Yellowstone

Every year Evens' parents get a condo in Yellowstone and invite one of their son’s and his family to spend a weekend up there with them. This was our year, and unfortunately, the weekend just happened to fall on Sophie’s birthday. We were looking forward to the trip, but not so much taking Sophie with us. She is NOT a good traveler, hates being in her carseat, and refuses to sleep anywhere but her crib (seriously, on the trip to/from Texas she only napped in her carseat for 20 minutes at a time every 5-6 hours. Miserable to say the least). Fortunately for us, my mom was coming up for my cousin’s wedding, and so we asked her if she would mind staying with Sophie while Evens, Kara, and I went to Yellowstone. She was more than happy to do that, and so this last weekend we said tearful goodbyes to our 1 year-old (we left on her birthday) and left for our trip to Yellowstone. Another fortunate thing for us is that Kara is a great traveler, and had no problems hanging out in her carseat for the 3-hour drive to Idaho Falls and then the 2-hour drive to Yellowstone. Probably the greatest part about the whole trip was when we saw a lone she-elk hanging out on the side of the road. We slowed down so Kara could see one up close, and she busted out with “hello! Are you going home to find your honey? Ok, go! Go find your honey!” Cutest thing! It was a great trip and we had a good time, but I was more than ready to come home and squeeze my baby.

One of the buffalo/bison Kara decided to name “Burp”. We’ll pretend it was this one since this big guy was hanging out 10 feet from our car.

Kara got a kick out of being so close to a raging waterfall.

While Evens will tell you that Kara enjoyed all the buffalo, it was actually Evens who couldn’t get enough of them. Every time we saw a buffalo we had to stop so he could snap 800 pictures. He’s a kid at heart!

We had about a 45-minute wait for Old Faithful, and it was pretty chilly. Kara wanted to wear her gloves but she also wanted to suck her thumb. Evens helped her out by cutting the thumb out of her glove. She thought that was pretty cool.

Watching Old Faithful do its thing.

Evens getting “chased” by a bear. This was at the Wolf and Bear Nature Center (or whatever its actual name is). It was pretty sweet being so close to bears and wolves knowing that you didn’t have to run for your life any second.

Kara played us some pretty sweet music while we waited for dinner.

On the way home. Kara insisted on wearing “lips” (lip gloss) the whole way home.