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Family vacation to Whitefish, Montana
Mommy’s Weird
By Kyla Cornish
How do I even start telling you about our amazing family vacation to Whitefish, Montana?
I guess I begin by telling you that it was awesome and only took a couple of hours of easy driving to arrive to probably one of the coolest towns in North America.
Did that pique your interest?
Let’s start with our accommodations.
Our home for three nights was the Grouse Mountain Lodge. I truly think that this is they key location if you are staying in Whitefish during the summer months because it is right on a golf course, there are soccer fields and tennis courts, fantastic restaurants, great pool (they are building an outdoor pool next summer) and really great rooms, some with lofts.
We also took advantage of using the shuttle, so that we could have a few drinks our dinner downtown and arrive back at the lodge safely.
The one thing that I absolutely dug about the hotel was their ‘Make a Green Choice’ option. If you made the choice to decline housekeeping services for the day, to help conserve natural resources, Grouse Mountain Lodge would give you a $5 credit to use in Logan’s Bar and Grill. We took advantage of this option and used it for our breakfast.
We arrived on a Thursday Night, which was probably the best night of the month to be in downtown because it was First Thursday Gallery Night Walk. We had the best time just wondering downtown while eating and drinking and chatting with people and listening to live music. And it was all free; all of it. It is totally a kid friendly event, but next time, I would rather be with just my girlfriends.
I mean, I love my kids, but…
Our kids wake up early. You have heard me talk about this before, it is a nightmare. We were pretty happy to find the Kate Patterson play area at Riverside park. We could leisurely drink our Montana Coffee Traders (GO THERE) coffee while watching the kids play.
The one thing that you have to remember about travelling with kids is that everything is pretty much dictated around them and their moods.
After a bit of shopping in Kalispell, 20 km south of Whitefish, I knew that we had to do something that was fun for them. Enter Stumptown Art Studio.
Now trust me on this, if you have kids over the age of four, I would highly suggest that you stop here and get goofy in the ceramics annex.
Bot painted a Narwhal and Whirlwind painted Tinkerbell.
The only catch is that their stunning pieces of art will not be ready for a week. We have friends who can pick it up for us, but if not, they will even ship to you. Super smart.
Again, I would like to experience this without kids next time, so I could make a scrub it.
Since we were being uber tourists and were scoping our next visit in our tent, I wanted to check out Whitefish Lake State Park. It’s a nice, small, quiet campground about five minutes from Whitefish.
We then spent an entire afternoon at City Beach. Now, since returning home and telling people about this beach, no one really knows about it. You have to head towards the ski hill, but take a left as soon as your cross the bridge at the amazing Piggyback BBQ.
It is a great beach. There is a grassy area, a very popular boat launch, change rooms, kayak and paddleboard rentals and a funky food shack. The one iffy thing is parking.
When you see an open space, take it, I mean it, yell at your husband and pull into that spot. Stat.
The weather was ridiculously hot. We really needed to cool our jets, plus the kids had an afternoon nap, so we needed to let out some energy so we hit up Pin and Cue and went 10 pin bowling. Which is so weird.
I asked one question and the guy working said, “Let me guess, you are Canadian.” We like our five pin, eh!
During this vacation, I made a promise to the kids that we could have ice cream every single darn day. Honestly, we got so busy that they totally forgot.
But, we did go to Sweet Peaks, twice.
Get the salted caramel. Trust me. If you are looking for Sweet Peaks, it is just off of main street. And if you still can’t find it, ask someone. Everyone is so nice and Mayberry like.
We ate at lots of great places, but I cannot suggest Loula’s enough. Their pies are world famous, and Bot is still talking about his pancake, which was as big as his head. Please do not go to Whitefish without having breakfast at Loula’s, you would be making a mistake if you did not do this.
So this is what we did on our vacation. There is so much more I want to do, that we will be back. It was super hot when we were there so we didn’t get the biking in that we wanted to do.
Also, we had planned to go to Glacier Park and the Going-to-the-Sun-Road, but we were having such a great time together that it was put on hold. The other place we missed was Ciao Mambo Italian Restaurant. Next time!
If you are looking to holiday in Whitefish, Montana with your family, they have built a really cool itinerary of ideas for you.
Our family did receive some perks in exchange for sharing our holiday on my social channels and on the blog. Thanks so much to Explore Whitefish and Grouse Mountain Lodge for hosting us.
– Kyla Cornish is a “retired” radio Dj adjusting to being a Momma of two children. Main problems? Lack of sex, sleep sanity and an addiction to saucy chicken wings. Kyla has been published in a series of funny blogger ebooks, ‘Life Well Blogged.’ She has also been recognized as one of the Top 25 Funny Moms in Canada and US by Circle of Moms. Then she was kicked out of that contest for cheating. Kyla appeared on the Los Angeles-based television show FabLife on November 2. She also won a baking competition when she was 11 at a 4-H Rally. Find Kyla here: http://www.mommysweird.com and follow on twitter @mommyisweird
