Yellowstone

Our last week in Poky we took a quick (day) trip up to Yellowstone with Darin's mom. (The day trip wasn't necessarily quick, just the fact that it was a day only trip, in case that was unclear :). I have some great memories of my family camping in Yellowstone back in 2002 so it was really cool to see it again and share it with my other family. 

We somehow managed to get in to the park without a map, but while we were driving we found a nice spot to get out and walk around to see some sites.

 Maybe I'm weird, but I thought the boiling mud was super cool. I mean, BOILING mud. The bubbles were so big and prominent. Sans kids I could have stayed there watching for a good couple of minutes. Fascinating. 

  Shae's "actually, maybe I shouldn't have done this face."

We got to Old Faithful right as it was finishing off and had to wait another hour and a half before it blew again, so we ended up being here for quite awhile. It ended up being okay because it gave us some time to check out the gift shops and let the kids run around.

 Sharon got the kids this Bison stuffed animal which they both just love. Shae sleeps with it every night now. He named him Gar-Jack.

 Snatched this crazy busy girl for a quick selfie while waiting. And man, our hair colors are completely different. Sometimes I think I see more brown in it, but then pictures like this say otherwise. 

 For some reason when I came here 15 years ago, I don't recall Old Faithful being all that exciting. I remember there being other geysers near by that were way cooler than this one. I was happy to see that it actually did fulfill my geyser expectations that day.

 Bison!

 After Old Faithful we let the kids sleep while we drove up North to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. So so so pretty.

I may have been pretty cranky at one (or more) points of this trip while squeezed between the kids with Belén pinching my arm like crazy, but I really needed this beautiful day in nature. It was such a good reminder to me of the majesty and power of God.