Yellowstone

Our first family trip to Yellowstone.

I have never been to the park and Spencer hadn't been since he was a boyscout so it was great to go and see everything Yellowstone had to offer- from the beautiful and diverse landscape to the big and wild animals.

We went with two other families and stayed in their cabin in nearby Island Park, ID.  We got to spend two days hiking and seeing the sites.  We saw lots of Buffalo and Elk, a few coyotes, wolves and eagles.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any bear or moose which is what I really wanted to see.

I couldn't believe how beautiful the area was, it had a little bit of everything from the geysers and thermal pools, rivers and waterfalls and forests and lakes-there was just so much to see, I couldn't believe it!!

One morning on our way into the park we got stopped for 20 minutes while 3 buffaloes roamed around the middle of the road.  Eli got an upclose look and said "We're not scared of them."  Crazy Boy!!

Our view driving into the park

The most gorgeous waterfall and river right in the middle of Yellowstone

This is our first family picture with Ethan - how pathetic are we, he's already 16 months old!!

Better late than never

 Eli hated the sulfur smell of the geysers and thermal pools and insisted on plugging his nose all the time

We quickly discovered that Ethan hated to be carried around unless he was in the hiking pack, otherwise he wanted to run around on his own, which I wasn't to keen about with all the boiling water next to the paths!!

These are called "Paint Pots" 

We had to go see them in honor of Spencer.  They really did look like pools of boiling paint- it was pretty cool

Ethan enjoying the great outdoors

 

Eli playing with the water while we wait for "Old Faithful" to give us a show

 While we were out on a hike we kept hearing an elk call every couple minutes, and it sounded close.  When we were leaving that area we saw this big guy hidden in some trees right off the road- He's a beauty!!

Goal-Scoring Machine

We put Eli in Fall soccer this year and he had an awesome year.  His team name was the Red Dragons.  

Eli was so excited for every game and did really well.  His dad gave him a little incentive at the beginning of the season to get him focused, Spencer told Eli if he scored 2 goals in one game then he would take him to McDonalds, and it worked!!  Then Spencer upped the anti to 3 goals and he would take him to Artic Circle, and that worked too!!  After that, Eli was so excited to score that he didn't need anymore incentives.  He ended the season with 11 goals in 7 games.  He scored 5 goals in 1 game.  His coach called him a goal-scoring machine.  His skill level improved so much in 1 year-we're already looking forward to next season

   

 Showing everyone who's #1

Giving his coach a high-five after he scored

Ethan loved to watch the games too.  Here he is cheering on his big brother

Spencer's Soccer Season just ended too.  His team did awesome, they finished second in there division.  And this year Spencer decided to play on an indoor soccer team in the off season, so that is keeping him busy along with work and church service.  Unfortunately, we don't get to go watch his indoor games because they're too late at night and the boys are already in bed, but that doesn't stop Eli from begging everyweek to go watch.