Sorry so late Mom!

I was going through some pictures this morning and found these that I took at Brian and Sharon's wedding. I'm pretty sure my mom asked me to give her copies and I never did, so I thought I would post them on here for anyone to look at/use. They are super cute!!

I especially love this one of the babies and their dads.

Also, we finally got to take a family vacation! We had planned on going back east, but Terry was asked to be part of a special training program for Kohls that allows him to move up to a manager position. Of course, that call came right before we were supposed to leave, so we weren't able to go after all. We rescheduled a shorter vacation for the beginning of August in Yellowstone. I love that place, probably because my dad has always loved that place.
We spent the first couple of days in Rexburg and in Island Park with my Aunt Barbara. She took us out to dinner at the candy shop/frozen yogurt/sandwich shop she works at and gave us a grand tour. It was tons of fun and I wish I would have had the camera out for this, but I didn't. Blah... We had a great time going to their ward on Sunday and then we headed up to their cabin to spend some time with some of my cousins that were up there, ride some jet skies, and try out the paddle boat. We stayed until about noon on Monday and then drove the rest of the way to West Yellowstone. We ended up getting there around 2 and took the rest of the day to set up camp, do some laundry, go swimming and relax!
We were able to take the tent trailer that belonged to my grandparents. It's pretty old, but it totally beats using a regular old tent. It has a stove, a heater, beds, a table and plenty of storage space.
Breckan and Kira in front of the trailer. All set up and ready to go!

Ready to go swimming! We were really excited to finally go swimming, it's been a long summer waiting for Kira's cast to come off!!

We had some yummy tin foil dinners for dinner.
Here is Breckan resting by the fire- I'm pretty sure she never actually fell asleep.

The next day we headed into Yellowstone to see Old Faithful. We learned that it is NOT the biggest geyser in Yellowstone, it just goes off like clockwork so you are guaranteed to see it if you have an hour or so. The others- well, unless you are really lucky you probably won't get to see them go off. We were really lucky to get there RIGHT as it was going off so we didn't have to wait at all! Which was nice because it took all morning just to drive to the geyser. (The road construction was unfortunately in full swing that morning...blah!)
We also saw some really cool hot pools, one where the water was super blue and had orange micro organisms all around it that made it look just amazing! It took so long to drive to everything, that we didn't get to see much that first day. We got back to camp and had dinner. Then we watched Megamind in the trailer and went to bed. Wow, it was freezing at night! We couldn't get the heater going. Not sure what we were doing wrong there, but oh well. We survived. We had warm oatmeal and hot chocolate to warm up in the morning and then headed back to Yellowstone for some hiking and waterfall viewing!! We had a ton of fun this day- there wasn't nearly as much construction going on and we saw so many cool things!
Here is the first waterfall we stopped at- Gibbon Falls.
So beautiful!


Thankfully there was a nice man there that took a family picture for us.


Next, we went to the lower falls. To get to this lookout we had to climb down over 300 metal stair steps. If you look close, past the people on the first landing, you can just barely see me, Breckan, Zack and Kira all the way down there. And this is just a small portion of the stairs we got to go down!

Wow! The whole way down I was thinking, "I hope we can make it all the way back up!" Especially as we kept passing people who were huffing and puffing and complaining about the difficult climb back up. It was definitely worth the view, though!


We began the climb back up with Kira leading the way. SHE WAS SO SLOW! But, she climbed every one of those steps all by herself, all of the kids did (except Ty of course.) I think the snail pace was actually really good, we didn't get winded at all and only stopped for one drink break. I was super proud of all of us!
Next we headed for fishing bridge hoping to find a picnic area along the way. We were able to find that and a whole lot more!
Bison crossing the street and resting right next to the road!

Mud pots that smelled terrible! According the Zack they smelled like deviled eggs, which is one of his favorite foods...so I guess to him they smelled yummy! Gross...


A makeshift teeter-toter! This was at our picnic area. Terry was really great at keeping all three kids stable- it was so wobbly. I tried it and they all tipped over. ): I still feel sooo bad for dumping them all on the ground! Sorry guys!

and the infamous fishing bridge! The only thing missing was the fish? Where did they go? I still have no idea, but the water was empty, thus no pictures. We drove all that way out there and the fish were gone! This was one of my favorite spots as a kid, so I was super disappointed. I just can't figure out why they weren't there... Anyone have any ideas?
We headed home after that and had dinner and went swimming for the last time. The next day we headed home, stopping to say goodbye to Aunt Barbara and treating ourselves to more delicious frozen yogurt!
What an awesome vacation we had!