Monday, July 07, 2014

Roadtrip Part 3 (Yellowstone)

It seems that our time in Idaho seemed like a long time when we planned - but it flew by so quickly! Monday we played most of the morning and took Gramma Rue to Menan to stay with Gramma Watson. That night we had dinner and hung out in Menan for the afternoon and naptime.

Tuesday McKenna decided was "the best day of her life." It started with a visit to Grandpa Bobs for lego play and pizza. She and Zachey played nicely for HOURS with the little lego table making a little city with planes, houses and pools. It was very detailed! I am sure her hours of minecraft helped her fabricate the ideas.






After legos I put Grayson down for a nap and we headed to the pool. Hyrum, Isabelle, Chels and Spencer came and there were giggles all around.










That night we just played with Isa and Hyrum and relaxed. It was awesome!

Wednesday was a busy day. The older two, Chels and Spencer all headed to yellowstone. Mom watched Grayson, which made the day so much easier! He would not have understood why we had to drive all day again!

The day started with a stop at Mesa Falls. Since there was construction we deviated and went right by it - and glad we did it was gorgeous!










We did the lower loop of yellowstone. The older two kept track of all the animals we saw. If you include the different bugs and birds, we got to 16. The coolest ones were definitely the buffalo and the elk.

 The kids started to get hungry a few minutes after we entered the park. We found an awesome little picnic area off the side of the road. It was at this point that I somehow misplaced the keys. I was getting ready to head out and could not find them anywhere! Luckily we figured out that they were in the vehicle because we couldn't lock it (nice modern feature of new cars.) So I retraced my steps like 3 times. It had fallen in a small compartment in the trunk...good grief!








First stop was the paint pots. Kenna learned about these in science so was extra fun for her to see them in person. The kids kept saying "yummy it smells good, like eggs!" I didn't think it smelled that great - but to each their own!!






I made them do this for the picture as Josh and I have the same one of us...fun :)


Holy cow was old faithful crowded. We drove around for about 20 minutes looking for a parking place! Anyone who has been to old faithful knows that there is a TON of parking....but it was July 4th weekend...and it only goes off every 90 minutes now. So, we just waited for it to erupt. I dropped everyone off at the vistor's center and followed some people leaving to their car. FINALLY parked!

Sometime during this time the seatbelt in the rental car got jammed? Its like a small rock fell in there. I made the executive decision to just not use my seatbelt...shhhh don't tell anyone - and kids, if you are reading this as adults, always wear your seatbelt!

Because we then had 90 minutes to wait for old faithful to erupt we decided to walk around and get ice cream. Even that line was long! We waited about 20 minutes just to get it - but was well worth it!!




After walking around and buying souvenirs we found a spot in the shade and waited for the eruption. Zachey had decided on a little stuffed deer "Bambi" for his souvenir and Kenna chose a mood ring. She thought it was so funny that it kept turning blue which meant "romance." She was like "ew!!!"




Snapped this candid one of pregnant Chelsey, can't wait to meet the little peanut!



After Old Faithful we drove for a while and stopped at West Thumb. None of us really remembered stopping here before and it was simply gorgeous. Tons of geysers, beautiful Lake Yellowstone and just a very pretty walkway. 











The highlight of the trip as far as animals was watching this big old buffalo cross right in front of us...very cool!

We drove home and the kids all fell asleep. I dropped off shoemakers and drove back to Idaho. I was fully prepared at that point to sneak in quietly and put all kids to bed. What we found instead were plans to play outside and pig out on smores! I put Grayson to bed and the older 4 all stuffed their faces, jumped on the trampoline and played soccer till 10! No one was fighting and everyone was pretty tired by the end - so fun!



No comments: