Yellowstone

This is the last of my "catch-up" posts. Yahoo!

About 2 weeks after we moved into our new home this summer, another family moved in across the street. That house had been empty for 3 years, so we were THRILLED to have some new neighbors. It turned out to be a family with kids the same age as my boys. We have become close friends over the past 5 months (it helps that she is my walking partner so we talk for about an hour every day!)

In mid-October they invited our family (and a couple other families) to spend the weekend in their family cabin just outside of West Yellowstone. We went up Friday afternoon after the kids got out of school. It is only a little over an hour away.

This is their family cabin where we stayed.

It was built by their grandpa decades ago to host large family gatherings.

It was amazing. It is 3 stories tall. The lower floor has 5 bedrooms, each with a queen or double bed in it. The middle floor has a large kitchen, huge living room area, and 3 more bedrooms.

 

Then the upstairs/loft/attic is lined with these super cool pull-down beds that come out of the walls.
I think there were 15 or so of these beds. It was so cool.

 

This place has "Family Reunion!" written all over it!

There is a little pond on the property.

(Nice picture Eric!)

 

In the morning the fog rolled in. It was so cool looking.

The views were breath-taking.

 

We headed into Yellowstone (about 10 min. away) bright and early Saturday morning.

It was just our two families at this point. Our first stop was Mammoth Hot Springs.

This is a part of Yellowstone that our family had never been to.

We've only ever done the lower loop in the past.

 

One of the coolest parts of this town is that elk just lounge around the town as if they owned the place. It was so weird to see.

 

My girls in front of the hot spring

 

Eric took dozens and dozens of pictures of the cool formations .

Sorry, but I am only going to put in one or two of each site we visited.

Of course, what would Yellowstone be without a traffic jam surrounding buffalo.

These ones took their own sweet time.

This shot was taken out my window. I am zoomed out all the way because we were SO close.

I honestly could have touched the guy...if I didn't value my life.

 

 

Our second stop was at the Artist's Paint Pots. A beautiful hike that we hadn't done before. 

We had to snap a quick family photo

Our dear friends (and our hosts) the Thompsons

We like to call this face -- "Sour Sadie" -- not every moment was full of sunshine

The only candid shot that had all 4 of my kids in it

 

Colby pausing for a breather...quite the backdrop of geysers & springs

 

A waterfall we stopped at...don't remember the name

We met up with 2 other families at the cabin that afternoon.The kids were eager to try out the raft in the little pond next to the house. Without paddles, they didn't get far. But they had LOTS of fun.

Eric did some "fishing." There wasn't really anything to catch, but he said it felt good

 just to cast and reel...it has been A LONG time since any of us have gone fishing.

 

 

We had a delicious dinner and then headed out to a nearby lake to take a walk and throw some rocks. We saw this sign on our way in. Scary. But sadly (or thankfully) we saw no wildlife at all --

unless you count the two large, very friendly dogs that wouldn't leave us alone!

Many of the kids were not content to just look and throw rocks. They had to go wading as well.

But surprise....they came out with their legs covered in leeches. Ewwwww!

We got to see the sunset and the moon come out over the lake. It was beautiful!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Monday morning we headed to Old Faithful. But we did two new things while we were there. We went into the new interactive museum. It was AWESOME. I can't believe we had never been inside before. The kids loved it and so did I.

 

 

 Old Faithful was as faithful and impressive as always.

We also went inside the Old Faithful Inn. This hotel has been here forever, and yet we'd never been inside it. It was amazing!! Truly awe-inspiring.

Everything is made of wood poles...and you could see up and up for story after story. I tried to capture it in pictures, but it just doesn't do it justice. Don't skip this on your next trip to Yellowstone.

And don't forget to come and visit us on your next trip to Yellowstone!!!!