Summer Vacation...a little late!

Or maybe a lot late!!

We went on a little vacation July 29th to August 1st this year. We went up to a cabin near Yellowstone with Dave, Melissa, Annika, Mieka and Jan & Jen. We had 1 day of travel there and 1 day back which left 2 full days there. It was a lot of fun and the traveling wasn't even too bad for the kids. Matthew did get a little bugged towards the end of each driving day, but he did pretty well.

Here are some pictures of our breakfast times. I took my blender and made smoothies so I could still be a little bit healthy. The picture in the bottom right corner is showing the first day making a smoothie. The berries had melted and refrozen so were stuck together. However, I did finally get them blended up and a smoothie made out of them. The kids enjoyed waking up and having their cousins right there to play with and have breakfast with. They were nice leisurely mornings with plenty of time to get everyone ready. That was very nice since I'm always late. :)

There was a small backyard at the cabin that basically melted into the golf course behind. We really enjoyed playing back there and enjoying the nice temperature. There was a little wild flower patch with trees growing around on one side and the kids loved to go in there. There were always birds there and Matthew wanted to hold one so bad. He would walk in there and very earnestly say "brty, brty, BRTY!" while pointing up at the little chirping birds. He got rather bugged a couple of times because he could not hold them. I think ever since we got to go and feed some birds and they landed on our hands, he thinks all birds are supposed to do that.

On the last night there, we had little races. It started out with the girls who raced around and around. They would start with their hand on Dave's hand as he said, "On your mark, get set, go!" They would race off and around the trees and come back and start all over again. After a while, Jan, Jenn and I raced at which point I got a beating from Janice. She elbowed me in the nose as we rounded the last corner and I was out. Never realized she was so competitive. We sure had a good laugh about that one. After that, Daniel challenged Janice to a race and totally whipped her. Then he ran backwards and still beat her by a fair amount. That was pretty funny. By that time, Mieka and Matthew decided they wanted in, so we did a couple with them while holding their hands. They were so cute waddling along as fast as they could. After all was said and done, we were pretty tired.

For one of the days we walked to the park in the morning and the kids really enjoyed themselves. Matthew especially loved the tire swing. It sure made me sick pretty quick though.

Later that day we rented ATVs and went out riding. The only picture we got was one with Matthew and Daniel while they were on it for about 1 minute together. Then Jan, Daniel, Emma and I went out. It was fun and the scenery was beautiful. We didn't go very fast because we had Emma. After that Dave, Melissa, Annika and Jenn went. I think they must have gone a little faster because they got back with about 1 hour before we had to return the ATVs so Daniel and I went by ourselves It was awesome. We were able to go really fast and it was so fun! I think next time though, I will invest in some goggles. I had so much sand in my eyes by the time we were done! It sure was a good time though.

The last day there, we went to Yellowstone. (According to Emma however, it was called "Yellowstones" and we were staying in a "cavin" not a cabin. :) Unfortunately Matthew had a blowout while we were driving there so we had to find some new pants for him. At the gift shop the only thing they had that was his size were these funny brown pajamas, so he looks a little silly in the pictures. Looking on the bright side, at least we were able to sit down and have some lunch at the gift shop and then see a really cool dog outside. I think the dog was Matthew's favorite thing that day!

Emma was really excited about seeing the geysers and had fun doing their Young Ranger program. She was able to fill out a booklet (with help from mommy) about the things that we saw as we walked around. Then when she was done, we showed it to the ranger and he gave her a keychain with a Young Ranger picture on it. She seemed to like it.

Matthew on the other hand was less than excited about it. He wanted to climb down off the walkway into the water and didn't really care when we told him that he would get an owie because the water was hot. :) Needless to say, he was a bit of a handful!

We went to a bear and wolf exhibit next. Fortunately, Matthew loved it and was much easier to handle since he couldn't climb the fence to get in and see touch the animals. It was pretty cool to see them close up and the children really loved it.

We had a great time on our little vacation!