May 10th my older Brother Sunny got married in the Brigham City Temple to Mechelle Hanson. It was a beautiful day to unit 2 families! We love her already and her kids are so sweet. They are now a family of 6 great kids!
I didn't get a lot of pictures but I tried to take some when I wasn't in them or dealing with my rowdy kids. The one above is all the guys on the Workman side. Good looking guys!
They happy couple and their parents! After the ceremony and pictures we went to a catered lunch. It was really yummy! All cooked in dutch ovens.
Once the newly weds left for the honeymoon the cousins all came to spend the rest of the day together. In the evening Grandma and Grandpa took Ethan and Johnnie back to the temple to do some baptisms for the dead. It was special for Ethan to get to go to a temple other the Portland. He was very excited to get to go and Johnnie go to do the work for my great aunt, my mom's Aunt Mary Amanda (the amazing woman I am named after.) Next month mom and I will go finish her work in Portland!
The cousins had fun playing games
Ruth and Reagan seeing what they can get into! They were so cute together. I sure miss having them closer but we were so glad we got to come for the special day and spend time with them all!
The day after the wedding we left for Yellowstone. We had planned this trip for March but moved it when the wedding was announced. SOOO glad we did. Not only because we got to see family too but the park is still snowed in in March. I loved this painted buffalo. There are lots of them in West Yellowstone all different all over town. I was tempted to take pictures of all of them but figured... what would I do with all those pictures?
We saw lots of Elk! And Ruth got to "hike" in the back pack a lot. Good thing she loved it! It worked great at keeping her contained. I could only imagine keeping her on the trail and away from the dangers that are everywhere in the park! This was perfect! Good thing she is only a whopping 20 lbs at 3 1/2 years old!
We saw lots and lots of geysers!!!
I love these mud pots!!! It is like boiling mud only pretty colors. So it is like thick paint!
We also loved these deep blue pools. So pretty! Not so pretty smelling!
We saw buffalo. Not as many as we did several yeas ago but plenty.
These colored bacterial mats were so incredible. The colors were so cool. The kids always wanted to touch them but they were good at understanding that it wasn't a good idea. But often stuck their hand close so they could see how hot the water was.
These are off Old Faithful. We had to wait a while to see it go but it was worth it. These weren't taken at the highest point. It was funny just before it went off we had a Japanese tourist pusher her way right in front of us on a bench right in the middle of this family that was sitting in front of us that we had been visiting with. (I think they were LDS, but I didn't ask) So she pushed her self in between them and sat in front of me and the mom of the other family kept taking "family" pictures, with her right in the middle and she and I were giggling so hard about their "new" family member.
The Old Faithful Lodge amazes me. It is HUGE!
I had to take a picture of them all plugging their noses so we could remember the SMELL of Yellowstone.
Here is our little chipmunk friend. The kids loved to spot them on our little hikes. This one wasn't to afraid of us and stayed there long enough for me to get a few pictures.
My kids loved to rename all the Geysers, mud pots and things. They would wonder why someone would name it the name it and had think of a new one they thought was better.
This was one of my favorite bacterial mats... if you can have a favorite. They are just so pretty! It amazes me the things that God has created!
We saw some pretty water falls and this is one of 2 pictures on the whole trip we got a picture with me in it...
Beautiful view from top of one of the little hikes we took.
More boiling mud you can see if you look close some of the bubbles popping. I had to take a picture of the sign below. They were posted at most trails you hike warning you of the dangers of getting off the trail. My kids and I would laugh every time we saw it because there the kid is being disobedient and the mom is freaked out pointing at the kid and the dad isn't even paying attention. Back to the kid walking on.
These were at the top of a few of our hikes. The view was amazing and we had great hikers with us. They didn't complain in fact most of the time they wanted to hike more!
Here is a picture of some bear tracks we saw on the hike next to it there were some baby ones but they weren't as clear as these. The kids were really excited about the bear tracks. We saw lots of buffalo and elk tracks all where people aren't suppose to walk. Then we would see people tracks where people aren't suppose to walk. Hayden said after seeing this several times. "I think the people who are doing that are following Satan."
Here is one of the bears we saw. This was the closest one we saw. He was probably 50 or more yards away. Any closer I wouldn't have let the kids out of the car. Ruth kept wanting to pet the bear. I told her she couldn't or he would eat her hand. Ok maybe it was a lie but sometimes I need to get extreme to get her to listen...
These were taken at Yellowstone Grand Canyon. I hadn't been here since I was a little kid and don't remember being as amazed as I was this time. Pictures don't do it justice!!! I loved this giant piece of snow that looked like it was ready to break off into the waterfall. Part of me wanted to see it happen for the great title wave that would happen part of me was afraid it would happen thinking we would be soaked and cold!
If you look close you can see this stair case going down the wall of that canyon. It was a hiking trail you can take down to a look out. I WAS SOOOOO glad it was still closed. Amelia really wanted to hike it but I know I could not have done it!! I am so afraid of hikes. It is all I can do standing on solid ground hiking down the trail and switch backs and standing at the top of the canyon. I get dizzy and scared to get to close. NO WAY would I have done those stairs. I can't even go up a light house! Amelia was really disappointed about it though.
Yellowstone Grand canyon. Amazing!!!
We even got to play in the "snow" that was left over
This nest was pretty cool this ledge is one of those rocks that is sticking out in the middle of the canyon.
I got pretty sun burnt on this day. My neck and arms have nice farmer lines on them. I am really glad I bought a hat that morning. My face would have been much worse I am sure.
More Grand Canyon Pictures...
Funniest thing happened when I was taking this picture. While at the Canyon there were BUSES full of Japanese tourist there. They were pushing us out of the way for pictures. So we decided to kind of stay out of the way and let them finish and then we would take pictures. Then we were almost done Hayden climbed up here for me to take her picture and while I started taking the picture these nice Chinese people started taking pictures of her. Which I thought was kind of weird, but then they started following us to the parking lot and there were a bunch of them filming and taking pictures of all my kids getting right in Ruth's face in the back pack and everything. They weren't being mean just kind of weird to be photographed by strangers... There was another American older man walking next to Larry and Ruth and he was looking at us like he was trying to figure out who we were and why they were taking pictures of us. We let him know this was unusual. When he started to drive away he said, "How does it feel to be famous" I told him the Paparazzi follow us everywhere. We saw this man at the very next spot we stopped and he said we must of lost the paparazzi. I laughed and told him we ditched them. But it happened to us again later. My kids loved it! They felt like they were pretty cool. It thought it was funny but a little creepy. I thought what are they going to do with a bunch of pictures of my cute kids when they get home, scrapbook them, hang them on their wall? Who knows!?
Yellowstone lake still had tons of ice on it. It was amazing. The lake was HUGE and still mostly ice.
We drove over the continental divide 3 times in one day! It was pretty cool. Although the kids asked every time "whats the continental divide?"
Our last night there we ate at the fun little BBQ place it doesn't look like much from outside but the kids loved the bear here. And in the back there are these cool covered wagon tables. In the middle of the room there was a baby buffalo, coyote, and fake fire. (The animals were taxaderimed)
On our way home we saw this!!! A moose. I had wanted to see one the whole trip and then the morning we were headed home I saw her laying in the grass off the road. We stopped and turned around so I could take a picture.
Here are a few things we made lists of on our trip...States we were in Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming.
Temples we saw, Boise, Pocatello, Idaho Falls,Twin Falls, Brigham City.
Animals we saw Cows, horses, sheep, deer, antelope, crows, chipmunk, buffalo, elk, moose, bear, swan, coyote, and I know there were more but I lost the sheet today, I must have thrown it away when I was picking up yesterday.
And I had printed a sheet with all the states licence plates for each of the kids to see if we could find them all. I think I was the only one that stuck it out the whole trip. I was addicted and HAD to find them all! I didn't make it but I found all but Delaware, Louisiana, Mississippi, Massachusetts, New York (although my Brother in law texted me a picture of that one since that is where they live) South Carolina, and West Virgina. I got so excited every time I found a new one. The kids thought I was pretty funny!
Overall it was a wonderful trip. The kids loved the hotel (it had a pool and they got to go swimming at night before bed) and it had free breakfast with a cool machine that makes pancakes! We had a great time even if it was A LOT of time in the car together. I planned fun things to do while we drove and we hiked a lot in the park so it broke up the time we were in the car then. I didn't get pictures at Mammoth springs because my camera died but it was AMAZING as well.
Ruth loved the water fountain at the park and got her dress soaking wet. But she had a great time twirling around to try and get it to dry.
Often on the 3rd we try and go to the fireworks at the park. It is to crazy on the 4th to go. It is really nice that they do 2 days worth here! Tyrah was our "pink Ninja" Since it gets cool as soon as the sun went down we bundled up.
