Island Park Part III

2 1/2 hours into our drive, we stopped to get food and some gas. Re-energize for the remaining 3 hours we had left. We were placed in a booth by the window. For those who don't know, I was raised LDS. It is also know that Utah is completely different than all the other states. Some people in the church can be hypocritical (please done be offended). We ordered our food and past our window walked 2 gentlemen and 2 women dressed in full Sunday gear, It was a Sunday after all. Me, being the smart a, commented how they go to church and go out to eat afterwards. Trying to make a point that they don't hide anything and are not looked down on for attending church services then going out to eat. In Utah, you would get heck over that one. I KNOW these people were lds. I laughed thinking at how unbelievably different just one state was. Even A laughed too. Our discussion continued, lunch was served, our billed was paid and out the door we went. My mom then turned to us and said "did you see Elder L Tom Perry? he walked pasted your window." I leaned over to my sister and said "I'm going to hell..."

Friday:

Thursday was a late night for us. we learned our lesson. We got up early Friday morning, ate breakfast and got out the door as soon as possible. Today was the day that we headed up towards old faithful. I have to be honest and say that I prefer the mammoth side with the water falls than the pools. The pools weren't horrible, I just liked the waterfall side of Yellowstone better. Lucky for us the first stop was this amazing little detour turn off. It was so cool to be 50 feet above this rushing water. At one point near the top of the detour there is this parking lot, that has a trail down to the water with people jumping in the only calm spot of the river. Some in their underwear. Lucky for everyone down there, we didn't stop, so they didn't have to see my whiteness in all of its glory. My mom told us to make sure we went to the 'morning glory' pools because they were the best. Did you know that they no longer exist?? someone thought it would be brilliant to thrown things into the pool destroying them. there are signs everywhere warning to NOT do that. It is crazy to think that something so small like that can destroy something so big. I would tell you about each pool that we visited but that would get boring so here are some pictures:

Friday was our coolest day. A mere 72 degrees. It was perfect. we had a slight breeze, that would cause a chill. Hence the jackets.

 We had 2 stops left, one was on the way back down the parkway. We were at this particular stop when I finally got reception on my phone. We had a hot line number to call to find out when old faithful was due to go off. We had 20 minutes to drive there, find a spot and get over to old. Impossible, but we didn't want to wait another 1 1/2 hours for old to erupt so we pushed. We got there, found front row parking and headed back to the back side of the visitors center. We had front row seating. It was our lucky day. Withing minutes of getting there people started crowding in waiting patiently for old. She did not disappoint, she erupted, even early. It was perfect timing.

she was just finishing up her eruption. At least we got a picture with part of her :)

not quite at her full potential yet

It was almost dinner time when finished up with old. We had one more pool to hit on the way home. They are really stinky and at that point weren't really interesting in seeing another gurgling blue pool. But hey, we at lead drove by it! We headed home for the night, made dinner and kicked back to some games. I even tried to make some head bands with the kids that were on pintrest. complete fail too! but at least we had fun doing it in the process. We cleaned up and got the kids ready for bed and they adults play card games. but not before the kids attacked me with stickers (cheap entertainment).

Saturday:

Saturday was the day we all came up for. It was my dad's reunion. I was expecting people to start showing up at 11 maybe noon. Nope. Bright and early just before  8 they started showing up. It didn't leave much time to get things going. We played a few board games and then some of us headed inside to get our lunch going. We really had a good time talking and catching up. Seeing people that I haven't seen in years. many many years. This year it was small but we still had a good time. and who wouldn't in 80 degree shady pine trees???


after lunch we had our annual auction. The gifts are wrapped with descriptions (kid, girl, boy, adult, teen etc.) This is how we raise our money for the following year. It help pays for the food and other misc things that we may need for the reunion.

we put some ice in to the coolers for drinks and was getting ready to fill them up with water, but B had to get to the first. She was chowing down on the ice. I love this girl! I cannot get enough of her.

The kids were so in love with this dog. Poor dog, did not have a moment to himself!

This is my dad's only sister. She has been a huge example to me in my life. She hates the camera but she would take a picture just with me and only me. I love her to pieces. I don't know what i would do without her.

After the auction we took the kids between the two cabins to go a candy launch. I had seen one of these candy launchers and Bryce built me one. I think this was the best thing we did the entire week. We had the kids first, and half way through we had some more kids show up so we did another one. They went crazy!

 I told them to show me what they got. They were all to eager!

Even the adults got into it!

My dad's family is getting older and older. By 3 we were done and everyone packed up to go home. I have to say at this point I was getting sad that within 24 hours we were going to be nearly home. I didn't want to leave. The evening though was far from over. It was time to head back down to the river to go tubing again. and again. and again. and again  - times 5.

Crammed in my parents armada with 2 rafts and 8 tubes :)

My brother came up. We didn't think he was coming and showed up at the last minute. This is S. She is the newest member of our family. She LOVED the water

A  and S. A yelled "Sami, take a picture of me!" She is such a cheeser.

K and A with E and P in the back ground

E had more fun 'bum sliding' down the river then going in a tube.

K was warned to not get G wet. He did it anyways, and ended in the water

A #2 would not turn around if her life depended on it. This was about as good of a picture as I was going to get.

Bryce and G

G teaching A how to fish, without a pole.... or a net.

There is one of me! In all my whiteness glory!!!!!!!!

A showing me her fish she caught

We ran down the river as many times as we could. By 830 the sun was near down and we were all getting cold, so we headed over to macks inn lodge just across the parking lot to get ice cream. Ice cream before dinner no less. We headed back to the house, ate dinner, got the kids in the bath and started to pack up. We failed miserably on that part. Sunday morning we had to be out of the cabins by 11. We were up bright and early to pack up both cabins and clean them (it was minimal because they have cleaners but we still had to do a few things). We checked the cabins again to make sure nothing was left behind, and then rechecked them again. 10:45, we pulled out. I cried. I cried because it was just THAT great. I cried because I have to leave behind a place that I love. I cried because I don't know if I will get to see some of my family again. It was an awesome vacation that cannot be replaced. We pulled out of the dirt road, onto the neighborhood road, drove a mile down to the main road and 2 miles later Bryce said "see you next year."

I smiled.

Island Park Part II

 1 Million (trees)
1,935 (pictures taken)
200 (miles a day)
50 (family members)
25 (bison)
3 (moose)
2 (all because they fell in love)

Thursday:

Island Park holds a dear spot in my heart. I grew up there. I have memories for as long as I can remember there. Although, now, some of my memories are backwards (Mack's inn remaining chimney I though was on the South side - its on the north side). Even though they may be backwards - one thing remains the same. That is the only place I have memories of my grandma. Before I was born, my Grandpa and dad built an amazing cabin. My grandpa died when I was just a few months old so I have no memory of him. When he passed on - my dad got the cabin. Having 8 children, living 6 hours away, and financially having no means to take care of the place he sold it. Even though we sold the cabin, we always spent up to a week in Island Park. That was the legacy of the ward reunion.


Thursday morning didn't come as bright and early as it did on Wednesday, well for us anyways. My mom had heard some Elk right outside our cabin windows ( about 50 feet from theirs). We took our time getting up, eating breakfast and getting dressed. Not all of us wanted to do the same thing, so we split up into 3 groups. My parents went back into town. Both A's families went tubing down the river. Bryce, I, L and J decided we were going to head up to Yellowstone National Park. I had heard that they bears were up in Mammoth so we took off in that direction. We stopped off at every. single. point. We were so unprepared! I figured we would be gone a few hours and head back to the cabin, I was a few hours off. We saw tree after tree looking for animals. Did they even exist? We stopped off at waterfall after waterfall. We hiked, crawled, rolled our way through the park. We finally reached mammoth with no luck of bears. or wolves. or eagles. or anything.

Can you tell he is tired of the waterfalls????

Funny store behind this, I was trying to be silly and capture a 'car picture' like everyone does to post wherever. I was taking them of myself when my sister said "take on of you and Bryce" so I did, and I said "smile honey!!!" and that is the look I got. Awesomeness right there!!!!!

Totally photo bombed her picture right there. It looks so much better with me in it, right?

I was showing my nephew how to take a good picture of yourself, I am great at that!

Bryce and I did not have one single moment to ourselves. i though I was having a small intimate moment and I was caught!

By the time we reached mammoth, it was nearly 6 at night. We had run out of food (my sister didn't pack anything, luckily we over pack but we weren't planning on staying that late so we ran out) They had this small store but the prices we outrageous. We got what we needed to hold us over. I think I spent $20 on a bag of chips, dip and a drink for Bryce. We then started to head back stopping for a light dinner. On our way out of mammoth we found some animals! FINALLY! yes, I really was that close, and protected by a police officer.

 We were nearly complete with our loop when we found some more animals. That was basically all I went to see :)

Yes, I really did get that close to them too.

 We got back to the cabin shortly after 10. We ate an actual dinner, got cleaned up and headed to bed. It was a long exhausting day.


This picture below is a funny story.. kind of.



We took 2 water bottles with us. My sister grabbed 2 water bottles. I had no idea that there are NO WATER FOUNTAINS in Yellowstone. As a matter of fact, the bathrooms were disgusting! I held my pee for as long as I could. at about 4 I could not hold it any longer. We found a 'bookstore' that had no access to water fountains but the bathrooms were actually semi clean. It was great to see a semi clean bathroom that didn't make me dry heave 5 feet outside the door. They had vending machines (but no fountains, remember?) but who in their right mind would pay $2.00 for 14.5 oz of water????? We passed. Not far up the road there was a campground that had a water station. We were like 4 crazy people outside this little wood post doing a rain dance or something. We would stand there and fill up a water bottle and drink it before the next one was filled. It was insane. And I am sure people think we are a bunch of crazies here in Utah. Thanks to us!

 Too be continued...

Island Park Part 1

Just yesterday, we came home from one awesome vacation. I have been counting down the days until I could leave work and go to a place that i cherish with all of my heart. Island Park, Idaho. If you have not been up there - you are missing out. Currently my house is a complete disaster, but I don't care because I have to blog about IP. I cried yesterday when we left. It was a vacation that both of relaxed more than we have in a long time. 15 minutes in to the LONG drive home - Bryce was already making plans for next year.... Let me start from the beginning. (This will be in at least a 2 post series - possible 3). Oh and sorry for the picture overload. Apparently the 1,935 pictures I took wasn't enough!

On Tuesday our little adventure started. Both of us had to go to work - Bryce had a meeting and I had to pay some bills. I could not get out of there fast enough. The night before we packed my car to the brim with everything but our coolers. Around noon I got home, threw the coolers in the car and we were on the road. I have been on a diet the past 6 weeks and this was one week I was going to break my diet. It was well deserved. Since I was little little little, we had a tradition of going to island park. I have great memories of my grandma ward there. That was the only time I got to see her. You have Big Springs, McCray's bridge, Island park reservoirs, Henry's lake and of course West Yellowstone. I was a bit worried that this place seems so great to me since its the only place I have memories of my grandma, but since Bryce has already planned next year's trip - well that explains it all. Every time we would go to Idaho growing up (the 2 times - once for my dad's reunion and once for my mom's) we would stop at this burger joint. How was I suppose to know that it would be huge in my 20 something year!

Home of the 'big ben'. yep I got a big ben! It was as delicious as I remember.

After we filled our tummies, we made the remainder 5 hour journey to our home away from home. You could tell when we were getting close. i was so antsy. I kept looking at my phone and watching the little blue button following the highway until we needed to turn off. I was so busy watching that i failed to take pictures. I would point out 'That is the street to island park reservoir.' 'that is the street of my grandparents cabin' ' there is mack's inn!!!!!!' HERE IS OUR TURN OFFFFFFFFF!!!!!! yeah I was that girl. I was like a kid on Christmas. My family was so thoughtful to have dinner made for us when we arrived. We ate quickly and headed over to get things unpacked and situated for the night. We had 5 days of awesomeness ahead of us.

Wednesday morning came bright and early. As a little girl I remember doing a 'hunt for our breakfast'. I have awesome memories that I wanted to create for our next generation. Luckily my sister is a freak and wakes up before the sun is up to run... We got up just after she returned to set out breakfast. We tied cereal, juices and fruit around trees. When the kids got up, we had them convinced that the animals did it. The animals stole their breakfast. Even the adults got in to it. WARNING: pictures below may contain us in all our morning glory. Be prepared to run away screaming!

How did a picture of me end up in there????

After we took down all of the yummy food from the trees so we didn't have cute cuddly bears come visit us, we headed inside for breakfast. Us adults are a little slow because this is what I found after I was done eating:

Yep, that was the bottom of the entertainment center. That is what i call cheap entertainment.

After we got all of the kids ready along with ourselves we decided to head over to West Yellowstone to do some shopping. There was not one person who left without getting anything. I have a things for jackets (and scarves) and I bought this cute adorable jacket. I cannot wait to wear it! after a few hours of shopping, we were all hungry and since it was my sister's birthday, we decided to go out to eat. We found this cute little restaurant on main street. I cant remember what is was called but the food was pretty dang good. We still weren't finish shopping for the day, so after lunch we hit up a few more stores along with an ice cream store where my dad bought all of us ice cream. Our last stop of the day was this old school looking candy store. It has penny candies that i remember getting from when I was a little girl. I love that Yellowstone hasn't changed much in the past 25 years. They have added more houses but it still has the quiet town feel and it has all the shops I grew up with and loved. It was so fun to watch my nieces and nephews go in to the same stores I did when I was young and get excited to buy some new toy that cost a buck!

By the time we got back to the cabin it was near dinner time. Since we had a late lunch, we were not quite hungry yet and there was enough time to go tubing down the river - another classic since I was just a tiny little thing. I was expecting to do the short cut version but my mom told us she would drop us off a little higher since there was time. (this is where the only part of the trip went south). My sister A, Bryce and I took K, E, and J. This is what it looked like in the car:

and we still had 2 tubes strapped to the top of the roof.

We are off! (let me remind you that this was at almost 6 at night)

I was told that the shortcut was less than 20 minutes from the bridge. As a child, we would float about a mile down the river, pass mack's inn, go under the bridge and get out, where my parents were waiting to hauls us back up and do it all over again. I figured we were about a mile up. The water was freezing but the sun was still out so we were fine. Normally, I wouldn't mind the relaxing trip down but about 2 hours in, I kept asking A 'have we passed the shortcut yet?' and she would tell me no. None of the route looked the least bit familiar. We had a group that climbed in at the same time as us. Somewhere along the way we gained the lead, then they would pass us, then we would pass them. At this point I had 3 very cold children who were shivering with lips chattering. I grabbed E and stuck her on my lap, wrapped my legs around her and continued to rub her legs to give her some sort of warmth. About 30 minutes in to our ride the sun hid out behind a huge cloud. We are now sitting close to 8 with the short cut no where in sight. We were ahead of the group that got in at the same time as us but not by far. We rounded a bend hoping we would see the bridge. And there she was. A giant MAMA MOOSE. The people behind us had no children. I saw things going south really quick. They were noisey, yelling, waving their hands trying to get the attention of the mama who was 20 yards from where I was floating (with a Young child on my lap that did not belong to me). What they didn't see was about 10 yards in front of her was 2 babies. I got really nervous when I saw that moose turn and start coming right where we were. I know that 1. you don't cross a moose - especially a mama and 2. they can run a hell of alot faster than I can in water and 3. I had children that I was responsible for and expected to protect. As that moose turned and started coming towards us I gently grabbed the back of E's life jacket. Luckily i was right next to my sister A. I was ready to throw E as far as I could in case mama M decided it was time to attack. about 3 seconds after that is when her babies ran behind her and she turned back towards them. I have never been so scared in my life! It was a second and a half after that, that I started yelling at the people behind us to 'shut up' because we had young children. I was frustrated that they were trying to get the moose' attention when they are full grown ups and should know better.

after my heart slowed down a bit we kept floating down the river. I could see the kids shivering more with the teeth chattering away. We were hungry and cold. I could even see Bryce start to slowly wear away also. after 30 more minutes I grabbed J and told him to run to a cabin to call his mom. as he got half way up there A yelled that she thinks we were on the last bend to the shortcut. Sure enough she was right. And instead of floating all the way from the shortcut to the bridge my mom was there waiting at the short cut drop off. I was tired and concerned for the kids. I had got out right after the moose incident to pushed Bryce and E while A pushed K and J. Here we are coming around the bend - I know we don't look happy. 

I was the first to get out - I jumped out and grabbed blankets, told my mom to turn on the heater. One by one, we plucked the kids out of the water - took off their shoes and life jackets, wrapped them in towel and put them in a warm vehicle. Next I grabbed Bryce, wrapped him in a towel (He was spasming at this point) and stuck him in the front seat. We had the car turned up to 90 degrees. toasty warm. A and I tied the tubes to the roof and home we went. We got home shortly after 9 to nice warm soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. We threw the kids in a nice warm bath and let them eat there (gross I know but they were cold and hungry) By 10:30 we were fed, warm and in bed.

To be continued....