We are quite a big group and got lots of looks, especially when one of the "men" was lagging behind for some reason. Kim and I thought a couple of times people looked at us like we must have been sister wives... When we wanted this picture taken we asked a Chinese women to take it for us (for obvious reasons, first Asians were everywhere (foreigners in general actually, since it is a great time for them to travel here with our weak dollar.) second Shane wants any chance to speak Chinese and third... they take the best pictures!) When he asked her and she looked up she said... "OHHHH, BIG FAMILY!" We laughed about that all week.
Some of the things we will remember about this trip... (in random order)
- Spending time with the Carlsen's! Staying up late playing games and talking with Rusty, Kim, Kyler and Jadyn - our night owl. While the other kids giggled themselves to sleep
- Hearing Jadyn say "I Go, I Go" everytime we stopped the truck to get out!
- Having a picnic in the snow and watching the girls feed birds grapes out of their hands. (And yes we did later read in the brochure that they had given us that this was a big no-no... oops!)
- Watching Saige walk into a lake with huge ice chunks floating around her ankles, (a dare of course after she told us, "I bet it isn't that cold!") She admitted it was "pretty cold!"
- Going to "The Playmill" to watch "Oklahoma" in West Yellowstone. Since it was Saige's 9th Birthday she was invited up on stage to be sung to. She thought she would just die when the two guys both kissed her! HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAIGE!
- Radioing (on the walkie-talkies) back and forth between our vehicles - with every animal sighting or silly comment that one of us had. My favorite comments were when Shane was veering off the road looking for animals and Rusty would say, "Hey Chief... you awake up there." He took the criticism MUCH better from him than me!
- Kenna forgetting to bring her shoes - on our first day in Yellowstone. This was a large problem since we walked a lot. Luckily Kason had an extra pair in their car - although two sizes too big, they were better than nothing. She only fell down about 10 times... We had to tell our little tripper to stay VERY far away from the hot geysers!
- 4-wheeling through the mud puddles. (Kim and I were glad we had a washer and dryer in the cabin - Rusty and Shane didn't really think about how much mud was flying on everyone as they zipped through the puddles! I of course was a much better driver and tried to go AROUND the puddles as much as possible!)
- the dads taking the kids on a 4-wheeler ride and finding a HUGE snow pile, (at least 20 feet tall) - climbing to the top for some photos... Then reading the sign coming out of the area (that they hadn't seen on the way in) which stated "Keep Out - Sewage"
- The kids being "Keeper Kids" and getting to "hide" the food for the grizzlies at The Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center. (We spent several hours here and watching the bears eat, play and wrestle with each other.) And the kids will probably never forget the annoying little tune played throughout the movie we watched. "Oh momma bear, oh baby bear, fishing in the stream..."
- Seeing all the awesome and amazing animals in Yellowstone.
What an awesome shot. We came across a Grizzly and her cub which were probably 400 yards from us. I had someone take this shot with my camera through their scope. I think it turned out AMAZING!
Right before this we saw a Grizzly swimming across the river too!
The second day in the park we watched this black bear sow and her two cubs (They were up the tree in this shot).
- Having to stop every hour or so to get a sliver out of Kenna and Kason's hands. They LOVED running their hands along the wooden rails. Luckily Rusty is an RN and quite proficient at getting slivers out! I laughed the hardest when I was telling the kids for the 100th time to keep their hands off the rails and Kyler (the 16 year old) was picking at one he had just got!
- Smelling those amazing "Geyser" smells! Kenna could hardly stand it!
Nope this one wasn't real, just a decoy to keep people off their property (in Island Park)- We must admit we were fooled too and screamed at the kids to not get even one step closer to it!
Upon further inspection which involved Rusty throwing rocks at it.... we realized the decoy worked! We all laughed that Kim and I had both taken picture of what we thought was our first animal sighting.
WOLVES! There are only about 150 in the park so we were lucky to see 3 right along the road and 1 that was obviously wounded limping along the road the day before.
Buffalo were definitely in abundance. I like this shot because I think this lady was trying to pet one!
But then I can't really talk because our kids were a little close to this young bull moose too!
We also saw a bald Eagle, Big Horn Sheep, lots of elk, deer and a Coyote! The weather may have been a little cold, but we scored on the animal searches. We spent two full days in Yellowstone stopping at all the sites - It was amazing and something we really should do more often. (And not much later in the season - we already had a hard time finding parking spots at the more popular places - we could hardly imagine the crowds that would be there in July!)
- Searching for "Penny Smooshing Machines". My girls favorite thing to do on trips - you can go to http://www.pennycollector.com/ and find locations for machines anywhere in the world. My girls are each on their 3rd collector book! Quite a cheap souvenior... although it is starting to add up!
- Going to Church at 9 PM (yes that says PM) - (and yes it was an LDS church). There were about 40-50 people there (we were 12 of those). Rusty and Kyler were asked to bless the sacrament. And it was testimony meeting, which actually turned out to be a nice meeting... but with so few of us there, if it hadn't been for that long winded old man who talked for 25 min we would have had the shortest meeting on record! (They closed the meeting at 9:50 even with him!) That may be the only place that holds their meetings at 9 am, 1 pm and 9 pm - we had to do the late one just for the experience!
- Shane, Rusty and Kyler taking the kids fishing one day - They spent hours trying, but I think Shane spent more time getting knots out of the girls fishing lines than actually fishing. And not even a bite the whole day! (Rusty helped his kids catch two - but they threw them back.) We decided the river was a little swift (or possibly they just aren't fishermen? :)) Oh, and by the way that is one cute pink barbie fishing pole Shane is using!!
- One of the gas cans getting a hole in it and leaking all over Shane's brand new enclosed trailer! I'm sure everyone will love their carpet smelling like gasoline... Supposedly coffee grounds will help take the smell out. I was the lucky one who went to the store to buy some the day we got home. Of course I had to explain to the neighbor who got in line behind me why I was buying coffee. He just shook his head and said "NOW, I have heard EVERY excuse!" Unfortunately... it still smells like gas! Any suggestions??
- But of all the things that we did and saw the one that still has us the most baffled (and makes us bust up thinking about) was seen on the drive home through Idaho. Believe me, we all took a triple take when we saw the following scene. Unfortunately we didn't get a shot to do this image justice, but you can only slow down and pass a vehicle while sporting a camera a few times.... But I dare say not many people have seen a full grown DONKEY riding in the back of a minivan... (You can be sure we radioed the Carlsen's van to check that one out!) We couldn't decide which of the two "passengers" felt more like a jackass... the actual one or the man sitting next to him petting it...
We made some fabulous memories in Yellowstone and were sad our week was over. Shane and I wonder what the kids will remember most. We think we may hear this one day, "Remember when we went to Yellowstone and we saw that donkey in the van! Now THAT was amazing!"
3 comments:
A friend of mine who, incidentally, is from Idaho, once removed the back seats of her minivan and drove home to Layton from her parents' house in Soda Springs with a calf tied in the back. I bet she got some crazy looks too!
Great pictures! It looks like it was a fun trip.
Wow. That looked like a ton of fun. I've only been to Yellowstone once and would love to go back. I was wondering where you were.. it's not like you to take so long to post something new!! Loved all the pictures and the commentary, that was a fun post to read!
Looks like lots of fun! You should run a travel service -- Vacation with us. I'd come along. The year we went to Disneyland in Feb., we went to Yellowstone in June. The kids said they liked Yellowstone better than Disneyland. (This may explain why I ended up being Pocahantas on the Disney quiz.)
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