Yellowstone Day Three

That's Emily's van in front of us heading into the fog.


















Paul and Bekah in front of Gibbon's Falls. It was pretty chilly up in the mountains early in the morning.


















Mom and Dad with all the grandkids. Audrey, Paul and Daniel are in the back. Front row left to right is Thanny, Ellie, Cherith, Bekah, Meghan and Alexis.


















Our family in front of one of the hot springs. I wish I could remember the names of all these features.


















Paul and Bekah somewhere in some geyser basin in Yellowstone. If I had a map I could probably tell you the name but I don't.























Tim and Paul in a similiar location.


















I believe this is Roaring Mountain. Apparantly is used to be pretty loud with steam vents. It was pretty quite the day we were there.


















Grizzly Bear! I really wasn't expecting to see a bear at all. This one looked pretty young and was just walking on the hill beside the road. He looked like he knew where he was going. Traffic was backed up forever! But we happened to be near a little spot to pull out so we parked and got out to watch.


















Dad had walked down this path and then called really excitedly for all the kids to come and see something. So we all ran down the path to see this really exciting something. It was rocks. That's my dad for ya! Big obsidian rocks. The kids thought they were pretty cool.


















This place was called Sheepeaters Cliffs. The kids had a lot of fun climbing on the rocks and walking the trail. My niece Audrey, in the middle, is a great climber!




































I think this is a Mammoth Hot Springs. This area was very different from what I remember fifteen years ago.



























Look at the rack on that elk! That's a monster and he still has two or three months for those things to grow. Their neck muscles must be massive! Holy cow...elk!


















And that is the conclusion for Monday. It was a long day but really fun. It's kind of neat to know that you can only see some of these things in one or two places in the world. At least in this volume. And, of course, I was with my family. That was the best part of all!

Yellowstone Day Two

Sunday, we went to church in the morning, rested and then visited Earthquake Lake. This lake was created by a landslide triggered by a massive earthquake in the late 1950's. Here's Paul and Bekah outside the visitor's center.



















Here we have Mom, Andy, Dana and Cherith in the background and Dad and Meghan in the foreground. It was windy and chilly there. We drove through a thunder storm on the way back.



















Paul, Mom, Dad and Meghan sitting on a bench. I just can't get enough of these pictures of my family. I just don't see them often enough.



















Here's a nice picture of the lake.



















Here's the landslide that caused the lake to form. It's actually a river that runs through this valley. The Army Corp of Engineers had to dig a channel through the landslide to let water through so everything would not be flooded upstream.

Yellowstone Day One

Okay, I know I said I'd get this done a couple of weeks ago...chaos has reigned! We've had Vacation Bible School and school started for me again so I'm a little behind. Better late than never!

This first picture is from the day we arrived, Friday. What I'm actually calling Day One is Saturday, when we first went into the park.

This is Ellie and Bekah, who by the end of the week were convinced they were twins because they are in the same family, are the same age and have the same middle name. They were so cute! And talkative!
This is the next morning, waiting for the adults to get ready, I guess. Bekah and Audrey, watching a movie. I think Hoodwinked ran several times that week. We won't be watching that one for awhile!
Our first buffalo encounter was pretty quick after we entered the park Saturday. Not uncommon. I was riding with Emily that day and one snort and I urged her to keep on movin'.
Tim must have taken this picture cause it's awesome. With the mountain in the background. He should take up photography.
Another buffalo.

This little ground squirrel...down by the rocks...was cute. The kids had fun trying to see him up close. This was at the Madison ranger station.
Beautiful river...I think the Madison river. The scenery is just gorgeous!
And more buffalo. Funny story...on this day, Emily and I were taking a car load back to the house and we got stuck behind a buffalo walking, in our lane, on the road. It took awhile for him to get where he was going and we just had to inch along behind him. I think Emily has a picture of that on her camera.
A field of buffalo.
Nice hot spring. I love how you can see right down into them and the blue color is from the minerals and such that are in it. This was is Norris Geyser Basin, I think.

Nephew Daniel by a mud pot. Love those mud pots...they smell soooooo good. :)
Paul standing in front of a small geyser. There was another one right behind it.
Paul and me...same geyser.
Another hot spring with steam. If you look really close you can see the water boiling.

Mom, Dad and Cherith waiting for a geyser to go off. I don't know the name of it but the next three pictures are of the same geyser.

Nice elk! Can you see the rack?

Elk in the river.

Daniel watching elk in the river.

And that is the first whole day we spent at Yellowstone. It was great! I had so much fun seeing my family and getting to know my nieces and nephews again. I already miss them all soooooo much. We also had the wonderful opportunity to see Dad's family and that was great too. Pictures will be forthcoming.

We're Baaaack!

Two weeks away! We've never taken such a long trip! We started out in Provo, Utah visiting Tim's brother and his family. We climbed a mountain and saw some old friends as well. Next, we headed up to Yellowstone to hang with the Dyer family. We had a great time visiting, seeing wildlife and scenery and playing around. The next few blogs will have pictures and explanations of all that we did.

For now, I've got Vacation Bible School starting on Sunday and college classes starting on Monday so I'm swamped. It may be slow, but I'll get everything up soon!

I was so happy to spend time with my family. I have really missed them. Especially Andy's kids who I hadn't seen for several years. I loved everyone of them! My siblings (and Karri) are my favorite people to hang out with and I hardly ever get to do it! We just had so much fun being together and playing cards and stuff. The kids really got along well and had a lot of fun together.

The house we stayed in, which I didn't get any pictures of, was large and had plenty of room for everyone. The kids had room to run around outside and there was even a creek roam around. anyway, I'll go through the days with pictures in the next blogs so come back and see!