evan, lindsay, nina, elena and esther

Of everything amazing we saw the day we went to yellowstone, these feet were my favorite sight all day.

Years ago, Grandpa and Grandma Johnson bought a time share condo type thing in Island Park to start a family reunion the second week of every August. Some of my earliest memories are at the family reunion at Island Park. Like when I ran straight into the sliding glass door (i must have been 4 years old), and doing snipe hunts, rafting down the river, and seeing amazing lightning storms, and of course the family tradition of playing dirty dog (a canasta card game). Since we now live only about 40 minutes from there in Rexburg, we're able to go up for the weekend and then whatever other days we can dodge work we'll go up for special events. This year included a trip to Yellowstone, an amazing canoe ride, rope swinging into a freezing cold river, foosball, and lots of food and card games.

Here we showcase our adventures in Yellowstone, Evan and Nina's first trip ever! It was 'free fee' day so we didn't have to pay! What made it even more exciting was that President Obama and his family were all there that day visiting! My cousins aren't his biggest fans (to say the least) and there were 3 miles of cars backed up at Old Faithful to see him (I think people were less interested in the geyser than in him) when we arrived, so we opted to see buffalo and other sites instead. It was a fun trip! Even when I got pulled over for speeding without my license. The cop tricked me into thinking I'd get a ticket and then graciously let me go without one, I was so grateful.






How easy it would be pre national parks and warning signs, to be the guy wandering upon this nice little pond who hadn’t been told that it is hot enough to melt your skin and cook you. Yellowstone is dotted with tons and tons of these hot spring pools, most boiling and steaming and obviously hot. This is one of the less conspicuously HOT lakes. Burning hot! This is kind of like nina the other day who crawled straight over to the oven while a cheesecake was baking inside, and rested her sweet wee little hands on the door. Luckily she was protected by the oven’s door but she wouldn’t have known the difference if the door had been open! She doesn’t know what hot is yet for heavens sakes! For some reason this idea blew me away.





Listen closely. Dr Seuss would have a heyday with this. It was so amazing!!!!! It looks deceivingly normal, like the site of a mud fight. Tis not so. This is a… oh confounded, we don’t know! We mostly just know that mud FLOPS out of a certain spot near the middle of the action, flailing through the air like a wobbly pancake, and splats. The mindboggling part about it is that this thing goes and goes and goes and it never stops, not day or night, or any time. So this is not any ordinary mud hole. This is an ever-changing crusty hill of once (and still) boiling mud.



Next attraction - his sister mud hole – this was also amazing but the previous one held us in a trance for much longer. This one SERIOUSLY looked like white/gray paint, boiling. Right on the ground in front of our eyes. Mother nature. She is amazing.




Another cool thing.











Another Dr. Seuss moment (there were a lot). This one was manmade. Your eyes are not deceiving you. This is actually a school bus with not just a fence and back patio, but also an entire Volkswagen BUS welded onto its top for greater travelling comfort. And then painted orange and blue. Evan and I were proud to see Washington license plates.






What would yellowstone be without a huge meadow full of hundreds of living and breathing buffalo? It was a sight. Here's a couple of them.

I'm glad that we made it to yellowstone! A wish granted. Last summer, a few days before our anniversary Evan hinted at our surprise anniversary plans with a stone painted yellow (clever no?). I was pregnant and ill and it ended up snowing on June 2nd, the day we planned to go. So now we finally made it! And better yet, Nina was there with us this time.