Yellowstone Vacation

We just returned from an incredible vacation to Yellowstone National Park!  We flew into Denver and drove up through Cody, WY.  We stayed at some cabins just a few miles east of the east entrance to the park.  We spent 2 days exploring Yellowstone, 1 day in Cody, and 1 day in Grand Teton National Park before driving back to Denver.  I took over 850 pictures so here is just the highlights!

 

While in Denver we had to visit Coors stadium to see a Rockies game!  We always try to visit a stadium if we are in a town with a major league team.

 

The drive up to Cody was boring at first, but the scenery got much better along the way!

 

 

 

After road construction delay after delay, we finally got to our cabin...

 

 

Our view the first morning we pulled out onto the road to head to the park....

 

 

 

Mud volcano area of Yellowstone.

This was a cave that made sounds that sounded like a roaring dragon!

 

 

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone...

 



 

Mammoth Falls area...

 



After Mammoth Falls we saw an elk...

 

 



And then lots of elk!!

 



 

By the river on the Montana side...

 



 

The elk really like the Mammoth Springs area. 

There were several resting on the lawn of the hotel there.

 

 

Everywhere we went we seemed to see bison!

 



As we were heading out of the park on our first day we spotted a grizzly bear!!

 



Beautiful sunset on the lake...

 



 

 

2nd day at Yellowstone: 

The following few pics are from the upper geyser basin.  Of course, Old Faithful was going off as we were driving to it so we had to wait another hour to see it again.  We toured the area with these geysers.  I don't remember all of their names so they're not labeled.

 



 

Old Faithful not erupting...

And here is Old Faithful erupting.  Not the most spectacular thing at the park, but it is predictable.  And you just can't go to Yellowstone and NOT see it!

 



 

 

Prismatic Springs:

 



 

Geyser at prismatic spring area....

 

 

Gibbon Falls...

 

 

Artist Paint Pots....

 

 

Tower Fall:

 

 

Two of the three black bears we saw from the Tower Fall parking lot:

 

 

One of the two that were in the photo above.  The third one was on the other side of the road and we only saw him for a second or two so I didn't get any good pictures of him.

 

 

As we were leaving this day it rained. 

This is the rainbow that was above our cabin when the rain stopped.

 

 

 

The following day we spent in Cody, WY.  It was only about 45 minutes east of our cabin.

Our first stop there was the Buffalo Bill Dam...

 



 

Reservoir...

 

 

We spent the next few hours at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

This is a huge and quite awesome museum that is really 5 different museums under one roof!

There was....

The Yellowstone part,

The Plains Indian part,

 



The buffalo Bill part,

 



 

and the firearms part.

 

 

There was also a western art museum.  My son took pictures in there, but they are not on my computer so I don't have one to post.  It was great though.

 

This is one of the teepees outside the museum...

 

 

Our main reason for spending a day in Cody was so that we could go to mass that weekend.  We went to this nice little church that has an awesome view of a mountain behind it.

 

 

On the way home we saw a beautiful sunset

 



and deer!

 



 

The last day before we had to drive back to Denver we spent at the Grand Tetons.

 

I'll just let these views speak for themselves!

 

We saw several deer by the parking lot where we stopped to eat lunch...

 



 

More breathtaking views...

 

A grouse...

 

More breathtaking views...

 



 

Some bison...

Some pronghorn...

 

And even more breathtaking views!

 

Back at our cabin that night we had a deer come right up around

the cabin to munch on some foliage...

 

 

We were sad to leave our wonderful cabin and the beautiful area, but we had to get back home.

On the way we stopped in Cheyenne to take a picture in front of the capitol.  We try to do this whenever we visit or drive through a capitol city.  It was even raining, but we did it anyway!

 

We had a late afternoon flight out of Denver so we had time to do a little sightseeing there the next day.  We got up early and took a tour of the mint.  No cameras allowed so no pics of that.

We took our picture in front of the Colorado capitol too.

 

 

 

 

 

We also made a visit to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception there.  Look how beautiful it is...

 



 

We also went to the Denver museum of Nature and Science.  Yes, I can pack a lot into one day!!

 

 

Gem & Mineral exhibit....

 

Egyptian exhibit....

 

Gem carving exhibit....

 

We are now back at home getting everything fixed that broke before we left and we'll be starting school up again on Monday.  I'm also still doing laundry!!!  I wish I was back on vacation!  Especially since it was a lot cooler in Wyoming than it was in Texas!  Oh, well, there's always the next vacation to look forward to!

Yellowstone Lapboook

We have a trip to Yellowstone coming up soon so I wanted Claire to make a Yellowstone lapbook.  I couldn't find one anywhere so I just made my own.  I used the printable blank lapbook templates from homeschoolshare.com.  We had some of Claire's friends over and made an afternoon out of it.  I think the books turned out well.  I even made my very first power point presentation!  I think that worked very well....I had it on the TV and the kids could see everything really well and copy things really well.  And I didn't have to spell anything for anyone!!

Front:



First Folder:



 

Second Folder:

 

Back:

I found this Yellowstone word find online.

 

 

We took a break in between folders and made Indian Fry Bread from this recipe.

 

We talked about the different kind of rocks in Yellowstone.  I showed the kids examples of the three different kinds of rocks and erupted our own volcano when we were talking about igneous rocks.  I don't have a picture of that, but the kids really enjoyed it.  It was just the standard baking soda and vinegar volcano.  We also made our own geysers with Mentos and Diet Coke.  Three groups did the experiment, but this is the best picture I got of any of them.

 



 

Needless to say, the kids REALLY enjoyed this experiment!

 

It was a fun day and I can't wait to go to Yellowstone and see it in person!

It's been a while!

Boy, I sure have neglected my blog!!  I guess I just got busy with life.  I miss blogging though so I'm going to try to be a little better about updating.

We started school this week...not everything.  Claire still has gymnastics 3 mornings a week so we are only doing some subjects until her gym goes back to evening practices.  She's been doing great with her gymnastics.  She also got contacts for the first time this week so her gymnastics should improve!  She was having a hard time seeing the go ahead signal for vault at the meets.  I think contacts will help a lot.

The Beam is her favorite event....

Nathan is in the 11th grade this year.  I am not ready for this!!!  He's getting WAY too close to college...this mama bird is not ready for that just yet!  He's had a very active summer going to Pro-life Boot camp and a youth conference in Dallas.  He really enjoys all of the retreats.  I'm so glad we live in a area that offers so many to our young people. 

This is a picture of him at the DCYC conference this past weekend.  Think he's having fun??

Backyard Makeover

Over the last couple of months we've been redoing the backyard.  It's finally finished!!!  At least all the big jobs are finished.  There's still some trimming and stuff we need to do.

 

BEFORE...

AFTER...

 



 

Side yard before...

 

 

Side yard REALLY before.  This pic is from when we bought the house.  I'm including it because I never got a chance to take a before pic that showed the awful, wavy brick sidewalk!

 



 

 

Side yard after...

 Ignore the pile of bricks by the fence. 

That was the old sidewalk and my plan is to put it on the other side of the house for a garden area.

 

Back porch before...





 

 

Back porch after...





 

 

 



A little bit of the past...

My decorating style is rather ecclectic.  I really like to use meaningful things to decorate my home...pictures from a vacation or an interesting item we picked up while traveling, for example.  Recently, I've added some things from the past.

My dad collects antiques and has had this little cast iron stove for many years.  I've always loved it.  My mother always hated it.  So, when we moved into this house and had room for it they gave it to me.  It was in rough, rusty condition at first, but my husband cleaned it up and polished it.  He began doing that without me knowing so I didn't get a chance to take a before picture of it.  Here are the after pictures though.  We are using it as a side table in our library.

Another little project I started last summer was to frame some old black and white family photos from both my family and my husband's.  I went to a local thrift store and bought a bunch of frames.  I think I spent around $12 total!  I brought them home and spray painted them black.  I framed the pictures and hung them in our guest room.  I think they turned out nice.

 

 

Frames before...

and after...



I love that the pictures are relatives...some we knew, some we didn't.  The frames are all very different.  Most were cheap plastic or metal frames, but when you spray paint them all the same color they really work well together.


What's your decorating style?  Do you have any interesting items that have a good story behind them?

Lenten Project

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.  I had a last minute idea...a way to involve our whole family.  We had this cross leftover from a St. Helena costume from All Saints Day a couple years ago.  I nailed 40 nails in it.  We, as a family, are going to try to remove the nails during the 40 days of lent. 

They can only be removed by one of us doing an act of kindness for another person.  The rule is that you can't really be getting anything in return for the act.  For example, my son mows the neighbor lady's yard, but she pays him so that wouldn't count.  Doing things you are supposed to do anyway doesn't count either...daily chores, behaving in school, etc.  We are trying to focus on just being kind to others.

Yesterday, three of us managed to do something kind for another so we have already removed 3 nails!

You can't see the nails very well in the picture, but I used small picture hanging kind of nails and I didn't hammer them in too far so that we'd be able to just pull them out without a hammer.

Catching up!

Wow, I have totally been neglecting my blog this year!!!  We were all sick after Christmas, then I was busy planning the NYE party and then we started school again.  And then there was my birthday and Nathan's birthday.  We are also right in the middle of Claire's gymnastic season...she's already had 2 meets and has another this weekend.  She's doing great on Sr. Team.  She was ranked a Jr. Prep level 4 at her first meet and moved up to a Jr. Prep level 5 at her second meet.  I'm still learning what all of that means!!  In her first real meet she placed in the top 10 in every event and won 1st in beam.  She is still excited about that!!

She's been battling terrible allergies this week so I hope she's feeling better by Saturday for her next meet.  Here are a couple pics from the last meet....

 

And here's my 15 year old!!!!

I do not know where the time has gone.  It seems like just yesterday he was a baby!