1 week. 20 people. 1 cabin. Yellowstone. We survived! part 1. Days 1 and 2.

 

It is a 9 hour drive from our house to Island Park, ID.  Where we were staying.  My in laws own a cabin up there.  We have spent a portion of our last 3 years going up and helping build it.  This was our first trip to be able to just enjoy it.

These are our vacation hats!

We decided to take the drive through Jackson Hole, Wy. and up over the Teton Pass.  We left in the middle of the night and arrived in Jackson Hole in time for breakfast.  (Luckily this was a trip my husband was going on with me and being in the oilfield, he is used to driving through the night often.)

We then finished our drive to Island Park and spent the first day resting and relaxing. 

Our second day we went into Virginia City, Montana then on to Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park in Montana. This is very worth it, and was what I called Route 66’d.  (When a new interstate came in and bypassed it). We did this trip with just our immediate family and my brother. Still a full car, but not 20 people.

In Virginia City we did a tour of the town, went to a fun museum and ate some amazing pizza. Our very favorite was the Gypsy Arcade.

Then on to the caverns.

They are very cool and my pictures do NOT do them justice.  So go on, head on up there for yourselves.

Stay tuned for day 3 which was packed full!

 

November Recap- Better late than never!

 

So much happened in November that I wasn’t able to do weekly wrap up posts so I decided to do a monthly wrap up.

November began with nice weather.

One day while driving around I spotted this little library.

How cool!

I had two freezer meal swaps for November. For one I made Lasagna and one I made Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole. These freezer meal swaps are lifesavers for me.  These meals will help me get through the months of November and December and still having dinner on the table.

Katey was in a cute little Thanksgiving play.  My friend and I sewed the costumes. The local newspaper even came and did a story on it!

Katey has always been a bug lover.  She is my little entomologist.  It was in November that she was first introduced to a live in person tarantula. She began begging for one for Christmas ever since.

I got an amazing deal on Onions, this 25lb bag was $4.99.  I wasn’t using them as fast I had hoped.  I decided to make and can homemade French Onion Soup.  It was my first time ever making it, and my first time ever using a pressure canner. I borrowed one from our local 4H office to use.  They sure were helpful in teaching me how to use it.  It wasn’t as hard or scary as I thought it would be.

Katey got her first pedicure!

She was in heaven!

Tommy and I had a blast on this really fun rope swing at a neighbors house.

Of course while I was in the city I went to a college football game!  Here is my Sister in law and I.

I went once a month grocery shopping for my first time.  I put a lot of planning into it and it will be it’s own post.  Watch for it! It’s a doosey!

Day Trip Scavenger Hunt

 

One of the fun things we did over the Summer was a special day trip with Katey.  It was a trip she really wanted to take. 

The Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum set up a scavenger hunt of all the DUP Historical Markers around our county.  It was a contest.  Once you got pictures of yourself at each of the 12 markers you could turn it in to win a gift basket.  Everyone entered and a name was drawn at the end of summer.  We didn’t win.  The girl that did looked so excited!  And we made some really great memories doing this.  All is well!

Now I will tell you something about me:  I love to stop and read historical markers.  In fact, I love it so much that I drive my husband crazy!  He always finds them interesting, however he is a deadline oriented guy.  I keep trying to tell him, it’s about the journey.  I still notice him trying to drive by them, hoping I won’t notice.

This was as much an opportunity for me as it was for Katey!

 

Her grandparents came to town to do this with us. 

 

We couldn’t find one of them.  We decided to ask when we went to turn her pictures in.  It was right out front of the museum. 

We learned so much about the history of our town.  I suggest one day you take the time to stop at historical markers!

Special Time with my little guy.

 

Our recreation program offers a fun Itty Bitty Ball program for young children. 

This is a mom and me type class.  You go twice a week for one hour each day and each week is a different sport.

This is our second year doing this program. Tyler just loves it!  He loves all the sports and he really loves the special one on one time. 

It has been really neat to watch him grow in his skills each year.  I am amazed at how much better he can dribble the basketball and play tennis than last year. 

Other sports he has learned are soccer, t-ball, and volleyball. 

I sign us up for Bitty Ball for 1 reason.  That reason is not to learn new sports.  That is just a bonus. 

I sign us up for the special one on one time I get with him.  I love that Bitty Ball is our special thing, where we get our special time.  I know Tyler loves it too!

Take time to spend with each of your children, even if you have to create the circumstances!

Let the good times slide…..

 

….. right down the hill! 

 

We took our family sledding to some hills near us.  We had a blast. 

Paul went down face first.  YEEE HAW!!

Na na na na na na na na Wipeout!

It was quite the hike up the hill. In fact, one of the kids that was with us said he thought he was going to die on the way down.  I said that I thought I was going to die on the way up. 

Tommy and Emily rode down together.

oh and crashed.

Emily landed on top of Tommy.

Everyone was fine.

And it was hilarious!!!

Happy Winter, Ya’ll

The day we went hunting for a Christmas Tree.

 

 

Where to begin? 

Oh, wait,  I know.  The beginning. 

First we went to purchase a permit.  I quickly learned that there are 2 types of Christmas Tree permits.  You can buy one from the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) or from the US Forest Service.  After looking at the maps, we chose to get a forest service permit. 

 

We waited a few weeks to go out hunting for it.

  

When we finally went we made a day of it.  We left early in the morning, and made many stops and hiked around in the snow looking for the right one. 

The entire family got along and we all agreed that everyone had to agree on the tree. 

Sometimes we took a break to do something fun! 

Finally!  We found the tree. I think we were all just getting hungry for lunch.  So we chose the best one we could see. 

We thought it was the perfect. and then…….

We got it in the truck then we realized we might have went a little “Clark Griswold”. 

 

We took the kids out to eat for lunch.  Which is hugely rare around here.  We rarely go out to dinner, let alone lunch.  We went to one of our favorite restaurants up in the mountains.   Everyone in there made comments about how big our tree was and how we were going to fit it in our house.

 

Getting to that…..

We had to practically cut it in half to fit it in our house. 

Once we got it in and decorated it it looks perfect, a little quirky, but perfect!

Here are a few of our favorite ornaments apart from the little red spiders we keep finding in it. 

 

This one is from the Capital Christmas Tree tour we took when they cut it down right near us.

This one has been one of my favorites for some time. My heritage is Scandinavian.  Painted eggs are a popular tradition of that.  This ornament is an actual egg decorated.  I store it very carefully and I am the only one allowed to put it on the tree.

This is our Santa Key, my mom purchased for the kids, since we don’t have a chimney. This is how Santa gets in.

I love the actual pinecones.

I also left our tree permit around the trunk as a decoration. 

This has been one of the more memorable things we have done seeing as it is also our first time ever using a real tree.

The kids have been really great about watering it too! 

As of now we are hoping to make this a tradition.

I even saved a slice of the trunk to make an ornament out of.  That will be our tradition, every time we cut a Christmas Tree down, we will take a slice of the trunk and create an ornament.