Yellowstone Adventures

We made it back from our adventure to Yellowstone this weekend. We had a wonderful time and I even learned a few things.

1) Having highly active/energetic kids lends well to this type of vacation. We hiked them all over Yellowstone and they didn't complain! In fact, John and I are currently "the coolest parents ever for taking them to such a neat place!" We'll see how long the sentiment lasts.

2) Don't judge a cabin by it's outside. You may see this...



but really, you get this instead...




3) Never assume a hike is 2-year-old and 31 weeks pregnant-mom friendly. We were told by a park ranger that this hike would be the one of the easier options to view the falls in the canyon, so we decided Natalie and I would do that hike and later John and the older girls could do the other hikes while I camped out in the car during Natalie's nap.

View of the falls from the top

Halfway down, this is what we encountered...

Not all 300 stairs are pictured here

We decided we could do it anyway and resumed the hike, much to the delight of all the people passing us. It was funny hearing all of their comments such as, "Wow, you guys are brave." "Are you sure you want to finish this hike?" and my ultimate favorite, "Good luck with that" by a dude who was watching us start out at the top.

Proof of our insanity -


4) Bison are only interesting on day one of a Yellowstone adventure. After that, it's - "oh, it's just another bison on the side of the road."


5) Strollers are very handy for keeping curious two-year-olds out of dangerous hot spots.


6) Sometimes when our kids do embarrassing things, you just have to laugh because in the end, it really is funny.

One night we had just finished picking up our food in the cafeteria-style dining area near our cabin. As Alicia was taking her tray over to the cashier, she dumped her full glass of root beer onto the floor. John was a little frazzled, but we were able to flag down someone with a mop and quickly got a replacement tray for Alicia. Luckily her food had a cover on it, so none of it was destroyed by fizz.

After our meal was paid for, Kimberly started walking her tray over to the table when she conked her lemonade onto the floor too!! Eating was uneventful as everyone ate their yummy dinners, but of course...Natalie had to join the fun and dumped her drink onto the floor at the end. Poor John was not a happy camper - and all I could do was laugh and tell him how really funny the situation was. Thankfully, we had no more drink tipping experiences during the duration of our trip. Well, Kimberly did lose her water bottle over the edge of a cliff, but no one will notice, right?

Now to reward those of you who finished reading my lengthy novel entry, here are a few more pics:

Mammoth Hot Springs

Lake Yellowstone

Old Faithful

Another cool waterfall. There are a lot of waterfalls in Yellowstone!

More Mammoth Hot Springs