HKS Summer Party

Robby's work had their summer party on Saturday. We all got to ride on the Alpine slide in Park City. Well, Sarah didn't, but the rest of us did. We got to ride the lift up to the top of the slide.




Will and Savannah were tall enough to drive their own cars but they didn't dare to so Savannah waited at the bottom with Sarah (and Robby's coworkers) and Will rode with Robby while Isaac rode with me. (And we totally kicked their butts going down the slide. OK, so they had a slow girl in front of them that they had to stop for, but we still had them beat before that)

There was a little climbing area where the kids played while we waited for Savannah to take her turn.

Robby's coworker Hazel was nice enough to let Savannah go with her but at the top the people running the slide wouldn't let her ride with Hazel and made her drive her own sled. She was nervous but it turned out that she ended up with a really slow sled and it wasn't a very exciting ride for her. We complained and they gave us a free ride for all of us sometime between now and October! yay!

After the Alpine slide we went to a park and had a BBQ dinner. It was really fun!

It's Soccer Season Again!

Will is playing soccer again this season and Savannah decided to play again too. She hasn't played for four years so we were excited she wanted to give it another try.
Savannah is on a team with 14 girls and they are on a regular size field so it was a lot of running.



They ended up losing but it was a good experience to see what her team is going to be like and for Savannah to see what to expect. She is excited to play again in a couple of weeks after Labor Day.
Will's team is only 7 boys and they are on a smaller field like last year. He was so fired up to play and I was excited to see how they would do since he was on a really good team last year. They won almost all of their games. Will's first game was so exciting that I totally forgot to take any pictures. He wasn't very happy with me. Will ended up scoring 4 goals!!! He was all over the field and playing defence and scoring goals. It was awesome! Someone gave him a big dose of confidence. I hope it lasts through the season because he was so fun to watch and he was so happy and proud at the end of the game. It's going to be a good season I think!

Stuff that Didn't Make the Top Ten

There were a few things that didn't make it to the top ten list.
The Tetons were a much better place for us on this trip to spot animals. We didn't see very many animals in Yellowstone but we saw a lot in the short time we were in the Tetons.


Right after we drove into the Grand Teton National Park Will spotted what we thought at the time was an eagles nest. As we looked at the pictures later though we think that they are actually Osprey.


We saw an elk with a big rack. The only elk we saw in Yellowstone were females and babies so it was fun to see a male one finally.




And we saw a moose for just a second before he disappeared into the trees.


The road we took in and out of the park every day was really pretty. The first picture is in the morning and the second is in the evening.



We also saw some elk on this road in about the same spot a few times.


One area we visited in Yellowstone that was a bit disappointing was Mammoth Hot Springs.

I haven't been there but I guess this whole area used to covered in water and it was colorful. Now it is all dried up and white. It was still pretty cool looking, but I guess it used to be spectacular.

Overall it was a lot of hiking with not much to see. Kind of disappointing.

We did get some cute pictures of the kids at lunch at the old army base houses.

We stayed in Island Park in a cabin at Henry's Lake which is just a little ways outside of West Yellowstone. It was a pretty area, but the cabin wasn't as good as we had hoped. It was fine and it worked for us, but I guess we were just expecting it to be better.



Henry's Lake.


My memories of Yellowstone from when I was little were full of bison sightings. It seems like they were everywhere! I was therefore very surprised when we only saw ONE bison the whole time we were in Yellowstone.

Due to construction traffic we ended up getting out of the park to go home a lot later than we had planned. We thought we would be in Jackson Hole for lunch and home by dinner but we ended up getting to Jackson at about 7:00 pm and we did a little shopping before getting some dinner at around 8:30. We debated getting a hotel room and just going home the next day since it was so late, but we decided to just drive through and we ended up getting home at about 2:00 in the morning. It was such a long drive! And I must be getting old because I used to have no problem staying up that late but it was SO HARD to stay awake that long!

Luckily we decided to buy the kids each a blanket from the gift shop on the last day so they were comfy sleeping in the car the whole way home.

I think the kids favorite part of the trip was all the gift shops. Next time we decide to go on a trip we can just go to the airport in Salt Lake and let them shop at the gift shop and call it a vacation and they will be perfectly happy. No, they liked seeing everything too, but the gift shops were definitely a highlight for them. They had all saved their money for months and they were thrilled to be able to spend their money on whatever they wanted. Savannah ended up buying a stuffed wolf, a bag of shiny rocks, and a geode and we bought her a blanket and a rabbits foot. Will bought a big stuffed wolf, and a bow and arrow and we bought him a rabbits foot and a blanket. Isaac bought a slinky, a stuffed wolf, a bag of shiny rocks, a geode and we bought him a rabbits foot and a blanket and we bought Sarah a cute little animal backpack that she is in love with and a wooden snake that made Robby's mom cringe. It was funny because she said it was just not right to see a baby walking around holding a snake.

Will is thrilled to death with his bow and arrow. It was a really good find because it was only $10 and it has rubber tips so it is not too dangerous.
The kids also had fun earning their Junior Ranger badges. Luckily we were able to complete everything in time.

We had such a good vacation. I hope the kids are old enough that they will always remember it.

Yellowstone Top Ten #1 (Finally!)

1. Upper and Lower Falls

This was our second day in the park and we got a bit of a late start leaving the cabin that morning. Then when we got into the park we hit some construction traffic and ended up just sitting in one spot for over an hour. By the time we got to the Upper Falls it was lunch time so we found a spot by the parking lot and had some lunch. Savannah took the picture above and Will took the one below. Kim was nice to let them use her camera. We don't let them touch ours.

Will was ready to do some hiking.

It is just a short hike to the lookout at the top of the Upper Falls and it is unbelievable how much water is flowing down through that canyon!

After looking at the Upper Falls from right next to it we drove across the bridge and over to the other side to get a view from across the canyon.

If you look closely you can see the lookout point where all the people are standing on the right side of the picture in the middle. That's where we were in the pictures above.

Ready to go on the Uncle Tom's trail hike down to the bottom of the Lower Falls

This hike is really fun because you are walking down a huge metal staircase for about 3/4 of the hike. I remembered doing this one with my family when I was here last time and I was excited to see it again. The waterfall is spectacular! Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate to make this a good experience for us and it started hailing (In August! I know!!) right when we got to the bottom to enjoy the view of the falls. Isaac was the only one who stayed there long enough to get his picture taken with that view.

We had decided to leave the rain cover for the kid backpack in the car because we didn't think we would need it so when it started hailing on my poor baby's head I started climbing back up the steps as quickly as I could. Sarah just kept saying "Ow! Head!" over and over and then she started screaming. It was really sad. There was nothing I could really do for her but hurry up to the car. A nice girl hiking in front of me offered to cover Sarah up with her sweater. That helped a little and the girl was even nice enough to hike back up most of the way with us to let her use it even though she wasn't done hiking down yet. I love it when you get such kindness from random strangers. So even though I would have enjoyed the hike a lot more without the hailstorm, it still made number one on my list of things we saw in Yellowstone. Just look at this view!

Before we even got back to the top the hail stopped and the sun came out. We drove a little ways down the road to check out the view of the falls from Artist Point overlook.

Kim was nice enough to stay in the car with Sarah. She was done hiking for awhile.

There aren't many places I've seen that are prettier than this.

Yellowstone Top Ten #2

2. Old Faithful

It's the classic feature of Yellowstone, the thing that everyone stops to see, and it didn't disappoint. We were able to visit Old Faithful twice and the kids all said it was their favorite part of the trip (besides the gift shops, of course). The first time we saw it we checked the clock that predicts when it will erupt and we had about 20 minutes to wait. We ended up waiting for about 30 minutes before it finally gave us a good show. It was funny because it kept shooting up just a little bit and teasing us into thinking it was going to erupt any minute. I think the kids thought that was it. Isaac took a million pictures of Old Faithful before it even erupted. Then when it did erupt they were amazed!

The second time around was much better. We got there and it was only about 5 minutes before it erupted. The kids liked seeing it without the wait a lot more too.

We were so grateful to Amber and Spencer for letting us borrow their kid backpack. Sarah loved to ride in there and it was much easier than carrying her.

The area around Old Faithful is really pretty too.

Inside the Old Faithful Inn. That is such a cool old building.