She's a walker

    I can not believe how fast this little lady is growing up.  She is full of spunk and energy and keeps us on our toes.  She has been taking steps for a while now, but walking in now her preferred method for getting from one place to another.

She is so fun to have around our house and thinks she is just as big as the other kids.

                                 

                      

As hard as it is for me to watch my baby getting so much older, I am so grateful that she is happy and healthy.  She has her moments and can throw a fit with the best of them, at our house we call them Emma fits, because she is the title holder around here. But since she is our 4th child we think it is pretty fun to sit back and watch, because eventually she will get over it and be her happy content self again in a mere matter of moments.  We love our silly baby.

Yellowstone-Day 4

 On the last day of our vacation we spent the day in West Yellowstone.  We went shopping and ate at a fabulous restaurant.  It was fun and relaxing.  These two pictures were the only ones I took this day.  These statues are all around the town, and the kids, although begrudgingly, let me take their picture by them.  It think they are pretty cool.

The kids said their favorite part was the old fashioned candy store.  We bought some taffy in about 10 different flavors, and for taffy it was really good.  After spending our day in town we headed back to the cabin and went on some cool bike rides and just relaxed.  It was a great vacation because it was so relaxing, which is just what we needed.  Tom especially loved it for the relaxing factor.  

We had such a great time, Yellowstone was amazing, as Emma said "Heavenly Father is a really good artist". She is exactly right it was beautiful.  The cabin was so nice and the perfect getway and the company was so much fun.  We look forward to going back in a few years.  Maybe after a trip to Disneyland that is not so much relaxing, but oh so much fun!

Yellowstone- Day 3

 As you drive through Yellowstone people will stop their cars for just about anything.  As we started or day we were in a traffic jam, the reason for the jam was this big guy, we named him Ted. He  walked right past our car, and the fact that cars and people were everywhere didn't phase him, it was pretty cool to be that close to such a huge animal in the wild.

 Our first stop was the paint pots.  These were pretty cool.  The mud popped out of the hole and splattered everywhere.  As we walked the trail C.J. decided that he needed to use some walking sticks.  It was so funny.  you can see the girl in the picture above, she followed in along the path taking his picture all along the way, there was also another woman who asked him if she could take his picture, he was happy to oblige.  Such a funny boy.

 We saw so many neat waterfalls this day.  They are beautiful and powerful.

 

Emma loved to look at the waterfalls, Allie wasn't so sure.  I think that noise was just too much for her, this is the face she gave me standing near the falls.

 We also drove to Yellowstone Lake.  This is a huge lake, it was almost like an ocean it was so big.  It was really windy when we were there, so we didn't stay too long, but I loved the look of this old hotel.  It is the Yellowstone Lake Hotel, and it is so cool.  The yellow bus in the front is what they use to take people on tours of Yellowstone.  I would love to stay there someday.

 This was the biggest waterfall that we hiked to.  It was beautiful and the hike was pretty easy.

 This hike was not easy.  If you read the sign it tells you that it is hard, but we had to try.  The kids did such a great job and hiked the whole way.  The trail was metal stairs that were attached to the side of a cliff that went down and just when you thought you were at the end the stairs would turn and keep doing further.

 This was part of the view at the end of the trail, an amazing waterfall that has a constant rainbow.

 This is what the trail looked like at the bottom, we had 328 steps to climb to make it back to the top, our legs were burning the entire way up, but we made it, and it was worth it.

 A huge portion of Yellowstone is in Madison County, so there were signs everywhere that had Madison's name on them, so we had to get a picture of he next to one of them.

 On our way out of the park we were met with another traffic jam, as we waited we were all trying to guess what animal they had stopped for..a squirrel, rabbit, elk, bison, duck, who knows, like I said people stopped for anything.  We were hoping it was a bear or a moose, the two animals that we hadn't seen, we lucked out this time, and it was a bear right across the river, I couldn't get a great picture, even out the top of our sunroof, but we can say that we did see a bear in the wild, pretty cool.

 We headed back to the cabin and spent time riding bikes, playing kick-ball and eating yummy food.  Allie enjoyed the ice cream, as you can see all over her, the older kids loved spending time on the deck.

 These two boys couldn't get enough of the Wii and I-pads, yes the cabin had a Wii, and our cute little Allie started walking all of the place while we were there. So fun.

Yellowstone Day-2

We started our first day in Yellowstone at the famous Old Faithful Geyser.

Watching hot water spewing out of a hole in the ground was pretty neat, and the fact that they can predict it is amazing to me, because it is different everyday and season of the year.

We had to wait for a while so we tried to find things to keep us entertained. This is most of the kids sitting, waiting patiently.

After a few minutes boredom set in and there was a lot of this going on..

and making a duck face out of Pringles is always entertaining.

We sat and watched the water shoot high into the air, just as was predicted.

After watching Old Faithful we walked around the area to look at all the different geysers and pools of water.  Here are just a few of them.  They were warm and stinky, but amazing too.

Yellowstone- Day1 Bear World

At the end of July we took a trip to Yellowstone.  We started our trip with a stop at Bear World.  You drive through a caged area that if full of different animals, bison, elk, dear, moose, and of course bears.  I was sure that this would be the closest we would get to the animals on our vacation, that was not the case, more on that to come. 

 As you drive through the park there are signs that tell you to keep the windows up,I may or may not have broken the rules, our windows were just to blurry to get good pictures.

 This albino elk was pretty amazing to see in real life, I was surprised at how big it really was.  Madison's comment was that he must be smart "because he was in the shade hangin' with the ladies"

 The bears were amazing as well.  I did keep the windows up as we passed them, I scare me a little bit, and the fact that someone had been killed by a bear in Yellowstone just a few weeks before our trip didn't help my fear.  There were a lot of bears to look at, most of them were just laying around, but this one was just walking down the paved path.

 The kiddie rides at Bear World were fun for the kids.  Think small carnival type rides.  It was great because they could just run from one ride to another, our kids were the perfect ages for these rides.

 Our four baby bears.

 There was also a petting zoo that the kids loved. The tiny fawn was so cute.

 This goat had the right idea, he knew just where the food came from, and had the waist line to prove it.

 Emma sat by this deer for a while petting her, she hardly moved, Emma loved it.

 The boys enjoyed feeding the deer

 and the girls the goat with horns, they wished they had a tin can to see if the goat would eat it.

 

Bear World was fun, now off to the cabin and more adventures in Yellowstone!