The Rest of Yellowstone

July 10th--Fishing Bridge and Hot Pots

 Noah playing with his trucks in the morning. 

 Headed out to see the Hot pots; stopped in at Fishing Bridge to shop and eat lunch.  

Charee and her kids

 Tiff and her boys

 Tad and his family

 Grandma and Grandpa with Bella, Paige and Noah

 Garrett and Maggie

 Waiting outside while people finished shopping.  My poor dad trying to take a nap. 

(Still recovering from his mono)

 Tiff, dad, Charee, Tad and me

looking at hot pots around Yellowstone Lake

 Maggie and Bella

 Cute Bella in her new Yellowstone hat

 Noah

 Beautiful views

 Lydia and Paige and some mud pots

 Grandpa and Bella

 Tad, Solviej and Iris

 Back at camp, Tad trying to relax in grandpa's chair

 kids playing

Bella--loving the dirt!

Good times camping.

We walked down to the lake again, but this time we kept getting whiffs of throw-up, so we didn't stay long.  Yuck!

 Making s'mores after dinner.  My nephew Hayden and I were having a marshmallow cook-off.  Trying to see who could cook the best marshmallow.  

 It was pretty close.  He's pretty good at it!

July 11--More hot pots and Tower Falls

 Dragon's breath

 Lydia watching dragon's breath

 Bella NOT enjoying the smell

 A huge buffalo was resting around the hot pots soaking up the steam.

A family picture...

 ...and then my niece Emily, photo bombed our picture.  I thought it was hilarious!

 Waiting in line to use the restrooms

 Stopping for a picnic lunch

 Then we drove up to Tower Falls.  This is Noah in front of the falls.

 a better picture of the falls. 

 Tad, Charee, Me and Tiff hiking down

 When we were kids, you used to be able to hike all the way down to the bottom of the falls and get wet from the spray.  Now they have it blocked off about 3/4 of the way down.  Bummer.  This is a view of the river where the trail stops.  You can't even see the falls anymore.  

 Some of the older kids, and Tad, Tiff and Charee hiked down to the river a different way.  This is maggie and Lydia (sliding down on her bum).

 The kids went out on this rock in the river.  Maggie, Rachel, Emily, Lydia, Grant, Hayden and Micah. 

Lydia and Micah came back up, but the rest stayed down to see if they could get to the falls.  

 This is them hiking over to the falls.  They never could find a way over though.  

 They saw this deer down there.

So me, Lydia, John, Micah, Mailei, Solviej and Iris hiked back to the top to meet up with grandma and grandpa and Garrett, Noah, Bella and Paige.  

Grandpa treated everyone to ice cream.  Sort of a tradition at tower.  

Enjoying our ice cream

 and watching a squirrell eat our crumbs.  

 When we went to Yellowstone back in 2000 (I think), Tad had just gotten off his mission (which is where he met Solviej).  While we were at Tower, he was really missing her and he called her from this phone booth.  Tiff thought it would be fun to get a picture of Tad and Solviej in the phone booth.  The pictures turned out cute!

 cute little couple!

 Hanging out by the fire after getting home.  

It was a long drive back from Tower and by the time we got back, it was kind of too late to cook any dinner.  Plus, it had started to rain.  So we headed over to the Grant Village stores and they had a grill in there.  So we got dinner there.  Maggie got a migraine on the way home from Tower, so she stayed in the trailer with Garrett.  After it stopped raining, then we sat out by the fire.  

July 12--Last Day

 Some of the younger cousins hanging out in grandpa's truck while we packed up. 

Iris, Mailei, Micah, Grant, Noah, Paige and Bella

Rachel helping grandpa roll up the air mattresses.

Hanging out before leaving.  

Sad empty campsites.  We kind of all went separate ways when we were done packing.  Dad and Tiff went home through Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  Tad and Solviej stopped at Rexburg on the way back.  Charee wanted to get home as soon as possible and we went back through West Yellowstone.  We all got home later that night and started unpacking, doing laundry and bathing kids.  Garrett bought some pizzas for dinner and we all called it a night.  Such good times in Yellowstone!  We love going there!