Thursday, October 2, 2008

Our little trip...

So...the boys and I went to the Tetons and Yellowstone a couple weekends ago. I had four days off from work and the boys aren't in full time daycare yet (starts on monday), so we took advantage. Here is our trip in photos and captions...


It rained on and off the whole time, but here is the rainbow we saw the first evening on our way back to our little cabin from the grocery store.



Boys watching movies and posing for mom in their matching glow in the dark dinosaur jammas.


The weather did make for some interesting low clouds.


William being silly by a lake in the Tetons while we were hiking, String Lake, I think. We didn't see any bears, thank goodness. We had treats in our backpack...hmmm....didn't know that was a no-no, and no bear spray. We got lucky.


Pretty lichen on the rocks just below Leigh Lake. Nice name for a lake, eh?


Just in time, we met a little family with two girls, who snapped this photo for us.


The boys enjoyed their snack, thankfully no bears to share with.


Pretty red plants and the Tetons in the background. There were too many clouds we never saw the summit of Grand Teton the whole time. Oh well. It was beautiful anyway.



The boys at Granite Hot Springs, just south of Jackson.


Eating lunch waiting for Old Faithful to erupt, we just missed it and had to wait about an hour and a half. It was VERY cold at this point and we were freezing.


Me and boys waiting some more.


William smiling, while waiting.


Rowen playing with the buckle on his backpack. I swear get this kid some buckles and he'll be happy forever.


Will and his new friend. Will is a really outgoing kid, he draws people to him wherever we go. Within minutes he had a few friends at the Teton visitors center who kept showing me things, saying "Has William seen this yet?" This kid is electric.


And at long last, she blows.


William and his "scary hands"...Dad...where did this come from?



Thankfully the boys took a nap at the same time as each other every day. In the car though, so no naps for mommy, just a few quiet scenic drives, which are pretty fun too.



The boys and I at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the lower falls of the Yellowstone River, gorgeous and dangerously steep. We mostly drove around in Yellowstone as opposed to walking around. William is too fast and too clumsy and doesn't listen well enough, I should have brought one of those leashes for kids that you see people using and you always think they are so controlling, well, yeah, those, I need one of those.


The falls again.


Don't approach the elk. Don't slow down to look at the elk or by any means take a photo of the elk, or the ranger might get p.o.'d at you, even if there are no cars behind you.


On the drive from Mammoth Hot Springs area it snowed on us for a minute and I thought of what a crazy young mom I am out in the middle of nowhere in the about to get dark hour in a snowstorm. But then it stopped and I got to feeling adventurous and fun again. And saw this beautiful sight.


We stayed in West Yellowstone the last night in a little hotel room. It was CCCCOLD there too. We woke up to ice all over the car. Then we tried to go out to get pancakes for breakfast and William's fingers got slammed in the door. He screamed for about two hours. We visited a little medical clinic in West Yellowstone, where some really nice nurses and docs listened to both kids screaming for a while and never did look at the bloody fingers. But they were nice and didn't charge me at all. Then we went to see this grizzly bear and a few others and a few wolves at the Grizzly Discovery Center. It was cool. We got a little set of toys of all the animals that we had seen in Yellowstone and then headed home.


William inside a bear trap.


Rowen inside a tee pee at the Grizzly place. He is such a cute kid.

And that's all she wrote. Tune in next fall for my...guaranteed never fail crazy mom needs to go on a road trip before she admits that winter is coming or she might go insane trip. Oh hell, she'll go insane anyway. But might as well go on a road trip first with the kids.