A wedding, a funeral, a vacation--oh my!

I'm well aware that we've been MIA for a couple of weeks. With good reason!

(WARNING: This post is going to be long. Skim the pictures if you'd rather!)

The first week of June was insane, in good and bad ways. Dan's beloved Uncle Phil was dying, so we spent as much of Sunday and Monday in SG as we could--he passed away early Tuesday morning, May 31st. Wednesday I was back in SG, with just the kids, to visit my parents who were staying in a condo down there. We spent the night and the kids had a wonderful time swimming and hanging out. Thursday we were back home, but not for long. On Friday, we were back in SG again, this time for the wedding of Dan's cousin's oldest son (this, for those who don't know the family, is also Uncle Phil's oldest grandson). The wedding was lovely, and we enjoyed visiting with everyone during the luncheon.

Set up for the wedding: Jaye Eves and I did this wall. :)

Trisha, Sarah and I ended up sending the kids off with their dads between the luncheon and the reception so we could help set up for the reception. Everything went well, but we did leave the reception early to get exhausted kids to bed. Thank goodness for my parents, who were still in SG and took the kids that night! Dan and I went home, because we had a million and one things to do the next day, as Saturday was Evelyn's baptism, and Sunday we left town for our first vacation of the summer. (Whew. This makes me tired just writing about it!)

Evelyn's baptism was lovely, though it was a little surreal to be there as both a mother *and* the primary president. (Luckily, the bishop's wife was there to pick up my slack!) We're so proud of her!

After the baptism, we had dinner at our house--soup, at Evelyn's request--but the best part was spending more time with people we love. We were so grateful Dan's Aunt Carolyn could make it, along with Tony and Jaye and their kids.

This picture cracks me up: not just because Tony is expertly holding the floor, but b/c my mom is in the background dealing with my weeds. So characteristic of both of them!

Andrew's new favorite small person: Juliette.

Sunday, we set off on vacation. We spent the first night at my parents' house, then drove up to Vernal, for a day in dinosaur land. (From here on, you get my notes from my vacation journal)

Day 1: Drove to Vernal in the am, then went to Dinosaur National Monument. The wall of dinosaurs was impressive—crazy to think of all the dinosaurs they found when the dig was originally discovered. We walked back down to the visitor’s center, which turned out to be very hot. Everyone was red and sweaty when we arrived back (and some of us a bit cranky). 

We drove back into Vernal (and took pictures with D—the pink dinosaur. Dina?) Went to the Natural History museum and learned about dinosaur digs and saw a bunch of dinosaur statues. Oliver took pictures like crazy (pretty sure he’s up to 300 pictures in the first day). Back to hotel to hang out; got allergy meds for Dan. Dinner was at a homestyle, local restaurant with crazy portions. Dan got chicken fried steak, salad, scone, mashed potatoes, soup and a vegetable (peas). The steak was okay; I liked my chicken strips better. The kids tried American scones for the first time and while they liked them the verdict was pretty unanimous: Dan’s scones are better. After recovering from dinner we went swimming; Oliver clung to me like crazy. But the swimming worked—the kids conked out pretty quickly after going to bed.

Oliver likes the one-foot pose for some reason. Note the omnipresent camera.

Day 2: Drove up toward flaming Gorge, then through S. Eastern Wyoming and Star Valley to Jackson. We stopped at Jim Bridger's trading fort in Wyoming. Andrew wasn't too excited, but it was actually pretty cool (though somehow I took no pictures of the actual fort). I was really interested in the military barracks, since part of my dissertation dealt with them. Spent the night in Jackson Hole.

Inside the head officer's house

A blurry picture of the Star Valley temple as we drove past--for my mom

Day 3: Up early, drove through Teton village intending to take a back country road through to Grand Teton National Park, but the road was closed for finishing June 7-9, so our timing was perfect. Drove back to Jackson, resumed our trek towards Grand Tetons. My guide book raved about a chuckwagon breakfast, so I dragged the family out hungry—and we hit the chuckwagon before it opened for the season (on the 11^th). Undeterred, we continued forward, stopping in Colter Bay where we found a breakfast establishment that *was* open (and offered an all-you-can-eat bar, so Andrew was in hog heaven). We then took a short hike to swan lake, where no swans were in offering. But the hike took us alongside the bay, which reflected the snow-capped Tetons, so most of us were happy. Evelyn was unhappy with all the horse poop on the trail (truth be told, so was Andrew), and Andrew was nervous because of all the signs saying we were in bear country. We didn’t see any bears (at least, not then).

Swan Lake sans Swans

Then we continued on into Yellowstone National Park. Our first major stop was Old Faithful, where the parking lot was so crowded we circled 2-3 times before waiting 5 minutes for someone to pull out. Luckily, this meant that we arrived just as Old Faithful was erupting—no wait time at all! Then we hauled the kids around geyser hill, where Andrew complained about  the walk and Oliver took pictures of everything that hissed or burbled (we had to delete some pictures so he had room on his camera).

After Old Faithful, we drove up around the loop to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone—after a short but intense series of switch backs, we got a spectacular view of the lower falls and the canyon. As penance, we had to carry Evelyn and Oliver back up the switch-backs.

The backdrop looks fake--but I promise, it's the real deal.

We’d hoped to have dinner further up the road at one of the lodges—but the lodge was closed for the season. (The downside of trying to beat all the summer crowds). Luckily, I had overpacked lunch supplies, so we had a nice picnic dinner and then drove to the Lamar valley, looking for wildlife. We saw a bunch of antelope and tons of bison—including a few that crossed the road right in front of us. On our way out of the park, we even saw bears: a solitary black bear, and a half mile or so later, a sow and her cub (this one was easy to spot because of all the rubber-necking at the side of the road). I was a little disappointed that we hadn’t seen any elk—and then we drove through Mammoth, where they were parked on almost every lawn. Still no moose or wolves though.

That's our car mirror, for some context on how close they were.

Day 4 Bozeman

Quieter day today. We hoped the kids would sleep in, but no such luck. (O didn’t go to bed until 9:30 or so—turns out he didn’t sleep in the car b/c he was sitting on a toadstool [our euphemism for poop in his pants]). We had breakfast at the hotel, bathed children and ourselves, and then we drove out near Hyalite canyon to look for the house my parents built, where I grew up. 

Memory is a funny thing: my memories from 11 don’t quite map onto what I find is the reality as an adult, but I did remember the long sweeping drive out of town through fields (most still there), and the long right-angle drive that takes us to the school I attended. My house, though, was missing. Either completely rebuilt or remodeled. (Later confirmed with parents: remodeled). Weird feeling, even though it’s been almost 30 years since I lived there. The woods behind the across-the-street neighbor’s house didn’t seem nearly so wild as they had when I was a kid either.

The house that used to be ours--it looked MUCH different then.

My old elementary school: K-8th grade, some grades combined

Original little red schoolhouse across the street; my sister had 2nd grade here

We went to the Museum of the Rockies where we saw a cool planetarium show (though O got bored) and some fascinating dinosaur museums. I learned T-rex might actually have been a scavenger and some think he might not even be the top Cretaceous predator, given how often they’ve found its skeleton in relation to other dinosaurs (though the docent explained their might be other things at work too—preservation bias, which favors dinosaurs living near streams and lakes, etc.). Upstairs they had an interactive children’s exhibit on Yellowstone which is just Oliver’s cup of tea.

We had lunch at the Roost (Bubby and Poppy had raved about it from their last trip to Bozeman, though they had called it the Coop, so we weren’t sure if they meant the local Co-op instead. Luckily, a docent at the museum suggested they might have meant the Roost). But they had wonderful fried chicken and mashed potatoes, though we ordered the family meal and it was so much it fed us for dinner as well!

Back to the hotel to swim (and play devices) before venturing out again after dinner (leftovers) to the Pickle Barrel for ice cream. After trying nearly a dozen flavors between us, 4 out of 5 settled on mint-chocolate chip. Let’s just say the apples don’t fall far from the tree. (I had buffalo chip: chocolate with caramel and peanuts and peanut butter and chunks of something like snickers. Yum.)

Bozeman sunset

Day 5:

Started with some early excitement. After not sleeping particularly well because of a painful spot in my chest/lower ribs, I ended up in the emergency room at 6 am. (Given my medical history, I always worry about chest pain, and this had been persistent all night and uncomfortable enough that I kept waking up. I also didn’t want to spend the next 8 hours in Yellowstone without access to medical care, if something really was wrong.) Luckily, it was early enough that there wasn’t much wait time and the blood work came back negative and we still managed to be on the road by 8:30 am. Saw a couple bald eagles on the way to Yellowstone. 

We stopped first at the Mammoth terrace. Andrew wasn’t super happy about more boardwalks, but even he conceded that it was pretty cool. We drove through some scenic byways.

Our next prospective stop (near Norris geyser area) was closed off, so we drove on to the Lake, stopping along the way at Sulphur springs, one of the most acidic springs in the park.

The very stinky sulphur spring (explaining my kids' pained expressions)

I didn’t realize there was a big freshwater lake in Yellowstone, but we had lunch at a lodge near the lake where we could see the water, and afterwards sat on the terrace in rocking chairs. We also tried to mail a letter, but our timing worked against us here too: we hit the post office during the hour it was closed for lunch.

Drove further around the lake to the West Thumb and explored some geysers just alongside the lake. This was one of my favorite spots—the boardwalk along the beach had a festive feel to it and the cool air blowing off the lake counteracted the hot steam from the geysers.

After vowing we wouldn’t go back to Old Faithful, we ended up there again anyway because the kids wanted ice cream and there wasn’t anywhere else close. But parking wasn’t as bad this time, and the peach ice cream was pronounced excellent. 

Further up the road we stopped at the Grand Prismatic Spring, which was insane—a waiting line just to get to the parking lot. But the springs were lovely, even if billows of steam occasionally meant I couldn’t see much! All the geysers were a little nerve-wracking. Oliver was usually good to hold our hands or ride on someone’s shoulders, but Andrew can be a little hurly burly, and the way he tried to squeeze through crowded boardwalks nearly stopped my heart. (If you haven’t seen the news, a 23-year-old kid died on Tuesday in Yellowstone after falling into a hot spring. To be fair, he’d clearly left the boardwalk, but still. I didn’t want to have to deal with anything like that).

This is pretty accurate about how happy Andrew was.

This one cracks me up. All the heat and steam: this girl is in her element.

By this point, the kids and grownups were pretty tired, so we wrapped up our Yellowstone visit and headed for the exit. We spent the night in Idaho Falls.

Day 6:

We spent the entire morning with friends from graduate school at Penn State, Corrie and Natalie Nichol. (It says something about how much we enjoyed ourselves that we took no pictures). We'd thought about spending some time in Idaho, but when we realized we were only four hours from Provo, we decided we'd rather spend the night in a familiar setting. 

We did stop for a brief detour at the Golden Spike historical site: the kids especially liked riding the hand-car.