A City Life For Me

After Yellowstone and a meeting in Wyoming, Ben took the kids and I back to my parent’s house in Denver.  We stayed there for a month while Ben went and had some meetings in California alone.  We had two reasons for splitting up:  first, we couldn’t find housing for all of us in CA, and it would be very costly to live in a hotel for a month; and second, because Ben needed some time alone to write his doctrinal papers for ordination.  The time in one place gave us some stability, and the kids were even able to take swimming lessons! Idaho potato fields Pinedale, WY. Playing soccer with Uncle Wesley.  Soccer is his game – he was thrilled.    Grandma made the Grands these adorable pool noodle stick horses! Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-A!   Elaine set up a school and thoroughly enjoyed teaching Aunt Jo!  She enjoyed her authority a little too much, perhaps – complete with rules! Fire breathing dragons!  (Toilet paper rolls and t...

Since we were out late at the rodeo last night, we slept in and had lunch over the fire pit at our campsite.  Then we drove into Yellowstone for some hiking and hoping to see a beautiful sunset.  We also stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs, which was a huge disappointment in my opinion! We turned off at Sheepeater Cliff mostly to use the facilities.  But the rock climbing attracted the kids, and they wanted to climb to the top of the cliff like everyone else.  The twins got scared and stayed in this place, Elaine gave up, but… …Nolan made it to the top!  So proud of him!  (It was the new “hiking boots” that helped him along!) Swan Lake was just south of Mammoth Hot Springs.  It was absolutely beautiful!  Just up the road is Bunsen Peak, our hiking objective for the day.  Swan Lake Flats Nolan, Elaine, and I did Mammoth Hot Springs while the three littles were napping in the van with Ben.  We were pretty disappointed in it, but Nolan enj...

We let the kids take a snooze in the car as we drove to and through the Lamar Valley.  Ben and I enjoyed the beautiful mountain vistas, hillsides covered in wildflowers, and then we found the huge buffalo herd.  The herd was positioned across the river, so we left the parking area and hiked down to the river’s edge.  We enjoyed seeing the buffalo closer up, and the kids loved skipping stones! Burn out trees, and wildflowers Henry enjoyed the rocks.  I pulled several out of his mouth! Nursing calf The kids had just watched the buffalo episode on Wild Kratts and they were excited to see a real buffalo taking a dust bath, just like in the show! After leaving the buffalo herd we encountered a lot of cars pulled off the edge of the road…where there wasn’t really a pull-off location.  We couldn’t see anything so we asked another person what everyone was looking at.  “A grizzly cub.”  We were so excited because the kids had been wanting to see ...