Yellowstone Trip

 Earlier this summer, we decided that we were going to try to go to cool places right around where we live. People drive thousands of miles to come here and experience the outdoors and we’ve lived here for eight years and haven’t done most of the touristy stuff. Sooo we decided one weekend to pack up the kids and head for Yellowstone. It’s only and hour and a half, so not too far and we wanted to drive around the park, see the hot springs, see Old Faithful, and have a picnic right in the park. I was REALLY excited about going because the last time I went I was about 12 and don’t remember much. (As side note, Geoffery has begged me to go since I can remember and have never been up to, just didn’t seem that cool, but I guess I’ve changed my mind since I had kids).

We got up early that morning and went to a local breakfast place in town and it was delicious!! It never fails and seriously has the best pancakes and homemade syrup I’ve ever eaten! I try to talk Geoffery into going every Saturday morning. THEN, we went to Wal-Mart and bought a cooler because we don’t have one and some drinks and stuff for our picnic. FINALLY at 11:30 we left Rexburg and were on our way. Madelyn took a nap the whole way up and Grant watched his (um no, OURS) ipod. Once we were there we drove into the park and immediately saw a huge elk. Yellowstone seems to never disappoint with the animals. We were all hungry again by this point and pulled off at the closest picnic table and ate lunch. There was a stream nearby that Grant actually got into trying to catch fish with his cup. He was pretty disappointed that he wasn’t successful and we tried to explain that only cavemen can catch fish this way. So after this point his flip-flops were SOAKING wet. After lunch we stopped at a hot spring and walked around. Hence, if you notice in the picture Grant barefoot, that’s because he flat out refused to wear his shoes, so he had to ride in the stroller. So don’t think I’m the kind of mom that lets her children walk around Yellowstone with no shoes because I’m not… promise!

After that we decided to head to Old Faithful having no idea when it would erupt again. Luckily we got there 3 minutes AFTER it erupted. Yeah, so we got to wait another hour and a half to see it go off. So we got ice cream and walked around the big hotel they have there. It’s super cool inside if you’ve never seen it. And don’t think you can get a room there because it’s a year and a half out for a reservation- and you have to share a bathroom- not my kind of place. I like my privacy please! But it would be an experience I’m sure. ANYWAY, we got some pretty good seats to see it explode. Grant decided that it would be loud and he doesn’t like loud noises so he decided he had to wrap my baby wrap around him to shield his ears from the exploding water. (He didn’t care for the hot springs too much- hot water and loud noises are his two biggest fears). Everyone was looking at him and laughing because he looked pretty ridiculous. Which this only added to his fuel of angriness. He kept yelling at people not to look at him and laugh. Yeah, that’s my boy…yelling at complete strangers. Gotta love 3 year olds! When it finally went off he realized that it wasn’t loud and he was pretty safe sitting that far away, and he was okay with it and thought it was pretty cool. Then after that we headed home. Unlucky for us we ONLY saw elk and not even ONE buffalo. I was pretty sad about that, but it was a lot of fun and we had ourselves some memories. AND that was our summer goal—TO BUILD MEMORIES. So all and all it was a success. Here are some pictures of our trip…

 Grant has an obession with school buses so we had to take our picture in front of one.

 He was soooo afraid of the noise that it would be too loud.

 Here is Grant looking very religious so that he wouldn't hear the water "blow" up in the air.