Yellowstone

Our family decided to go camping for our family vacation this year, so we headed to one of our favorite places, Yellowstone National Park. We stopped and stayed the night in Idaho Falls on our way up and we enjoyed a walk around the falls and a nice view of the temple in the morning before heading on to Rexburg. The first part of our trip felt like a temple touring trip because of how many new temples we saw.

 This has to be some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen. Look at that background. That field is directly across the street from the Rexburg Temple. It was so picture perfect, so my kids humored their mother for a few photos.

 These next pictures are out of order, but they still cover our trip. We stayed at the Canyon Village campground and I thought it was the perfect location. It is central to the entire park, so everything is a reasonable drive away. Max ate a lot of dirt, and wore a lot of it too as he learned to walk on uneven ground and how not to fall off the picnic bench. The girls had fun exploring and Miguel was our hero. He took good care of us and always made us good meals by flashlight at night. Oh, but the mosquitoes were horrendous!!!

 On our last day we stopped at the Lower Falls trailhead to take a final hike with the kids. It was a long steep hike but the reward was amazing. I never knew you could go stand at the edge of the falls. One of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life. I had to give a lot of pep talks to Sophia and Gabriela as we tried to hike back up the mountain, but Julianne was a champ. She headed straight up with her Papi without any hesitation.

 We also saw a herd of bison in Hayden Valley and it must of been naptime, because they were laying down all over the place. Had to snap a picture of one of the cute calves.

 Sophia and Gabriela are, once again, certified Junior Rangers!!!

 Ok. so on our way up to Yellowstone, we stopped at a place called Yellowstone Bear World. I don't usually go for this kind of thing, but it was well worth it. We all loved it. And you would not see a bear that close in any zoo I know of, so if you are going by, you might ought to stop.

 It's a drive through park and the bears are just meandering around and will walk right beside your car. Kind of crazy and exciting.

 Everybody wanted a front row seat.

 They have a little petting zoo and Max turns out to be an animal fanatic. He gets really really excited when he sees animals.

 It's true, never try to escape a bear by going up a tree.

 They have some kiddy rides too.

 This is what the bears do when the guided tour bus stops and they through food out to them. Kind of looks like a circus.

 Max was into it.

 So on our way into Yellowstone we hit a point where it took us about 3-4 HOURS to go about 6 miles. Apparently there was a herd of buffalo in the road and they chose to navigate a narrow canyon to get to a clearing. It was so frustrating because they move at the pace of a turtle and will stand in the road and sleep. We ended up arriving at our tent at night and cooking dinner in the dark. Lovely!

 The kids enjoyed the hammock Miguel brought with us.

 We hiked along the Upper Rim of the Canyon .

 And spotted some enormous nests that the Osprey (large birds like eagles) had built with chicks in them.

 Miguel had to get a better look, so he busted out the telescope. The wildflowers were amazingly beautiful everywhere we went.

 Yep, that's the real thing. We spotted a mother blackbear with cubs and the ranger was nice enough to let us pull our car off to take these pictures from our car. She was pretty hidden and kind of hard to see from where we were, but it is always to exciting to find one. Thank goodness for zoom lenses.

 At Tower Falls, Julianne serenaded me all the way down the mountain with her harmonica. It made all the other hikers smile too.

 We got all the way down to the shore of the river and the girls could not resist getting in. Sophia made it out to the rock, and her sisters were soon to follow.

 On our way back to our campsite we saw this coyote that Miguel almost ran over. He crossed the road right in front of us and we also saw a fox too.

 This was on our hike to Artist's Paint Pots. The ground was spitting up this white mud and it sounded really neat.

There's my little animal spotter. And what did she find...this huge bull elk. That's a 10 pointer!

 We went to Old Faithful and while we waited the girls made some new friends with some kids that were from Herriman, UT, we ate Huckleberry Ice Cream, had a picnic where Miguel whipped up some black beans, cheese, and tortillas (that's being lucky enough to be married to a Mexican), and all the while the wind was picking up immensely.  Right before Old Faithful spewed, the wind was blowing really hard and we, along with everyone else, never put two and two together, because when it went off, everyone got hosed. I can now say that I've been showered by Old Faithful. It was hilarious!!! And I now have a new apreciation for how much water comes out of that thing.

This was our favorite view of the Tetons. We usually try to spot moose in these willow flats, but they had all the trails blocked because of recent bear activity. We love this country and all the beauty of the earth.