Yellowstone National Park

We went to Yellowstone National Park last week. We drove to Burley ID. To meet up with Tim's sister and Father who had flown in from Tennessee. WE had a nice dinner with Tim's aunt who lives in Paul ID and several of her kids. It was fun to see everyone. We slept there and then drove to West Yellowstone the next morning. We made it to the cabin/lodge/apartment we were staying in that afternoon. A family had built a big guest house over there garage and they rent it out. It can easily sleep 15 people. It was new and clean and very nice. On Tuesday we went into Yellowstone and saw lots of bison, one of which cause a major traffic jam that took FOREVER to get through. We stopped at a waterfall and then went to Old Faithful. I have never been there before so that was pretty exciting. We headed home had dinner and hit the hay. Wednesday, we spent more time at the cabin because we were all pretty tired, We took the kids in to the Bear and Wolf discovery center. That was pretty cool. We stayed for quite a while. They have a kids keeper program where kids can come in a help feed the bears so we decided that we would do that on Thursday. Thursday morning I think we went swimming at Hebgen Lake which surrounded the place we were staying like a horseshoe. We were in the middle. Thursday, I can't totally remember that day but we did go to the feed the bears that evening and Then we went to the Playmill Theater and saw High School Musical. That was good but we didn't get done until almost 11 pm and the kids were spent. Morgan fell asleep just after intermission. On Friday we headed back in Yellowstone Park but went North toward Norris Geyser Basin. We stopped along the way and some hot pots and the Artist Painter Pots. There were some minor to major meltdowns from kids this day stemming for total exhaustion. Saturday we packed up and Headed back to Burley. Tim's sister Tracy found this Family fun center in Rigby called the Riot Zone. We stopped there and got everyone wristbands to the whole place. $25 dollars for adults and $20 for kids. I think Morgan was free. I thought that was pretty good because it was all access all day. We got there at noon and played and played and played until after 9 pm. It was SO fun. There were not very many people there so we did whatever whenever. Also we has our own shady grassy picnic area for napping. My niece Emily and I ran over to Wendy's and got dinner for everyone. After we finally dragged our sad tired bodies into the car we decided to get pizza in Idaho Falls. We took it to the banks of the river where thw falls are and ate on the grass. It was really nice. We thought maybe we would see fireworks but they were not until the 4th so we headed out. We didn't get to Burley until 12:30 am on Sunday. SOOO TIRED!! We slept as much as we could and then packed up the kids and headed back to WA. Another nice 8-9 hour drive. It's nice to be home but it has been 2 days and we have yet to recover.

Playing by the river.

Norris Geyser Basin




One of the Bears and the Discovery Center

Feeding the Bears

Old Faithful erupting

Hebgen Lake

Tim's Dad, Sister Tracy and Cousins

Feeding a wild squirrel

Cousins

View off of the front porch of the cabin
The rest of the pictures are of us playing at the Riot Zone in Rigby ID.

I really am a terrible blogger. Most of the time I think there is not to many super exciting things to report. However, the last few months have been super busy so I am only offering a tidbit of our activities. Zillah High School had their spring play. One of my Laurel girls had the lead role of Cinderella so we all went to see her. It was wonderful.


Tim showed up from work yesterday with this.





Today we went fishing. The kids LOVE it. It is pretty hard to take them all unless Tim and I are both there. I think we caught about 15 fish. The last one was a trout. I am sure they will want to go again very soon.
This weekend we are just relaxing. Won't that be nice!!!

We had a fun trip to Seattle this last weekend. Fun and exhausting! Tim took Friday off of work and we left that morning. We stopped at the outlet mall in North Bend. That was actually the first time I have shopped there in the 4 and some years that we have lived here. We stayed in Bellevue right by the Seattle Temple. I love the hotel we stay in. Huge breakfasts and a fun pool with a waterfall and really nice rooms. We hung out and went swimming then got ready and went to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. That was also a first. I have never been to a CPK before. I like it. Then we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.
The next day we had a huge breakfast and then loaded up and went to the Museum of Flight. That was pretty awesome. There is SO much to see there. We stayed for about 3 1/2 hours. We got to go into a real Concorde Jet and a jet used as Air Force One for JFK and Nixon among a few others. After the museum we went to lunch on the pier near The Public Market Place. And we walked around for quite a while. We wanted to take a family picture so I noticed a guy who was wearing a U of U jacket standing 15 or so feet away from us with a stroller. We asked him to take our picture. We said thanks and mentioned that we were from Utah and Tim graduated from the U. After a few seconds I realized that I went to high school with him and then he light bulb went on and we said each others name at the same time in shock. Then his wife walked up and same thing, we said each others names. Weird! It was pretty crazy running into them. I went to high school with the wife as well. I didn't know they had married each other. It was fun to visit for a few minutes. We headed back to the hotel for a swim. Then we loaded up again and headed to Bellevue Square (Mall) for shopping and dinner. We decided to go to the The Cheesecake Factory. Yum! Then back to the hotel. We were all TOTALLY exhausted. Sunday Morning we ate another huge yummy Breakfast and packed up to head home. All in all it was fun. There were a few meltdowns due to being tired but what can you do? Now it is time for laundry and catching up on Conference. The kids are back in school this morning after Spring Break and we all survived,,, BARELY!