Bunnies

On Father's day Penelope had her babies.  She delivered 5 kits, but 3 were dead.  Often first time mothers lose their entire litter, so two kits is pretty good.

It's been fun watching them grow, they are the most darling things!

 One day old.

 Three days old

 Three days old

 Five days old

Five days old.

Five days old.

Seven days old.

Seven days old.

Big Springs

 Our cabin was near Big Springs, which is, amazingly, a big spring.  We saw several moose there, in the evenings, but unfortunately I didn't have my camera.  There were three moose one night, and two in the water and two in the woods the next night.  I love moose!!  Here the kids are dipping their toes in the spring, which is ice cold and crystal clear.  A lot of people were filling up their canteens with clear spring water, but they probably didn't know that moose were peeing in it the night before.

Clara's hair cut

 Clara had her second hair cut.  Her first one was when she was 9 months old (chewing gum incident) and though I had decimated the baby mullet then, here we were, a year later, with more "party in the back".

 My Mom was kind enough to cut off the party ends, leaving us with business all around.

One of these days I'll have to take an after picture.

Photoshop isn't strong enough

We wanted a picture with all 9 grandkids in it, but apparently that is impossible at this stage.  So I'll just tell you which kid to look at in each photo!  We sat the kids in order of age, Austin, Clara, Evan, Tyson, Aubrey, Hyrum, Brielle, Mary, and Cassie.

 Photo #1: Evan

 Photo #2: Tyson

 Photo #3: Aubrey and Clara

 Photo #4:  Brielle and Mary (their best isn't great I'm afraid)

 Photo #5: Austin (he's pretty stoic in all of them)

Photo #6: Hyrum and Cassie

So there ya have it.  We won't be sending out any Christmas cards this decade!  ; )

Clara and Austin

 Clara LOVES her cousin Austin, or as she calls him, "Au-baby".

These two cousins had the best time running circles around trees, chasing each other, sharing food, and moving rocks from place to place.  Austin is 3 months younger than Clara, and I'm sure they'll be the best of buddies!  Actually all of the kids have some cousin close in age on my side, which I think is pretty fun.

We chose the one less traveled by...

 Our favorite Yellowstone excursion was the one off the beaten track.  My parent's have a friend that worked as a Yellowstone Ranger in his younger years, and he took us exploring where there wasn't a path or boardwalk to follow.

 We started the outing with a buffalo ride for all the children.  ; )

 Our guide, Tom, taught us how to tell the different temperatures of the thermal features.  Or you can try Hyrum's method, of reaching down and checking for yourself.  (Just kidding, this one was the temperature of a hot bathtub, and we were told it was okay to touch it)

It was fascinating to just walk off across a meadow and see steam rising up all around us.  We came across several mud pots, geysers, and vents. 

 The edge of a mud pot.

After walking for half a mile or so, our trip became really exciting.  The wind kicked up and the rain started, falling more and more heavily by the second.  In the end everyone had scooped up one or more children and we were rushing back to the cars as quickly as possible, trying to dodge around hot pots and bison bones as we stumbled through the slashing rain.  When we reached the cars we were all soaked!

Playing in the woods at lunch time.

Yellowstone

The first couple days in Yellowstone we visited the more well known geysers and hot pots, sticking to the board walks.  It was a lot of fun, I haven't been to Yellowstone in over 10 years (even though Russ and I lived in Montana for 3 years!).

 We stayed in an enormous "cabin" in Island Park.  It slept 30, and had more than enough room for the 19 of us.  The kids had a large loft type room with 6 twin beds, and a ping-pong table, foosball, and a tv.  Though they mostly wrestled and giggled the whole time, coming out to eat, or roast marshmallows, or to follow Caitlin around adoringly.

 June is a great time to visit the park.  All the buffalo (fine, fine, BISON) are having babies, and the adults are shedding their shaggy winter fur, scratching against the tree trunks and leaving clumps behind everywhere.

During the course of the vacation, each and every one of my family members mentally asked themselves "Would I jump in to rescue Hyrum?"  We didn't compare notes until the end, but the thought crossed everyone's mind.  He was easily the child most likely to need rescuing!  Fortunately we avoided all disasters.

 Clara loved running down the boardwalks.

 I could not get the older girls to pose "normally" for any picture.  They're lucky I'm not posting all of their goofy shots!!