Yellowstone

For our first and last and only vacation of the summer, we took off with my family the day after school got finished and headed off to beautiful Yellowstone. We stayed in West Yellowstone and traveled into the park almost everyday. We saw buffalo, elk, baby buffalo, bald eagles, geysers, waterfalls, and lots of stinky hot pots. The first time Savy saw a hot pot next to the road she said, "Look, Mommy. Fire. Fire in the dirt." And then after we walked around them for a while and she realized the steam equaled stink, she'd say "I don't want it" and hide her face from the stinky steam!! We had a great time hanging out with the family. Savana was certainly the highlight of the trip for everyone since she was the only grandkid along. She got spoiled rotten and loved every second of it. Only my mom, dad, Mallory, and Taran could make it to Yellowstone, but we had a wonderful time playing games, swimming, walking around town, eating ice cream almost every day, seeing the wonders of the world, and watching lame movies (lameness only in reference to Young Frankenstein. All the other movies about Yellowstone were anything but lame!)

Savy was quite the trooper on all our car rides. She entertained herself with singing, books, talking, or sleeping. We stopped at Rexburg for a much needed break (that's why they're both smiling so big)!

Here's the grumpy Savana we saw only once or twice. She'd woken up from a short nap and only wanted her mommy. But mommy was too weak to carry two babies down the stairs, so she got to ride on Bompa's shoulders...and she wasn't happy about that at all!

The great town of Mammoth (if you can call it a town) always provides us with a close-up view of Elk, some Mammoth hot springs, and delicious ice cream.

If you look closely behind us, there's a buffalo hiding in the trees. This is the first one we saw up close and personal, and Sam kept trying to get him to chase our car. Luckily, the buffalo was too tired to jump at any of Sammy's shouting.

Cheesing on the back of her daddy. She quite enjoyed riding with her dad. With Sam, there's never a dull moment, so she loved all the songs and silly things her daddy was doing along the way.

Our sweet little family hanging out by the stinky geyser. We waited for this one to go off, but it was one of the many unpredictable geysers, so we weren't quite so lucky.

Another stinky hot springs.

Trying on Bompa's goggles. Cool Dude!

Enjoying the stink once more.

These were actually quite beautiful hot springs. I wish the camera would do them justice. Such beautiful colors.

Watching the most famous geyser...Old Faithful!!

This was my favorite...the waterfalls at Yellowstone. The falls and the canyon walls make for a breathtaking view.

Savy had been talking about seeing bears at Yellowstone all week, so we went to this discovery place where they had bears and wolves to see. When we got there, she was more interested in climbing around then seeing the actual bears.

This is my kind of teddy bear.

We watched a movie at the IMAX on Yellowstone, and the closing shot was of a huge bear standing on his hind legs growling ferociously at us. So later that evening, when I put Savy in her newly-purchased bear jammies, she kept being the big bear on the movie and growling away. Her growl wasn't quite so ferocious. She's going to have to work on it.

Thanks mom and dad for a fun vacation. And thanks Savy for being such a trooper. You are one fantabulous little girl!!