Bless This Mess

Here they are (finally)!!!  The last 2 days we spent in Yellowstone.

I apologize for the picture heavy post.

Day 5

Yellowstone Grand Canyon.

I took all these beautiful pictures and then…

A rainbow appeared!  So I had to take them all again!

Paul and I would have loved to do this hike with all the stairs, but I don’t think our girls would have been able to handle it.

That evening we went to the local park.

And had ice cream!

Day 6

We went to Bear World.

The girls got the opportunity to feed the Grizzly bears!!!

Inside the cage.

Look out for the bear!!!!!!!

If you think I’d really let my kids in a bear cage with the bears still in it, you must think I’m crazy!  Of course the bears weren’t in it.  I just super-imposed two pictures to make it look like they were in there with bears.

As soon as the kids left, the ravens moved in, until…

They let the bears in, then the ravens kept their distance.

They had wolves too.

In a bear trap.

Biggest bear ever!

Finally the Yellowstone posts are done!  Unless I decide to do a post with Ashley’s Yellowstone pics.  Hmm… we’ll see if I’m up for that.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Howdy ya’ll!  It’s Monday yet again.  Funny how those keep coming.

Last week we took the girls to Lagoon!

For those of you who know Lagoon, Ashley actually rode the white roller coaster and the Wild Mouse roller coaster!

Then there’s Eden who rode the white roller coaster, the Wild Mouse roller coaster and the Jet Star 2 roller coaster!!!  Eden’s fearless!

We rode the Rattlesnake Rapids twice in a row… before the line got incredibly long.

Mandy, being only 5, stuck to the kiddy rides.

We were there for 7 hours and the girls still didn’t want to go home!  They’re already begging to go back!

Over the 4th of July weekend, we went to Bear Lake for a FAMILY REUNION!!!

It was so fun seeing all my cousins and aunts and uncles again!  Well, almost all of them.  Out of 70 people in the family, 6 couldn’t make it.  We missed you Uncle Mike, Aunt Jana and family.  And we missed you too Travis.

The view of Bear Lake from the front deck.

My bros.

Mel

The scenery.

Mandy was playing ‘tag’ with the tether ball.

We had a jewelry exchange…

and a tie exchange.

We went to the lake one of the days for about 2 hours.  It was so busy, we ended up getting separated from everyone else.  So our girls played together and found lots of shells!

Uncle Dirk and Aunt Heidi did a water fight with everyone who wanted to join in.

Skit night.

Poor Amanda got Heat Stroke from being out in the hot sun all day.  She wasn’t doing very well that whole evening/night.

Horse shoes.

Our little family in our reunion shirts!  “Stronger Together Forever”

Mandy perked up for a couple of hours the next day, but it didn’t last very long.

I photoshopped myself into this picture below.

The indian name my mom gave me was ‘Loving Dove’.  I got to pick names for my children and husband.

Mandy is ‘Happy Gentle Brook’.

Eden is ‘Joyous Shining Stream’.

Ash is ‘Loving Courageous River’.

Paul is ‘Enduring Fox’.

Aunt Sandy showed everyone where people in our family have served missions.  (The picture shows is about half way through.)

I love my family!