Tie Dye

 The rest of July flew by.  We went on walks, outings, and such.  Some time in the middle of July Sammy finally learned to walk! (at 15 months)

 And we made a ridiculous amount of tie-dye.

 If you're going to tie-dye, go big or go home!!  Pretty sure the kids wore only tie dye the whole rest of the summer!

Yellowstone, part 2

 We spent 3 days with Scott and Brooke doing Yellowstone things.  It was a lot of fun.  The weather was great too.  The kids all participated in the Junior Ranger program, where they fill out pages in a booklet, participate in activities and in the end they earn a badge.

Then at night we'd put 6 of the kids to bed in one room that had bunk-beds (the youngest kids in with parents), and the adults would play games.

 These boys are trouble!

 See that way in the distance?  That's a grizzly bear!  We also saw deer, elk, buffalo, moose, eagles, osprey, and chipmunks.  : )

 More pictures near Old Faithful

Yellowstone

 After visiting with my family, we drove to Island Park, Idaho to stay in a cabin/house with Scott and Brooke's family.  The first day we went to the Yellowstone Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center.

 I howled at this wolf and soon he started howling, and then all the other wolves started howling.  It was the coolest sound.  After that I noticed the sign that says "Please don't howl at wolves."  : )

 Brielle and Hyrum, and their cousins Emma, Jonah and Eli, got to participate in the Junior Keeper event.  The grizzly bear keeper spoke to them about the bears, then gave them each a bucket of food, and they went into the bear enclosure and hid the food under rocks, logs, dirt, etc.  Then the kids came out, and 5 grizzly bears came running in to search for their food.  It was really neat to watch. 

 The cousins made one big stash, and covered it with all sorts of logs.

Grizzlies, sniffing out their hidden food.

 This bear found the treats that our kids hid.

Lots of cousins, posing for pictures.

 The next day we went to Yellowstone.  This is our first buffalo.  Below is our second buffalo, walking in the road right in front of us.

 The prismatic pool, (above) this is my favorite one (favorite thermal feature, not child).

 Waiting for Old Faithful to erupt.

This last photo is near our cabin, at Big Springs.  We went looking for moose, but unfortunately didn't find any this day.

Montana!!

 In the very beginning of July we drove to Montana to spend time with family.  Christian and Shannon were staying in Bozeman while they looked for an Orthodontic practice (all freshly graduated from Orthodontic school!) and Josh and Darcy live there, so we were only missing Matt and Caitlin (and they WERE missed).  It was so much fun!  We played outside, we played inside, the cousins made up innumerable plot-less plays and musicals to perform, we hiked, we went into the mountains and built a campfire to  make dinner and s'mores, and everyone just enjoyed being with each other!

 We visited the Museum of the Rockies.

 Brielle cowers while Forest Ranger Mary protects her with magic from Grizzly Cassie.

 The traveling exhibit was all about chocolate, beginning with the cacao pod and taking you through the process of turning it into actual chocolate.  They also showed all the uses throughout history and it's impact on past civilizations.  But yeah, chocolate. My type of exhibit!!

 One hot day we went to a spray park.  Hyrum is lying on a bench to dry out, kinda like a cat in the sun.  Below Clara is posing before running off again to prance through the spray features.

 Sam is my little water-baby, who never minds getting wet, not even if the water is cold or if it splashes his face.  All water is good water.

Russ and Sam getting their Montana on!! 

We went to West Yellowstone to see the play The Foreigner, which is the play Russell and I saw  in that same theater the weekend that he proposed to me 11 years ago.

 A couple photos from one of the countless plays.  I believe this one was titled "My Springville Mansion".

Dad is making us Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream here.  Fascinating and delicious!!!  Not everyone can get their hands on liquid nitrogen y'know!!