Family Trip and Wedding

So, Spencer's little sister Cami got married the first part of October to Chris Oliphant in Rexburg, Idaho.  I had the thought of maybe taking a little longer to get home and taking a slight "detour" to Yellowstone for a little family vacation.  He thought is was a great idea and the girls were SUPER excited to go.

So, we stayed in Idaho Falls because Rexburg didn't have anything available.  The day after we got there I finished the cake in the hotel room while Spencer and the kids swam.  Our hotel room was AWESOME!  I had  originally planned on driving the 30 miles from Idaho Falls to Rexburg and finishing the cake at Cami and Chris's new apartment, but when we walked into our room they had granite counter tops and the flat screen TV was sitting on a nice big granite top table.  Spencer had the idea of taking the TV off and then I could use that.  It was SO nice!  It was super cold there too so the cake was preserved in the car overnight and it kept chilled near the window in the room while I worked on other tiers, PERFECT!  After I had finished the cake we took showers and decided to go sight seeing.  We visited the Temple and saw the "Falls".  They were not falls.  They were spillways.  Shoshone Falls are FALLS.  I got some nice looking pictures of water anyway.  I especially love the fact that they were doing a ton of road work around the temple so in the pictures you get the lovely orange barrels to keep cars out.  Pretty funny if you ask me.



Cami had such a beautiful wedding.  She asked me to do her cake and I was so honored.  It turned out so beautiful, but it didn't even compare to the bride.  Despite it being super cold, it was a REALLY nice day.  They had a Nauvoo theme going on for the reception, thus all the sunflowers.  :)



We left from the reception and drove to Yellowstone.  I will NEVER do that again.  WAY to much driving for my taste that weekend...ugh.  We got to Yellowstone about 11:45ish in the PM.  The kids were out when we got there and it was SO cold!  We stayed in Mammoth Springs in the hotel there.  It was interesting.  We had to share a public restroom because they didn't have bathrooms in the room.  It was an old fashioned hotel which is what I loved about it, but I missed the luxury of our own bathroom.  We had a wonderful buffet breakfast the next morning and we set off on our VERY cold adventure through Yellowstone National Park.  I had been once before when I was little with my dad.  I had remembered the pathways, Old Faithful, and the smell.  That was all. 

We saw so much wildlife there.  When we woke up in our hotel we looked out our window and there was a herd of elk just grazing and laying around right outside.  They were all over the place.  We saw a wolf on the side of the road.  We saw tons of buffalo.  One so close that all I had to do was cross the road and I could have touched it, but they advised us to not get too close so I took the picture from the car.  We saw more elk as we drove through and we even saw a bald eagle.  We stopped at Roaring Mountain.  We saw Dragon's Mouth Spring, which by the way sounded JUST like there was a dragon in there and it LOOKED like there was a dragon in there because of all the steam.  It was hard to see a lot of color in the springs because it was so cold all we could see was the steam coming off of the water.  But we had fun nonetheless.  We saw the BEAUTIFUL Yellowstone falls, upper and lower and THOSE are falls.  :)  They were BEAUTIFUL!  We saw Steamboat Geyser  and we sort of ended our adventure at Old Faithful.  We got there just in time to see it go right before they closed.  They had predicted the time and then said +/- 10 minutes so we got there for the -10 minutes.  Of course it was +10 minutes so we sat there in the freezing cold with a screaming Reed for 20 minutes while the geyser teased us then it finally blew.  It lasted so long too, I didn't remember it going off that long, but it was worth it.  The girls were so fascinated and poor Reed just was freezing. 

After Old Faithful we headed our way to the Tetons and realized that it was too late that we wouldn't see them because the sun was going down.  There was one stop that I wanted to see and the was the Great Prismatic Basin.  Of course we couldn't see the beautiful colors not only because of the steam, but also because of the sun setting.  Oh well.  We'll be going back some day, but we will definitely go back in the SUMMER!  We left Yellowstone and drove straight to Little America, Wyoming.  It took FOREVER because the speed limit through Yellowstone and the Tetons is 45.  We got to Little America around 12 midnight.  Like I said, WAY too much driving.  We were ALL SO tired by the time we got home.



It was a fun adventure and the kids really enjoyed it.  I'm so glad that we took the time to spend with each other.  It was the first time the girls saw an actual waterfall.  Love priceless moments like that.  :)