Yellowstone Trip - Day 6

On Day 6 we visited Grand Teton National Park.  It was stunning.  Much less crowded than Yellowstone.  Yellowstone was more drive around and see the sites, stop at a crowded parking lot and follow the crowd around the pathway to the geyser/waterfall/hot pool/mud pot.  Grand Teton was the total opposite.  You could drive around Grand Teton, but to see anything beside the Grand Tetons, you had to get out of your car and hike a bit.  We did a 2.5 mile hike around Jenny Lake to the Hidden Falls.  It was perfect.  The weather was cloudy and cool and the scenery, breathtaking.

The famous Grand Tetons.

The path for our hike.  Some of the hike was in dense forest like this, some was near the lake shore.

My angel mother and the child who could not walk and begged to be carried the whole way.

Hidden falls and the family.  Maya cannot smile for a family picture.

My angel father holding a cold Maya.

Let me speak a moment about my parents and how amazing they were the whole trip.  They were with us 24/7 and never tired of our children and their craziness.  It was great to have help with the kids and have their fun company.  Thanks Mom and Dad!

So, after the hike, we road a boat back across Jenny Lake, so we only had to hike 1 way.  We drove around the park some more, saw Jackson Lake, and ate lunch at Jackson Lake Lodge, which was probably too fancy for our kids, but they were good!

We went back to the condo, rested and then went back to downtown Jackson to see the shoot out (total disappointment), shop, and eat dinner.

The next morning (Saturday, July 4th), we left to drive back home.  Caleb had had enough car time and when he wasn't sleeping (45 minutes) or watching Elmo (45 minutes) he was crying.  It made for a very long drive home, which was made even longer with major traffic once we were 60 miles or so from Denver.  But we made it home and count this as one of the best family vacations yet!

Yellowstone Trip - Day 5

On Day 5, we left Yellowstone and the beautiful house in Ashton, ID and drove to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  We stayed in a beautiful condo in Teton Village, right up at the ski resort.  We ate lunch in downtown Jackson and shopped around a bit.  Then we took a tram ride up the mountain at the ski resort.  It was a beautiful ride up, but cold and windy on top.

Hey look, a cute picture of the whole family!

On our way to Jackson, we stopped in a little town of only 200, called Wilson, Wyoming.  My great-great-great-great grandpa, Elijah Wilson had a son, Elijah Nicholas Wilson, who was a pioneer that settled Wilson.  He was also the white indian boy (he lived with the Shoshone Indians - a book and movie were made about it).  

It was neat to see a little bit of family history.

Yellowstone Trip - Day 3 and 4

On the 3rd day, we actually ventured out to Yellowstone!  We spent 2 days there and saw lots of awesome things.  They were 2 long days in the car, but we probably saw about 2/3 of Yellowstone.  Lots of hot pools, bubbling mud pots, geysers, waterfalls, and Yellowstone Lake.  We didn't see any bears, but lots of elk and bison and 1 bald eagle.  We did get to see a group of bison run down a hill, cross a river and then cross the street.  They were booking it.  Which was strange, because they usually are just slowly grazing.

Here are our cute girls at a waterfall (which one?  I don't know, we saw quite a few on our trip).  Maya is still looking great!

Haley at a geyser.  We did see Old Faithful as well, but only took video of it.

Bubbling mud pots.

Blue, endlessly deep and stinky hot pools.

Cool yellow/orange run off from hot pools.

Yellowstone Trip - Day 2

The second day of our trip, we drove west, farther into Idaho.  We stopped in Rexburg and drove around the BYU - Idaho campus.  We also stopped by the temple and took another family picture.  Maya is not looking much happier.  However, the temple was gorgeous.  

We spent most of the day in Bear World.  This is a little amusement park place near Rexburg.  You can drive around and look at all the animals they have, safari style.  We saw elk, goats, bison, deer, and lots of bears.  And a few little baby bears like this guy.

After our safari, the park had several kiddy rides the children enjoyed.  Haley and Maya had fun playing with the other kids.  The other kids were my cousins and my cousins' kids.  I have no idea what that means they are to my kids.  Second cousins?  1st cousins once removed?  I haven't a clue.

Haley with Lizzy and Kiana.  They were buddies the whole trip.

Caleb on the train ride, his favorite.

Maya and me, loving the train.

We also had a lovely picnic lunch and fed ducks.  Then we visited the petting zoo inside Bear World.  Caleb thought it was the best thing yet and wanted to attack each animal.  He smacked a huge sleeping pig and we all thought we were goners.  However the pig only stirred and continued to sleep.  The animals must be used to lots of abuse from over eager toddlers.

Yellowstone Trip - Day 1

We took a trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks last week.  It was sort of a reunion with my mom's side of the family, and we had a great time.  We left at 5:30 AM Saturday, June 28th and drove northwest to Ashton, Idaho.  This is where the house was that we stayed in.  It was a beautiful house that slept all 26 of us very well.  It was right on the Henry's Fork of the Snake River and had a huge hot tub, pool table, ping pong table, air hockey table, and outdoor games too.  We arrived at about 4:30 PM on Saturday, making awesome time.  We drove through some beautiful country and the kids were actually in good spirits the whole drive.  On Sunday we stayed around the house, playing inside and outside.  In the late afternoon, we ventured out to Mesa Falls, which is near Ashton.

These are the lower falls.  Quite spectacular.

Here is the whole family at the upper falls.  We got 2 pictures, one where Caleb is completely turned around, and this one where Maya looks less than happy.

A Saturday in the kitchen

This was my first project in the kitchen on Saturday.  A loaf of chocolate chip banana nut bread.  We had it for breakfast today and it was great.  Mike said it was too much chocolate for breakfast.  I said there is no such thing.

I also made strawberry freezer jam.  I am very excited for it because the stuff from the store is truly nasty.  This was the longest project and I made about twice what I thought I would.  Need to get another freezer!

I also made 48 cupcakes for a birthday celebration in young womens on Sunday.  

In non-kitchen news, they are estimating it will cost about $2000 to fix the van.  Thank goodness I only have to pay the $500 deductible.  

Also, on Saturday we took the kids to the park and Haley started learning to ride a bike without training wheels.  She did a pretty good job, but spent most of the afternoon crying and claiming she couldn't do it and yelling at her bike.  She is pretty old to be starting to ride a bike without training wheels, but better late than never.  I think I must have been older when I learned to ride without training wheels too, because I have strong memories of it.  For my parents sake, I hope I spent less time crying and carrying on.  

It was pretty windy, so we also flew a kite.  It was a great day.

Tornado!

Mike took this picture from our back patio yesterday.  The girls and I were still at church.  Mike had taken Caleb home early because he was sick and super crabby.  During class, we were interrupted and told to go to the gym because the tornado sirens were going off.  Now, growing up in Missouri, the tornado sirens went off all the time and we never saw any action near our house.  But, sitting in the church, you could hear the golf ball size hail just slamming into the roof.  Mike called from home and said he saw a funnel cloud (picture).  Poor Maya was freaked out and spend most of the time bawling.  We only sat in the gym for about 10 minutes and then we were told the tornado warning had expired and we could leave or wait out the hail.  I ran out in the hail to get the van and took the girls home.  Maya screamed like I was running back into a burning building.  Man, that hail hurt!  I got the girls home and the storm calmed down after that.  I thought the van was okay, but upon further inspection, I have quite a bit of hail damage.  I am taking the van in on Thursday, we'll see how much this costs to fix.  A tornado did touch down in a mall a mile or so from the church and caused quite a bit of damage.  Mike and I agreed we would much rather call the car insurance company about hail damage than the home insurance company about roof or window damage!