Philipsburg

This is one of our favorite Montana places - Philipsburg is an old mining town that has a wonderful olde-timey downtown. This is near where Steve mined the sapphires for Christina's engagement ring, and on many a trip down here we've dreamed of having children to show around. And now we do!!

So today, with friends Brian and Katie in town, we took a trip down and went to the most exciting spot for kids (big and little) - the candy shop:

And, this trip put to rest any doubts we might have had about the whole "kid in a candy store" metaphor - we have never seen anything quite like actual, uninhibited kids in a candy store! They got their own bags and started loading them up.

Then they found the lollipop tree - whoa!!

Clara had to puzzle through which of the candies from this display she wanted to take home - she has taken to using this pose and gesture quite a lot lately - this girl is a deliberator.

Elena was much more apt to dive in and grab whatever she saw!

The fudge counter up at the front was a big hit - we each picked a type of fudge to sample, and everyone had different taste (Elena picked chocolate marshmallow, Clara picked that green buttermint).

Checking to be sure the yummy candy is still there (hmmm, yes - a few pieces seem to be missing from the bag. Christina wanted the girls to have fun, but didn't want to buy 20 pounds of candy, so she was restocking like mad each time the girls turned their backs.)

They didn't mind a bit - the candy was yummy, and it still seemed like a lot to them!

We went to the gem and mineral shop next. They had fun looking through the drawers, but it got to be a little much to do careful touching (especially hopped up on sugar) so we didn't stay long.

These drawers are great, though - each holds a wealth of treasures, and they are priced per drawer - so you can open one drawer for little ones and tell them they can pick any one thing out of the $1 drawer).

They spied this chess set and immediately exclaimed: "G-Daddy have this!" I think they were indicating he HAS one like this. It's possible they were indicating they wanted to gift it, but sorry, G-Daddy, it wasn't for sale!

We left Brian and Katie to explore, and went outside for another candy break.

Then (because we hadn't had quite enough sweets yet!) we went across the street to the Doe Brothers Soda Shoppe.

Patiently, the girls awaited their strawberry milkshakes:

Clara loved that her shoes matched these stools!

Yum...worth the wait.

But this was half a milkshake each - huge!

So long for now, Philipsburg. You know we'll be back!