4th of July- Eastern Idaho style: part 4

  Tuesday our family headed to Yellowstone.  We love going to Yellowstone, and go almost every year.  Idaho Falls is close enough that we can leave early in the morning - do the park all day - and get back to Idaho Falls by late evening. 
   We left early and headed into West Yellowstone.  Derek and I packed a cooler for lunch, and had decided that we would stop at KFC in West Yellowstone - and get some chicken to put in our cooler for lunch.  Their reader board confirmed our thinking, by reading, "Take a bucket into the park".  And that's what we did.  But while we were in line to pay to get into the park, I decided that I'd get out of the car, and put the chicken in the cooler.  So I hop out, open the back of our van, and that's when all of the cars in line start moving forward.  So Derek moves forward.  With me, holding a bucket of chicken (!) just walking behind our car.  So there's a dozen cars ahead of us, then me - walking, holding a bucket of chicken, and then a dozen cars behind us.  It took several stops of the car before I could open the car, open the cooler, put the chicken in, shut the cooler, shut the van door, and get back in the car.  Derek and the kids thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen.  Derek wanted everyone to think that I was just walking into the park, by myself, with the only thing I'd need that day - a bucket of fried chicken!  It got lots of laughs all week.
   In Yellowstone we did our favorites, plus some new things.  We did Old Faithful of course, but watched it from Observation Point - a first for me (a .5 mile hike that has a great view looking down on Old Faithful. 

Yes, Derek hiked all around Old Faithful like this!

 We did Uncle Tom's trail - over 300 steps down until you are at the base of the big waterfall in the Grand Canyon.  It's awesome to be down there - getting cooled off by all the mist.  Walking back up 300+ steps was hard, but with some breaks, our family made it.  I was so proud of the kids - no whining, and no carrying.  People around us were telling our kids how awesome they were to have made it down and back up. 

 

 

Artist Point  - this is the waterfall that Uncle Tom's trail takes you 3/4 of the way down.

 

     We saw mud pots, geysers, and lots of bison - and bison babies - a definite crowd pleaser.  A favorite was to keep track of how many US and Canadian (in honor of my Canada-living parents) license plates we could see.  Yellowstone is certainly a great place for that game.  We got 44 states (curse you Hawaii, North Dakota, Alabama, West Virginia, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire!) and 4 Canadian provinces - Manitoba - our favorite!, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, plus Yukon (which apparently is a territory, not a province - who knows why, or what the difference is). 
   We had  a huge, long, really fun day - and 4 happy, exhausted kids on the way home.

 

 

 

 

4th of July - Eastern Idaho Style: Part 3

    Monday we headed to Bear World.  This is a big park where you drive through a huge area where they have tons of wildlife.  You see deer, elk, moose, mountain goats, and bears (their billboard brags they have 45 bears - so you definitely get your bear fix).  They also have a few midway-type rides that the kids can go on ... and on, and on, and on.  It's crazy how many times your kids can do a train ride that goes in a circle.  But the kids loved them. 

   The  most fun thing we did there was go on a curator tour.  We got on a big truck, where we up really high, and then drove through the park.  We were able to throw bread at the bears - who are quite familiar with this routine!

 

 

 



 cute cousins

Bailey & Logan


cutest sisters




Begging for food





Lots of adorable cubs
 

 

Fun at the petting zoo

  



 

 

  After Bear World we cooled off by going to Rigby Lake.  The kids had a blast swimming.  We ended the night with our traditional fireworks show, with our not-quite legal fireworks.  It's funny because Idaho Falls is so close to an Indian Reservation, that there are a lot of not-quite legal fireworks going off for a solid week.  

 

4th of July - Eastern Idaho Style: Part 2

 The next day of our trip Tyler turned 12 - how can that be??  I have a 12 year old - that's just crazy. 
 We drove from Driggs to Idaho Falls to celebrate his birthday.  His birthday was on a Sunday and we were super excited that he'd be ordained a deacon on his birthday.  Then we realized that we had plans to be on vacation for the 4th of July.  So then we were stumped about what to do.   So we told Tyler we could stay home, and go to his grandparents on Monday, so he could be ordained a deacon on his birthday in our ward, or we could have him ordained the next week and keep our trip as planned.  He decided that he'd rather not cut the trip short, and he'd just get ordained the next week.  Then our bishop suggested that we just ordain him, on his birthday, at his grandparent's house.  Genius!!  Why didn't we think of that?  That was such a great idea.  It was fun to do it there, with Derek's family who wouldn't have been able to be there if we had done it at home.  It was also great to do it in a home, and make a bigger deal of it.  We did miss my family, which would have been there if we had done it at home.

 

Look at the handsome guy!

 

John, Tate, Lance, and Derek - loved having them stand in the circle

John, Sandy, and Tyler

 

Proud parents

  Super proud of Tyler.  In preparation of receiving the priesthood, Tyler read the entire Book of Mormon.  He started in December, and finished on his birthday.  I know I certainly hadn't read it by the time I'd turned 12.  After his blessing, he bore the sweetest testimony to his family.  It was an awesome experience. 
  We wrapped up the day with brownie sundaes for everyone.  A great end to a great day.

4th Of July - Eastern Idaho Style: Part 1

   For the 4th of July we headed to Eastern Idaho to spend the week with Derek's parents.    It was a week of going and going - and we had the best time.
   We went on the Friday before and went to Driggs.  This is a tiny town at the base of the Teton Mountains - it's beautiful there.  We went to Driggs because Derek's sister, Angey, had told us about this great 4th of July celebration they have there the Saturday before the 4th every year.  She had raved so much about it we decided we had to check it out.  Derek's aunt has connections that got us a condo in Driggs for the weekend - this was awesome to be able to be in Driggs for the whole weekend.  There was a bunch of us there - our family, Angey's family, Megan's family, and Derek's aunts.  It was a houseful, and we had a blast.  John and Sandy couldn't come because John had just had hernia surgery and was still recovering.
  Saturday morning we went for a hike in that ended with kids barefoot playing in a pool at the base of a waterfall.  Throw in the Tetons and that's hard to beat. 

  After hiking, we all went to a restaurant for lunch - I always feel so bad when they see a group as big as ours walk in!  And then we were off to the celebration.
   This is a free event - open to the public, put on by Jon Huntsman at his private golf course.  It was pretty great.   Lots of bounce houses and face painting for the kids - they had a great time.  At 7:00 the entertainment was supposed to start on this giant grandstand, but instead of entertainment we got a microburst storm - wind and rain hit us, and hit us hard.  The moms took the kids to the cars to wait it out, while Derek, Tate, Ty, and Zack stayed to hold down the fort (aka our blankets and chairs).  The storm passed and it turned into a beautiful evening again.  We headed back to our seats and the concert began.  Now I didn't know it, but the Beach Boys were there - as in the Beach Boys!  Well, 2 of the original members were still in it - but good enough!  Growing up we had a Beach Boys record - I don't think I would have called it 'cool', but I would have called it 'the coolest record we had', so we listened to it a lot.  Like a gazillion times.  I knew almost every word to every song.  The kids danced and danced to every song - for an hour straight.  Listening to the Beach Boys, while your kids dance their guts out, on a beautiful golf course, in beautiful Driggs - pretty awesome.
   After the concert the fireworks show started.  The fireworks went off from behind the grandstand, but every so often they would have fireworks go off that lined the fairway - so were surrounded by awesome, giant fireworks.  And then to top it off, they had Lee Greenwood - as in I'm Proud to be an American, sing during the fireworks show!  I thought they'd stop the fireworks so Lee would get everyone's attention, but he just sang while fireworks were blasting off.  It was awesome. 
   Sitting in the parking lot for an hour just to get out was not awesome. Tyler was in Megan's car, and when it turned midnight, still stuck in traffic, it was his birthday.  They sang to him - which is hilarious, thoughtful and fun - I loved it.

We need Webster

The other day Logan asked me what the word 'pathetic' meant.  I told him it meant sad, I left out that there was a slight 'loser-ish' connotation to it.  Then the same day Tyler was upset about something and crying about it, and Logan announced loudly, "Mom, Tyler's pathetic!"  Now Tyler was sad and mad.  I told Logan told that Tyler wasn't pathetic, and Logan kept correcting me, "No mom ... he's pathetic!"  Mr. Webster, feel free to stop by.

Distracted Maybe?

Piece by piece all of this jewlery was confisicated by me, from Bailey, while she practiced the piano this morning.  In a head-to-head compitition for Bay's attention, jewlery won hands down over piano.

 

 

Locks of Love

 This is the funnest post - I just loved every detail of this story!

Bailey and her BFF, Brynlee, both decided to grow out their hair for Locks of Love.  You have to cut off 10 inches, so this process started months and months ago.  A month after Brynlee moved, their family was coming back for a weekend visit.  I measured Bay's hair to see if it was long enough to cut it.  She barely had enough - but enough.  I talked to Andrea to see if Brynlee's was ready to cut too.  Brynlee had longer hair than Bay, so she was set too. Andrea and I decided it would be fun for  the girls to get their hair cut together when they came to visit.  The date was set, and we were ready!

Here's our before:

 Two cute girls outside the fun girly salon we took them to 

(notice they're wearing their Friends Forever necklaces):

 The stylist cut Bailey's hair first.  With a big gulp of anticipation, she cut off Bailey's beautiful long pony tail.  

She got the cutest A-line hair cut, then it was Brynlee's turn. Another beautiful long pony tail cut off, and another adorable A-line. 

The girls then got their nails painted, and got to pick out headbands (thank you Andrea!). 

Then we put their long pony tail up into the same envelope (it was uncanny how similar their hair color was in those chopped off ponies). We took them straight to the post office to mail their envelope full of hair and love, and mailed them off.

  I am so proud of these cute girls who wanted other cute girls to have awesome hair. This summer I am loving Bay's short hair - it's quick and easy, and we don't even do it most days! I think short hair might stick around our house for a while. Way to go Bryn and Bay!