The biggest thing we have done lately is take a week-long trip to Yellowstone/Bear Lake, so I am going to try to blog a little about that. A while back my dad volunteered to give my brother's four kids (who live in St. Louis area) their first look at Yellowstone. My dad invited us to come along so the cousins could spend some time together. It has been over a year since they saw each other, after all. Somehow we thought it would be fun to save gas money and all drive around all together in what we dubbed the "Van O' Fun."
Let's be real. I had my apprehensions about how much "fun" it was going to be to ride around in a van for with 7 kids for 4 days with 0 DVD players on the ceiling. It actually wasn't too bad! The kids did great, and except for a couple of episodes (one post-nap whining session by Cora and a round of a game called "Does This Hurt?" in the back seat, we were pretty good. It also helped that the kids all had some sort of electronic device that we would encourage them to whip out if it sounded like trouble was brewing.
On the first day, we picked everyone up, visited Great-Grandma Haun on our way out of town, and drove to island park. On the way we stopped a few times at rest stops, and then at Mesa Falls. Here are the cousins, just happy to be out of the car! Dax had glommed himself on to his older cousin Chase, and lucky for him Chase played along pretty well, despite being 3 years older than Dax. Drake, who is only a couple of weeks younger than Dax, felt a little left out at first, but before long they made room and the three amigos had claimed a bench in the van and played together really well.
We rented a nice big cabin in Island park. Me and Val got to share the master bedroom, which was nice, as we didn't have any kids in there with us. Unfortunately, Arden didn't feel well the first night there, and I ended up sleeping on the couch while she slept on the nearby love seat with a barf bowl within reach. Ah, the joys. Lucky for us, she was feeling mostly better by the next morning, and agreed to float down the river with us. We rented a couple of rafts, and had a lovely morning floating along...
We saw a bald eagle and the back end of a moose, and lots of fish. Drake and Cora both fell out of the raft at different times, but luckily the river was really shallow both times and they jumped up and Grandma hefted them back in to the raft in two seconds flat. The river is cold though! The boys in our raft really wanted to "win" and get back to the dock first, so we made sure we stayed in front of the other raft. It helped that they weren't aware that we were racing. It was a fun morning, and by the time we were done we were starving. Lucky for us, there is a Cafe Sabor across the river and we ran over there and ate so much chips and salsa and nacho appetizers that none of us were very hungry by the time our actual food arrived. Oh well!
After that we took a quick drive into Yellowstone, but Arden was wiped out from staying up all night, so I stayed in the car with her while everyone else ran around a geyser basin or two. We headed back to the cabin, which the kids were super excited about, so they could try out the....
HOT TUB!
Yes, you may now be jealous. The kids played for a while and then we fed them and put them to bed. After everyone was sleeping, me and Val snuck out and enjoyed the hot tub without so many little feet flying around. We saw some shooting stars and gabbed and had a nice relaxing time.
The next day everyone felt good and we spent the whole day exploring Yellowstone.
We ate ice cream at Canyon Village, drove around and saw lots of Buffalo (bison), a giant bull elk, and we even saw a WOLF. We were too excited to take a picture of him, though. We of course had to see the waterfalls too. Here is a shot of me and Val enjoying the scenic wonder, while the kids all look a little bored. :)
On the docket for the next day was more Yellowstone, then a drive through the Tetons on our way to our Bear Lake cabin. Here is a picture of Grandpa and Brynn messing around, and Arden photobombing them:
We stopped at a few geyser basins, and saw my mom's favorite, Grand Prismatic Springs:
As we approached the springs, I noticed that about half of the people were actually facing the opposite way and taking pictures. I kept looking away from the springs, trying to figure out what they were taking pictures of. Then I realized, DUH, they are all doing selfies!
Here is a picture of all of us Yellowstoners, except my mom who got to hide behind the camera:
We stopped at Old Faithful and saw the geyser, which seemed of secondary importance to the kids, whose main purpose was to visit the souvenir shops.
The next day was beach day!
Kohl, who put up with hanging out with his younger cousins amazingly well all week, was trying to build himself a sandcastle island. It kept falling over, and he kept building it back up.
The next day was Sunday, so we went to a stuffed-to-the-rafters-with-tourists church meeting, and then went for a little hike before we had to pack it up. I told everyone to jump, but they were on a hill and most of them (except Brynn, you go girl) were too scared they would fall down the hill, so they just kind of look weird. I liked it though.
We had fun, and will miss the St. Louis cousins until we meet again!
3 comments:
It really turned out to be a fun trip! Glad we did it. Love y'all.
There are so many "of course" moments in this post - it's freakin' fantastic. Let's just point out the most obvious... fire alarm scenario in the vaulted ceilings. Ewww. So rude. Sounds like a couple of brave grandparents/brave Aunts to host a bunch of wired on cousin love kiddos! Good job.
What an adventure! Do your parents still own a van that big?? What did we call the ole brown beast?
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