Buffalo, Elk and Bears, OH MY!

We're off to a great start to the summer so far! The first week we mostly had a lot of fun playing, reading and enjoying not being in school. The second week of summer we went on our summer vacation! To start the trip off we met up with my parents in Yellowstone and enjoyed the park for 3 days. 

The boys loved exploring and hiking! They insisted on climbing every rock they came to. Even to the point that Dustin started climbing up a rock that was used as the boarder of a waterfall. Little stressful to imagine him falling to his death, but he lived.

It was a wet year for Yellowstone, so the rivers were extremely high and the waterfalls were massively huge!

They were so beautiful to see and impressive!

We saw lots of animals on our trip! Buffalo, Elk, Bears! The kids were extremely impressed and Dave and I were excited too! Neither of us had seen a bear in the wild before, and we were lucky enough to see grizzly and black bears.

We also got to have lunch with 3 elk. They were sitting in the middle of a field in the middle of town so we sat on a blanket close by and enjoyed watching them as we ate. They mostly laid around in the grass, but some times they would eat the grass and dandelions.

Yellowstone went a lot better this time than the last time we went (with just Logan). Last time Logan was scared of all the steam, but this time the boys loved the steam, all the colors and waterfalls!

Dustin said this one was the funniest of all the things we saw because it looked like bubbling mud. As you can tell, he was really impressed.

My favorite part of Yellowstone is always the Grand Prismatic. It's awesome to see the different colors.

The boys favorite part of Yellowstone was hands down Chippy the chipmunk! Yup, they fed him all our trailmix. It totally made the hike worth it.

The boys mostly did great hiking, but some times they needed help! Brooklyn was a little trooper too, although she mostly stayed in the baby backpack.

After Yellowstone we headed to my parent's house for a few days of visiting and spoiling! We had a birthday party for me (woohoo!), painted bird houses, visited the splash pad, a science museum, and did all kinds of fun things. We even got to see my brother Dan for one of our dinners. It was great to catch up with everyone and to just enjoy each other's company.

Soon after arriving home we went to Dave's work Lagoon day. Since he took the whole day off, we got to spend the whole day at Lagoon. We were there from 11am to 9pm. I was absolutely exhausted when we got home, but the kids had a blast riding the rides over and over again. Since we were there so early they got to ride the big rides several times without lines.

I took a picture of Brooklyn in this dress because it was my dress when I was a baby! I meant to look for a picture of me in it when I was at my parents house (I remember them having a picture of me with Grandpa Yoder at the DC Temple) but I forgot. But I thought it was appropriate to take a picture with the Irises that were in bloom since Grandma Yoder gave them to me.

This week has gone by in a flash! We have gone to the park twice this week, the splash pad twice, and done all kinds of picnics and fun activities. The kids won their first prize for getting along for the summer (I'm incentivizing them to get along). Hopefully they'll keep getting along.

Dave has been working on converting our garden to a square foot garden. We're afraid by the time he's done it will be too late in the year to actually start a garden, but I'm good with begging tomatoes off the neighbors this year. It will be a nice setup to have for the future.