Family Vacation {2011}

This year's family vacation was to Cody, Wyoming.  Ever been?  GO!  You'll love it!  And your kids will, too.  Despite the length of this post, it's only a brief recap of our fun!  

Please be forewarned:  there are 60 pictures in this post.  Just so ya' know. I just counted them.

{Thursday}
We finally pulled out of town around 3 pm after my parents stopped to pick up what we couldn't fit in our car.  Two sleeping bags and a tent.  Kindof crucial to camping.  And we made our way to the John D. Rockefeller Park, just South of Yellowstone National Park.

driving through Jackson; "Are we there yet?"

the Grand Tetons

(I took a lot of pictures from the car windows while driving...

that was sure a learning experience!  and I got a gazillion awesome pictures.  

Plus it saved on time to not have to stop at every photo op.  LOL!)

When we couldn't cross the stream raging river to our intended campsite, we went with plan B.  Actually there was no plan B, but we quickly found another mosquito infested campground inside the park that worked great!  Got the tents set up and kids thrown in before the skitters could carry us off...though half a dozen tried to pick me up by my armpits.  That was slightly uncomfortable.  They were so thick we couldn't talk to communicate to get the tents set up any quicker.  And guess who forgot flashlights and bug spray?  Yup.  Me.  Good thing my mom shares.  :)

We finally crawled into sleeping bags at 10:30, but Kortlen still wanted to explore our 11' x 11' new home.  The little stinker didn't crash until midnight this first night.

{Friday}
We drove through Yellowstone park and around Yellowstone Lake, up to see Upper and Lower Falls, and even did the hike at Upper Falls.  We found a nice little picnic area (where yesterday a man was killed by a sow bear!) and ate, then meandered on down the road to find Cody, Wyoming.

Our gear.  I'm pretty sure my dad got a dozen
or two 'thumbs up' with his load!

All the way to Cody, the boys would ask, "Are we in Bear Country yet?"  I think they thought they'd at least see a Bernstein Bear or the likes of one.  We only saw lots of buffalo, a caribou, a baby moose, some birds, and other wild animals, namely tourists.  What is it with tourists taking pictures of bison less than 10 yards (that's 30 feet!) away??  ...and it wasn't just Asians...they just weren't thinking!!!

another 'through the car window photo
..see those people?  Their only mistake is being stupid.  LOL!  

Another drive-by picture...the water levels were so high, I couldn't
resist the gorgeous reflections!

Yellowstone Lake

Otter Creek

a quick stop at Grant Village - Tanner was asking
all kinds of questions about the YS fires
so this was the prefect place to stop!

Teaching Taylor about fire retardant.  Just kidding.  But I'm sure he was
rambling off something about fires to willing ears.

Tanner's favorite story to tell, and I quote, "Many years ago, in 1988, when my mudder was four years old, there were some people camping that started a fire.  It got into a big fire and burned down all these trees (picture hand gestures, and his mouth going a mile a minute)"...and he'd trail off with very specific details about the firefighters, the trees, animals, and how it all ended.  He only told this story once for my family, but practiced forty times in the car.  It had Ryan and I in tears, we were laughing so hard!

Upper Falls.  Simply gorgeous.

I forgot how STEEP the hike at Upper Falls was.
Ryan was a sport and carried Kortlen back up.
Our crew.

The rest of the crew.

Rainbow at Lower Falls

The sheer power behind this water and the falls
is stunning.  Simple stunning.

Yellowstone Canyon.
THESE rock walls are why
Yellowstone is called YELLOWSTONE.

quite the cute little trooper

"Caribou!  It's gonna be hoursssssssss before we can move!"
And it almost was.  People were parked in.the.road.

Another picture from the car - there was still A LOT of snow in Yellowstone.

The devastation of a fire about 4 years ago made a pretty big impact.

Entering a different geological region...the red cliffs were beautiful,
intriguing, and enormous.  Sorry about the shot through the
windshield...it's the best I could do.  

Camp was made at Ponderosa Camp Ground...nice showers, nice playground (that we were RIGHT next too...like, kids were swinging right next to our kitchen setup covering it all with a nice fluffy dust) just down the street from down town...It was so much fun to be there with my parents and siblings.  Tanner made numerous friends, and even got them to push him on the coveted rope swing...he exchanged phone numbers with a couple of boys, which made me laugh hysterically.  LOL!  They were probably 7 and 10, but they became playground buddies.   So far we haven't received any random phone calls. 

After getting things set up, a few of us embarked on an adventure while the rest of the crew ventured to a gun store (go figure).  I had spent a whole afternoon prior to our trip mapping out bike trails and places to ride, so I felt pretty prepared.  What I had failed to realize, was how many/much of the trails had really.steep.hills.  No biggie though.  I'm tough.  Oh, sure, they were fun going DOWN, until I remembered I had an extra 105 lbs pushing me and my bike wasn't really slowing down...and then getting back UP the hill before we even did the trail (my trailer wouldn't fit through the posts entering the trail so we went back to camp the long way) was totally hilarious.  Let's just say it wasn't as successful as I had pictured it.  Plus Taylor got mad at me and threw ONE flip flop and a binky out the trailer and didn't tell us till we were back.  I figured it was a small loss...I was too worn out to go look for a stupid sandal and binky.

I was exhausted, and the boys were cranky, so it was nice to have showers to get cleaned up in before bed.  Any time Kortlen would wake up in the night, he'd crawl around like a baby kitten looking for its mother's milk...whining, and trying to find me.  He slept with Ryan and I on top of our sleeping bags (too hot inside them!) and I was reminded why we don't co-sleep at home.

{Saturday}
A few bike rides were sneaked in before the day's activity...

Nothing like crashing for a morning nap.
(Kortlen)

Cody has THE most awesome museum.  The Buffalo Bill Historical Center.  I was honestly a little skeptical about going on vacation just to see a museum, but it had so much in it, we couldn't possibly get through it all.  There is actually FIVE museums under one roof.  The boys LOVED it for the most part.  I went through it on a 5 year-old's level, and didn't have the time to read every.single.thing. but did a lot of paraphrasing and explaining on Tanner's and Taylor's level.  My family was very helpful with the boys...we all took turns being their personal tour guides.  (Here's a gazillion MORE pictures!)

***Disclaimer:  the lighting in the museum was HORRIBLE...I tried my best to fix the pictures...but by the time I blurb this, the 47 60 pictures in this post will be 4x6 or smaller...so really, who cares?  LOL!***

Kortlen seeing if he can measure up to a bear...

Tanner and I had a pretty deep discussion about
why the inidans would force the buffalo
off of cliff to kill them...pretty deep.

LOVED the rocks!  I had to name them all off...good thing there was a key!

In each are of the Yellowstone Museum,
you could emboss a stamp on a card...I think there
were six or so areas in this ONE museum for the card.

more rocks...with a magnifying glass!

Have you ever had a five year old explain the
mechanics of a volcano?
Me neither.  Till this day.

Being silly with Auntie Katelyn.

How felt hats are made...

Had to try one on for size!

THE COOLEST Foosball table; Cowboys and Indians.

Taking a short breather

A quick visit to the Buffalo Bill Dam was super cool.  Well, it was really hot out, again, so Ryan stayed in the car while the boys slept and I took pictures...we revisited it on Sunday with the boys awake.

We went swimming at the Paul Stock Aquatic and Rec Center, which was a nice break from the heat.  We totally lucked out, because it was family day:  $5 for our group! The first time Tanner went to go down the giant slide, he missed the height marker by about a half inch.  So he just played in the kiddie area.  I was totally bummed he couldn't go down the slide.  Then as we were leaving, I spotted another 'height indicator' and Tanner was TOTALLY tall enough!  So I made my sister take him on the slide. When the guard at the top motioned him to the 'height indicator', Tanner took a seat on the guard's chair...then realized he needed to be measured, so he stood under the line...on his tippy-toes.  We were all roaring with laughter on deck!  The guard decided to let him go down, but wanted the guard at the bottom to catch him.  After a full minute of trying to get that guard's attention to catch (get in the water) Tanner, my boy was beaming!!!  He LOVED going down that slide...too bad we didn't figure it out sooner...one ride wasn't enough for him!

We ate at Bubba's BBQ after trying to find the Elk's BBQ...which by the time we found it, decided Bubba's would be a better eat.  LOL!  Kortlen didn't disappoint...he ate half of Ryan and I's Beef Brisket, and then some of my parents'.  He would get a bite from me, then Ryan, then his own handful, and the cycle just went on for a good 15 minutes.  He didn't slow down once!  LOL!

Finishing off his brothers' corn on the cob.

We also had tickets to the rodeo Saturday night.  It was a blast!  All the riders did really well, and although my boys were pretty antsy, we made it through.  Thanks to some $2 cotton candies and $2 bottles of water and only one bathroom trip, I'd say we did alright.  (Taylor had to go to the bathroom at least every 30 minutes for the past two days, so I was relieved when we didn't have an accident at the rodeo.)

Cody, Wyoming.
Rodeo Capital of the World.

waiting for things to get underway...

we had some pretty good seats in the shade!

goofing off...and still waiting...

finally!  some action!

and more action...these guys were awesome!

It was a great way to end our day.


{Sunday}
We attended church at the local ward, which also has a church history museum in the same building.  So while the ward members went on with their block meetings after Sacrament, we hung around in the 'museum'.  I didn't take any pictures, because they were having church, after all.  LOL!  There is a section of the building that has some beautiful murals that depict the various time periods of Church History beginning with the Restoration.  My father-in-law served his mission in Cody some 54 years earlier.  He told me the artist of the murals was Catholic...regardless of religion, the artist portrayed and painted the history beautifully!  I'm regretting not going back and getting some pictures.

Then headed BACK to the Buffalo Bill Museum to finish up what we didn't see on the first day:  The gun part...and the Indian part...pretty overwhelming in firearms exhibit.  I was surrounded by guns, lost, wandering through a maze of walls COVERED with guns...and I never did make it to the bottom floor, with an additional 2,000+ more guns.  It was a huge collection!

Ryan and I and our boys all needed a nap...and it was too hot to really have one in the tent, so we did what we used to do years ago...went for a drive till everyone fell asleep...then we drove to our favorite place to sleep in the summertime; the cemetery.  While it wasn't as cool as the cemetery next to our house, it did provide us with some shade to park the car and have a short nap in.

We went back to the Buffalo Bill Dam...

Buffalo Bill Reservoir

There was another little museum that was free, which had a miniature set-up of Cody.  It was just high enough that the boys couldn't see through the glass, but we heaved them up to push the buttons that made the trains go....

My favorite roadside stand of all:  Hat shop on wheels!

Then it was back to camp for some dutch oven dinner, a leisurely bike ride, and a long evening of visiting.  It was really quite this evening because everyone else in the campground (100+ people) had gone to the rodeo.

{Monday}
We were up and packed before 8 am (which is quite a feat, if you saw the picture of all that was packed in the truck and our cars!) and ready to go to the Parade down town.  We made a quick stop back at the museum to find a souvenir in the gift shop, a potty break and a pretty cool parade.  I probably took way too many pictures at the parade, but realized that something was funky with my camera...sorry about all the grainy pictures...apparently my iso was at 1600 all weekend...uhhhh...I didn't do it.

matchy-matchy for the parade

Once awake, Kortlen LOVED the parade!

Unwanted cinnamon taffy.  This was totally awesome.  

He especially loved the dum-dum sucker.
He bawled like I had cut his arms off when
I took the stick away. 

Drove home through Yellowstone Park's West Enterence, then hurried like crazy to unpack so we could get to bed.  We were so awesomely tired that we all fell asleep before the Melaleuca Fireworks Show in Idaho Falls got underway.  And that was fine with us!

If you made it this far...way to go!  I need to remember to break these long ones up into shorter, smaller posts.  My bad.