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After Todd had finished his training in the UH-1N at Fort Rucker, Alabama and Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, he began his first assignment, which just happened to be in Great Falls, Montana! When I was in New Zealand and found out that I would eventually be moving to live in Montana I was so excited. I had seen many movies that had been filmed in Montana and it looked absolutely gorgeous! I felt that leaving NZ was going to be a lot easier knowing that I would be in a place that was so similar in landscape to what I was used to.

WRONG!! Montana does have absolutely beautiful 'bits'. However the 'bit' where we lived, wasn't all that picturesque. It was ... FLAT ... to say the least. I don't think I'd ever seen anything quite that flat in my lifetime so it took a bit of getting used to.

The other thing that I wasn't used to was the wind! Boy that place was windy!! Add to that the cold temperatures during the winter months (and into the warmer months as well) and it was a place that wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be.

I'm not saying I didn't like my time in Great Falls - I really enjoyed it. The people in Great Falls are really lovely, open, friendly people and I that made our time there so great. Malmstrom AFB itself is a VERY friendly base to be assigned to. We lived on base there as we were newly married and were trying our hardest to save up for a few things. This was a new experience and one we probably won't do again for our own personal reasons.

I will be back with photos ... blah, blah, blah! So come on back and check.

Welcome to Glacier National Park in November! Awe inspiring is a way to describe it - cold is another way. Of course we just happened to go up there for our honeymoon in the midst of winter, which makes it just that much MORE cold! But it was truly beautiful. This is just one of the photos of one of the Lakes that we came across.

Thank goodness for self-timers on cameras. There was absolutely nobody around - one of the drawbacks/positives about visiting Glacier during the off-peak season. We stumbled on this place - it was out the back of nowhere on dirt roads - it was gorgeous!

This is one of my favourite photos from Montana. It was about 9am and Todd had to go to work (about half a mile away). The car had been on 'defrost' for about 10 minutes and yet he still had to scrape ice off the windshield. The icicles on the tree say it all really. IT WAS COLD!!! And it was only about 20 below that day, a balmy day compared to some we had there.

This is one of the falls in Great Falls - except it's iced over. This photo doesn't do it justice. If you could see it close up you would be able to make out individual streams of water icing over. It's pretty, but again, it's cold. The thing about Great Falls that astonished me was the bitterly cold wind that would be ever present during the winter months so not only did you have to compete with the cold temperatures, but the wind would make it even more daunting to get up and get to work!

You can just see that Timothy is up to his knees in snow ... at one stage it was up to his waist - I'm sure if he'd been heavier he would have sunken deeper into it. It was a nice trip up to Showlo for the day. Kasia and I chose to stay in the car, on the heated seats for most of the day while the men played on their snowmobiles!

And then there's the Montana that's beautiful without snow in sight. We went camping one weekend with friends and ended up in the "Bob Hope Wilderness" - I can't recall the correct name for it, but that's what I called it and ever since giving it that title I can't remember the correct title. I will look it up one of these days and put the right name on this photo. We had only had Kiwi for a few months when this photo was taken - he was still a puppy and was all too eager to jump into the water to fetch every thing Todd would throw his way.