Island Park 2010

First off, I'm not really happy to be back HOME doing this blog. You know how lots of times you finish a trip and are a little relieved to be back home, sleeping in your own bed, etc.? Not this one! I think I could live there! But when this is where we were "camping".... can you blame me?





A family friend was generous enough to let us stay at his awesome cabin for free, including a hot tub and Rhino for us to use for almost an entire week. Since it was conference weekend, everyone in Jared's family(minus Bubba) came up for at least a day, too.
Maddie wasn't sure what to think of the Rhino at first.
I don't think Emma understood while we were waiting around on those benches, but when Old Faithful went off, she thought it was cool.
A little sandbar on Yellowstone Lake. We had to stop and play in the water. Jared was skipping rocks, so Emma had to try too.





The Lower Falls in Yellowstone Park. We thought it would be a little walk down to the brink. It was 3/8 of a mile, but it drops 600 feet in that 3/8 of a mile. Not fun to push the stroller down, but going up was seriously crazy. Good thing Jared has been working out. ;)
Paige and Emma the second day in the Park.
Then Paige took some pictures of all of us while we were waiting in construction.


Paige and Emma at the Artist Paintpots. The water behind them is a beautiful blue color.





A bridge over the creek that runs behind the cabin. Emma loved it.

Memorial Weekend

I am really behind on blogging, but I think this is the last one of the day! For Memorial Weekend, we went with Jared's family to Yellowstone/Island Park. We all loaded up in his grandparents' motorhome. It was fun because all 15 of us were able to be in one vehicle together and could talk, eat and play games. A friend of the family has an amazing cabin in Island Park that they let us borrow. It was beautiful, and included a couple of big screen TVs, a jacuzzi, places for 24 people to sleep, a fully-stocked, gorgeous kitchen complete with stainless steel appliances, and much more. So our weekend of "camping" was pretty rough. We spent the weekend driving the park, seeing the animals and the sights. We also went on a hike to Fairy Falls that was a little over 5 miles up and back. The kids were troopers on this hike, I was very impressed. We had a couple of close encounters with some buffalo that were on the trail to Fairy Falls and narrowly escaped with our lives.;) We saw 3 bears and stopped to see a fourth but it was hidden in the trees so we didn't ever get a good look at it. There were a ton of buffalo, baby buffalo and elk. The weather was perfect for this trip, and I think that was why we saw so many animals, especially the bears. Here are a couple of pictures that Connie took on the trip that she let me steal from her! Thanks, Connie!

Paige and Emma

Emma and Grandma

Bear #1

Bear #2

Bear #3

Rafting

On the 4th we went to Alpine to go rafting with Jared's family. The water level was about three times higher than last year, and it was quite a challenge. Last year we spent most of the time joking around, shoving each other out of the raft, and took on a couple of intense rapids. This year, those "intense rapids" we thought we experienced last year were NOTHING. Within about 5 minutes of taking off, we hit some rapids a little bit sideways and 6 of 9 people fell out. I was one of the lucky ones who didn't. It was pretty chaotic for a few minutes until we got out of the rapids, found all of the paddles and got everyone back in the raft. After we got everyone settled and calmed down, we counted heads and realized Jared was missing. Somehow he popped out of the rapids and kept heading down the river for the next set of rapids. Another raft took him in until we caught up to them. After our first incident, we were more focused. For a family of adrenaline junkies, I was surprised by how intense it became. We made it down the rest of the river without too much trouble. I thought we were pros by the time we got done! Well, except for the very end when we lost a paddle and a couple of people almost floated off down the river again. : ) We were all feeling pretty exhausted by the end of the trip, so we only went down once. We decided it will be an annual trip because we all love rafting so much, but we are going to try for a day in August next year when the water level is a little lower.

Drive-In

Last weekend, Jared and I decided to go to one of the drive-in movie theatres. So we blew up the air mattress, put it in the back of the truck, loaded up on junk food and headed to the movie. We got there and got all set up and comfortable, just chatting, and I asked Jared what happened if you fell asleep- like if they come wake you up and send you home or what? He told me, "That wouldn't happen because at least one of us would wake up." So we watched the movie, which was pretty good, and then dozed off in between the movies. I woke up for part of the next movie but Jared never did. I didn't really worry about it, and just dozed on and off throughout what I thought was the whole movie. The next thing we know, at 2:00 a.m., two security guards with flashlights were nudging Jared to wake him up. Yep, that's right- the ENTIRE place was empty. Just Jared and I and the two security guards who woke us up. Anyway, so the answer to my question is that yes, it IS possible to sleep through 60 vehicles starting up, shining their headlights in your eyes, lots of people talking, kids yelling and crying. We are pretty talented, aren't we?