Summer Road Trip

For our family vacation this summer, we headed up to Cody, Wyoming for a family reunion. My grandparents are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary this September, so their kids decided that this summer would be a great time to get together and celebrate with them.

We loaded up our car on Friday the 3rd for our 8 hour drive to Cody. I thought the boys would be so restless in the car that long, but they were great! They pretty much just watched movies the whole time. (praises to the build in DVD player in the car. I worship that thing) We arrived in town just in time for dinner with the whole family.

The next morning we headed downtown for the 4th of July parade. The boys were not that entertained, but did get some candy out of the deal. We then walked around the park to visit the vendor booths and eat some lunch. That night we all drove up the hill to a great spot to watch the fireworks that night.

On the 5th, we spent most of the morning preparing for my grandparents anniversary party. My step-mom and all of my aunts had spent two days preparing tons of food for all of the guests.
The food was great, and quite a few people showed up who had known my grandparents for many years. The kids and grandkids presented them with gifts. My dad gave his father a nice gold pocket watch, and a pretty necklace to his mom. I had purchased a digital frame for my grandparents, and before the trip I loaded it up with pictures of all their kids and grandkids. They really enjoyed looking at all the photos we set up for them.

B spent quite a while playing with his cousin Jimmy. Jimmy is 16, but he was really great to let B tag along after him. He even made rafts and boats out of twigs and gave them to B to race in the canal in my grandparents back yard. B was Jimmy's little shadow that whole day, and wouldn't even leave his side to go get icecream with Ben and I. After family pictures that eavening, we turned in early for our trip home the next morning.

B and Jimmy

My Dad's parents, and his 3 daughters and families.

We spent our time in Cody at my grandparent's lake house. We enjoyed the quite down time we got there, and the boys loved throwing rocks in the water.









We decided that on our last day we would take out time and sight-see through Yellowstone. My two sisters joined us, and we made a caravan to the park. On our drive we saw buffalo close enough to reach out and touch, and a black bear climbing up the hill next to the road. Do I have pictures of any of those things? Nope. I was too busy enjoying the sights to stop and take a picture. I only caught a few things on camera:

Some of us at our first stop: Fishing Bridge

After fishing bridge, we headed to Lake to the old Resort. This is a FABULOUS place to pull over to have lunch! Not many people come here, since there is a big store at Fishing Bridge, so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. Only a few other diners were there. We sat in the lodge by big windows that looked out onto Yellowstone Lake. It was quite an exciting lunch- as B and I were sitting at our table, something passed by my side and I heard a thud. I looked over to see that a baby bat had landed on our table! It flopped around and landed on the floor next to me. A diner near by grabbed a plate cover and trapped it underneath until an employee could come and get it outside. We looked up to see that there was a family of bats living in the ceiling in the huge log timbers. I thought it was cool, but it freaked B out and he went to sit at the table with his aunt Carrie. At least it didn't land in our food! That's as close to nature as your gonna get!

We drove around to a few more sight in the Geyser basin. B really liked the bubbling pools, but didn't like the steam that smelled like sulfur. It was really beautiful to walk around and enjoy.

Our last stop was at Old Faithful. We parked the car and walked up to it just minutes before it erupted. It was a great show, like always. Poor Christopher was so tuckered out that he slept almost the whole time. We spent a little while in the gift shops and got the boys some souvenirs. We then said goodbye to my sisters and headed off to Idaho falls.

We spent the last leg of our trip in Idaho Falls. We didn't feel like driving all night, so we stopped for the night at the Best Western. It was a great hotel, in an awesome location. We were right across the street from the Idaho Falls Temple, and about 12 steps across the street to the falls. We ended up getting a king suite, and invited my sister Halie and her husband Scott to join us. They stayed in the back bedroom, and the boys were on the pull-out couch. They thought that was great!

In the morning, we walked across the street to look at the falls. The boys chased the ducks and geese on the lawn, and threw rocks into the waterfall. It was a great way to start our morning. We packed up and headed home to enjoy some afternoon naps as a way to "recover" from our vacation. All in all, it was a great trip.