Birthday Trip

 Well, I know it's late, but I wanted to write about this anyway. I'd planned to have a special birthday trip between me and my sis. I wanted to go to Phillipsburg, MT where the Sweet Palace is, and they make the very best buttercreams and truffles. I love it when I am able to go there, which is why I will not let my sis lose ties with Montana. This time, when she was going, I wanted to go too. I got 2 full boxes of truffles, caramels and buttercreams. I got all my favorite flavors. But before we visited there, we stayed in Livingston for a couple days, me and my sis, Mya and the kittens. While staying in Livingston, we drove up to Bozeman, where my sis has a friend named Arlena. A nice person. Also a chatterbox! LOL! I liked her though. It seems the whole town of Bozeman knows who Arlena is! Everywhere we went people greeted her like she was an old friend.

Arlena is having the same problem my sis had that forced her to move here. The manager of the apartment building her client (who is also my sister's client) is not letting Arlena stay there. The client has an extra room, and the owners said it was OK for Arlena to stay there as a live-in caregiver. But once Arlena was moved in, the acting manager said she has to get out. But Arlena gave her what for. The problem is the same woman who is now telling Arlena to get out, did exactly the same thing to my sis. She was living in Missoula at the time, and her client wanted her to come back. So, my sis called the apartment complex where this client lives, and said she'll need to stay with the client until she can get a place of her own there in Bozeman. The owners said it's OK for her to stay there. So my sis moves out of her apartment in Missoula and moves to Bozeman into the extra bedroom of this client. Then about a month later, my sis is informed by her client that she has to move out. The acting manager said she cannot stay there unless she is related. Which I think is beyond DUMB!!! Thank GOD I was here so my sis could move in.

Anyway, now that same acting manager is doing the same to Arlena. So, I came up with a solution that will make everybody (except me) happy. I figured we could all just move in as roommates to our own apartment and split the rent 3 ways. So we went to Bozeman to look into some apartments they may have there. We found some we liked, and are going to go for them. But we are also hoping to have something done about that manager. I told my sis she should sue that manager too. Because she made my sis miss out on a good apartment because of her stupidity.

While in Livingston, my sis wanted to take me to a little roadside burger joint called Mark's In and Out Burgers. No connection to the national chain from California. But when we got there, it was Tuesday, and they are closed on Monday and Tuesday. But the guy was so nice, he made milkshakes for me and my sis in any flavor we wanted. I had an orange, while my sis had huckleberry. He didn't even charge us for them! He was a sweet guy! They were awesome shakes too! Really creamy! The ice cream he uses in his shakes is locally sourced there in Livingston. And it makes Tillamook ice cream taste like Breyer's! It is so creamy! I don't remember the name of the company who makes the ice cream, but my sis says she has seen their ice cream on store shelves before, and it is indeed very good. And it's also very expensive. Much more so than Tillamook ice cream.

Anyway, after we were done in Livingston, that was when we went to Phillipsburg. Then after Phillipsburg, we went to St. Regis, where we thought we were going to get a huckleberry soda. But unfortunately, the owners of that shop in St. Regis took out the soda machine that had the huckleberry. Bummer-crap!!! I wanted to take home some huckleberry soda in my 64-ounce jug! St. Regis was the last place in Montana you could actually get a huckleberry fountain soda. I guess when we move, if we want a huckleberry soda, we'll have to go all the way to Missoula! Anyway, after St. Regis, we headed on to Spokane. We stayed there for the night. Just one night. Then the next day, we headed into the valley to pick up some cookies.

There is a place there called Desserts By Sara, where they make awesome sugar cookies. My sis ordered 2 dozen with lemurs, spring birds, a birthday theme and INXS. As usual, they are so good! On the way home, we stopped by the travel center in Troutdale, OR and I got a Sprite soda with blue raspberry flavoring. It wasn't huckleberry, but it's a flavor I never tried before. So I got some. Then we came home.

When I got home, I was thinking I was going to lose some of my birds, but thank GOD I didn't lose a single one. It actually wasn't until later that evening when I found one of my finches had died. I didn't know what happened! They were all fine when I came home. Something just happened to that one. So now, I need another diamond firetail. A female!