and Tyler figured that Laney would want to do everything the grown-ups did, so we arrived at our table to find they'd ordered her a wine glass of huckleberry juice. 

They also let her order a 9-pound wedge of chocolate cake, so safe to say she's permanently in love:

In fact, the next morning, she wanted to "make a movie to tell them bye"

Thanks for the visit, Brian and Tyler! Come back soon!

Love,

Mom

* Your dad and I went back to eat at this same restaurant a week later, and we mentioned how much our four year-old had enjoyed it the week before, because she got to have her own wine glass. Our waitress squealed: "I remember her! In the tiara and slippers! All of us came out of the kitchen to walk by your table and check her out because we thought it was so cute!"