Our Last Day!

Finally.... we are at Day 4! This was a busyyyyy day! But probably one of my favorites! It was also the day we took the MOST pictures! We were up and out of camp earlier then usual. In fact, we were still in hoodies on our first stop!

Tower Falls.Sulpher CauldronMy personal FAVORITE....
Lower FallsJaxon with his Grandma and Grandpa
Towards the end of the day we ALMOST decided to skip Black Sand Basin. We were tired, and hungry! But I am soooo glad we didn't! It was another beautiful place, and we got some good pictures!

Emerald Pool

Check out those colors!I thought by now, Jaxon would be tired of looking at the pools of water. But he LOVED it! He especially liked when there were railings to climb up on to see better.

Sunset Lake

The wind was blowing pretty hard, so all the steam is covering up the pretty "lake".

After that we headed back to camp for dinner. It was earlier then usual, so Jaxon got to do a lot of playing and exploring the camp site. At one point he was playing in some really fine, soft dirt. I said to him, Jaxon... your so dirty!! With a big ol' grin he took both {dirty/muddy} hands, and rubbed them down his face, followed with "Uh oh, I dirty"! I about died from laughter!!

Can you see the streaks of dirt all over his face? :)

Well against my better judgement, I wiped off his hands and face, put him in jammies and put him to bed. First thing in the morning we woke up, packed up, and started the long drive home! It was such a fun vacation! I was surprised how much I enjoyed it!

Thanks again Grandma and Grandpa Brown!

Yellowstone - Day 3

Day 3 was filled with a lot more driving then usual. We drove all the way up to Mammoth, and made a few stops on the way up and back. On the way up we saw Black Bears! A mama bear with 2 "bigger" cubs, like from last year. And then 1 BABY!! It was tiny and soooo cute! I wish I would have had my camera ready! Anyway, one of the bigger cubs climbed a tree so we walked over and took some pictures! I have a really cute video of Jaxon on Grandpas shoulders trying to find the little bear, but I am too lazy to upload the video. The pics will have to do!
It was so strange to me that these Elk just stroll around through the "city". They walk around wherever and lay down under the trees. Jaxon does not know "Elk", so he just called them "Deers". Look at the little baby one!

Just exploring around after lunch
Jaxon fell asleep shortly after lunch, so Joels dad and I went on a few more trails while he slept.
This was AMAZING!!!! One of my favs!
He took a long nap that day, so we drove out of the park to a little surrounding city to get some cheaper gas, snacks, and stuff. This it was welcomed us back into Yellowstone.
"For the benefit and enjoyment of the People."
Yes it is.
On the drive back to our campsite we came across an area where a TON of cars were pulled over and people were rushing into a field taking pictures of something. Apparently this is a common practice there, when people see buffalo, elk, bears, etc. Well we ALMOST just drove by the commotion thinking everyone was getting excited over something lame... cuz we couldn't see a dang thing! Well Joel and his dad decided to pull over and get out to see what was there. And sure enough, a big ol' grizzly bear was in a field across the river from us! We saw it for a minute, and right as Joel and his dad walked down to get closer for a picture, the dang thing hid behind a bush! And stayed there till we finally gave up and left!
Our last day is next... and was probably my favorite day!!

YellowStone - Day 2

Jaxon did soooooo good with all of the driving we did. He watched lots of movies, played with his toys, and LOVED looking out the windows to see all the wildlife.Next up was Old Faithful!! I have never been to Yellowstone before, so this was all new and exciting for me and Jaxon. We got there a few minutes after an eruption, so we walked around and waited for a good hour before the next one! We didn't mind though, we were all ready to be out of that truck!*Side Story* {I became "one of those moms" on this trip. The first time I saw the backpack leash things for toddlers I scoffed, glared at those moms and said to myself "I will NEVER use one of those on my child. How hard is it to just keep track of your kid? Hold their hand? Or stick them in a stroller?" Well after hearing about the trails and walkways at the parks, and the fact that Jaxon is a "runner", I decided to buy one. It took everything thing in me to put my pride down enough to purchase it. Soon as I got home I tried it on Jaxon and he LOVED it! He calls it his monkey "bat-packt"! Once we got there I was still sooooo hesitant to actually put it on him in public. But let me tell you, for things like this, we loved having it! He was able to do a lot more walking, and I was able to actually look around a little and enjoy myself. Instead of stressing about him running off or falling off the walkways. As soon as we got out of the car he asked for us to put it on! Now, let me say, for trips to the mall or Target, they still seem excessive to me. But, like many things when it comes to parenting, I once again ate my words! So judge me if you want, (trust me I got lots of crusties, glares, and some giggles) but I do not regret having it one bit for this trip!}
The biggest problem we had was sleeping! We went with Joel's parents, and all slept in a trailer. Jaxon stayed up late, and woke up early! It was a little rough on all of us! But during the day he took pretty good naps! He would totally crash by 1-2pm, no matter where we were!After more driving, we went and looked at more hot springs. I LOVED all of them! But I did have a favorite.... Sapphire Pool!The rest were all really cool too!! Just not as deep and blue!That was the "quick" recap of Day 2! Busy... but soooo fun! He was having the time of his life... can ya tell? :)

YellowStone - Day 1

We left for Yellowstone on Tuesday night. By the time we pulled out it was almost 9pm. We figured if we could get Jaxon to fall asleep we could get a good start on the long drive so we could enjoy our day more on Wednesday. We drove until about 1 am, and we were all exhausted!!! Unfortunately, our plan did not fall into place. Jaxon woke up right before we pulled over to sleep and didn't fall back asleep until like 3-4am! KILL ME!!!!! It was horrible! He wasn't being naughty or throwing fits, he just kept talking and talking and howling like a wolf at the moon!! (Something he has learned from Cat in the Hat a few days before). UGH! We all woke up about 7:30 still EXHAUSTED but decided to just get up and finish the drive.

On our way we had to see the Grand Teton Mountains. They are amazing! And so pretty!This has been labeled the "most photographed barn in America. The view is amazing! Joels grandma's ancestors built it. It was really cool to see, sadly the pictures just don't do it justice! Jaxon was just happy to be out of the car, running around!

A little while later we stopped for lunch! Jaxon spent most of the time throwing rocks into an ICE COLD little river! He waded for a minute... but quickly realized it was too cold, even for him!After lunch we stopped at Jenny Lake. Again, BEAUTIFUL! Those mountains make an amazing background to pretty much anything! Jaxon was asleep, so Joel and his mom went to check out the view at the outlook.

We got to the campsite just in time for dinner. Stretch those legs little man...

Check back for the rest of our trip... the best is yet to come! :)

The 4th!

Some of you may know this... the number of pictures I took over the 3-day, holiday weekend. 485. Yep. My camera might as well be attached to my body! But ya know what.... I got some good ones!!! So here ya go.... I will only post like half of them, don't worry! :)

{Lindon Pool~Saturday}

{Fireworks~Saturday Night}

{ "Beach" visit~Sunday afternoon}{Delta Parade and Park Day~Monday}
There were tons of little games and stuff for kids to do there. Jaxon won this frog-ball thing. He loves it! Another activity was a fish catch. Let me tell you again - I HATE FISH! But I knew he would love it. So I went in there with him. They filled a GIANT kiddie pool with water and fish. And in age groups, the kids got in the pool and tried to catch the fish. You catch it, you take it home kinda thing {Sick.}. Ok this was soooo chaotic first of all! I took Jaxon in the 3-4 year old group and so of course he was a little overwhelmed. He literally stood in the water the whole time watching those fish swim around his legs and stuff! {EWWWW} Meantime, Stef brought her friend (boyfriend??) who has 2 boys. They were scared of the fish and didn't want to touch them either. So Stef's friend decided he would just catch one for them. I took my sisters camera to document the moment of course. He did catch one... and I got some pretty cute pictures of them. AND THEN.... I reached down to help Jaxon out of the pool, and he slipped and fell. Well my instant reaction was to use both hands and pull him out... guess what fell into the water when I did that? My sisters 1 month old camera!!! AW!!! Worst moment EVER!!! Long story short, the camera is magically fine, the pictures of the crazy moment were saved and my sister still loves me!

{Delta Demolition Derby - Monday Night}

Jaxon LOVED the demolition derby... even though it got cold and windy! Joel and I had fun too! It's easy to forget there are people in there - you get so caught up in watching them OWN each other! At first Jaxon liked it, and was saying "beep, beep" "watch out" or "uh-oh..." But after a couple rounds he figured out that the point is for them to crash and tip over and stuff. Then he started saying "YEAH!!! CRASH!!" He would also help with the countdown... followed by "GO GO GO GO!!!" One of the rounds is more of a race, as soon as that one started he started asking "Where's Lightning?" Haha Not that kind of race, bud.
We ended up leaving before the fireworks.. it was just too cold, windy and the rain started. So we headed home.
And that was our weekend! I have noticed on my blog list, not many of you have updated about yours.. c'mon, I wanna see you fun things you guys did!