Our Summer Vacation 2013 (Day5)

We started our next day with...

Lower Geyser Basin

 

The color is amazing!

More of my favorite paint pots!

 

 *Side Note*

Josh very innocently kept calling geysers, geezers!  It was adorable. 

We kept correcting him and by the end of the trip I think he had it :)

Matt loves to pose :)

This picture was accidental but I'm glad I got it...Abby experiencing the rotten egg smell of the park.

Old Faithful

We were a bit worried for this one since we weren't quite sure how long we would have to wait around for O.F. to go off.  We spent some time in the gift shop and the lodge.

Eventually the kids got anxious so Andy took them out to go find a seat.

I strolled with Ben a bit more and then eventually sat in some shade a way back from the geyser.  Ben had to get out of his stroller so I let him sit on the log next to me.

There she blows!

 

 I wanted to get a picture of Ben in front of the geyser but he kept following me as I backed up for the shot :)

Moose Falls

There's a pretty little, tucked away falls as you head down out of the south end of the park called Moose Falls.

Andy and I discovered it 6 years ago when we took our 5 year anniversary trip to Yellowstone.

Andy jumped out with the three oldest and took them down while Ben and I relaxed in the car.

Jenny Lake

Jenny Lake is a favorite.

I have fond memories of being there with my family when I was young.

Andy and I went on our trip together and we just had to take the kids.

So we said farewell to Yellowstone and hello to the Grand Tetons!

We had wanted to have lunch at the lake but it was already 2:30 as we entered the park so we found a shady parking spot and had another l...o...n...g lunch with Ben :)

To get him to eat we had to bribe him by telling him he could go on a boat after he finished his lunch.

That did the trick.  He loves anything to do with water.

From our memory we thought we could do the hike up to Hidden Falls (which is across the lake) with our handy dandy new off road stroller.  They wouldn't even let us take it on the ferry :(

Our plan had been to take the ferry across, hike up to Hidden Falls and then bypass the ferry and hike around the south end of the lake back to our car.  Without a stroller we weren't sure what we could do.

Andy decided we should just go for it.  So, we purchased our one way tickets, parked our stroller and hopped aboard the boat.

 Isn't it gorgeous? 

The hike to the falls was short...but we stopped for a break along the way :)

At this point Matt informed us that he needed to use the bathroom and Ben kept begging for "more boat".

We started second guessing our one way tickets :)

 This place is amazing!  Ben didn't think it was too great though.

I'm not sure if I caught a little seizure there or if he's just in the middle of putting on a show...

Finally, a smile :)

We waffled back and forth with the choice of forging on ahead with our original plan or going back down to the dock and begging a ride back across.

To our childrens' chagrin we forged ahead.

 Josh started out with a good attitude....Abby eventually followed with hers and Matt brought up the rear and finally seemed to enjoy the hike.

Our memories were quite wrong; the stroller would not have worked at all on the trail (even though in these pictures it looks like it could).

As a matter of fact, it got a bit more rocky as the original trail was under repair and we were detoured higher up the mountain!

 Ben found a spot for his chin on Andy's head and rested it there for a very long time.

Andy was sure he was going to have a bruise.

 I liked the hunched over view from the back.

 At one point, Ben spontaneously leaned over and gave Andy several kisses on the cheek.

 Ben decided he wanted to walk.

Andy was very patient with him.  With almost every step he had to push up my sunglasses that he had asked to wear and each time he came to a rock in the trail (which was often) he stepped up on it, jumped off and laughed.

 The kids longingly looked at that speck of a ferry crossing the lake :)

 I wish I had taken more pictures of the older boys but they were always up ahead.

I had Andy document that I actually carried Ben a short distance at the end although he must have carried him approx. 2 1/2-3 miles that day.

Way to go hon!

 When we finally arrived back at the east side of the lake we had to find a spot to dip our feet in.

We finished up at Jenny Lake early that evening and then drove through Jackson and back to Jenny and Mike's house where they very graciously let us crash one more night and day.

What a fun, fast, but great trip.  I think the kids will have lovely memories of those couple of days.

I can not for the life of me find the picture but a couple of weeks before our trip I saw a picture of a van that had funny road trip statistics written all over the windows...like how many miles they had traveled, how many sunburns, wrecks, cheeseburgers eaten...that kind of thing.

Anyway, I didn't think Andy would go for the idea but I could post them on my blog.

Well, I can't really think of anything fun to write at the end of this very long post so I will just say that we kept track of the license plates we saw and we came home missing only four; Hawaii, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Maine.

There, that's my fun statistic :)

Thank you for reading this...you deserve a prize if you did :)

Even if you just scrolled through and looked at all the pictures you deserve something.