Family Vacation Part III

Friday we headed up to the Upper Loop in Yellowstone. Our first stop was at the Artist Paint Pots, they are so beautiful. The colors are amazing.

The view from the Top

Steph and Bailee

After the Artist pain Pots, we went to Norris Geyser Basin. Matt and I did not go on our honeymoon, but now wish we had. It was very neat. The colors there were very different form those in the lower loop. It was amazing the vastness of space there.

Matt and Bailee taking their first look.

The beautiful Greens

Mom and Dad

Owen and Papa

After lunch we went to Mammoth Hot Springs. Once again, there was something new at every turn.

Bailee and Owen

When Matt and Steph were Bailee and Owen's ages they had a picture taken of them at this same place. Bailee and Owen were not quite as cooperative.

All of us.

We thought that this looked like a river of gold.

On our way out of the Upper Loop, we were caught in a lot of traffic. We were excited to find out that the slowdown was caused by a little black bear. We didn't get any pictures because the Rangers chased it off of the side of the road. A few miles down the road there was another big slow down. we were crawling along for quite some time. We got the message from another tourist that there was a Bear up ahead. We were excited and hoping we would get to to it before it was chased off as well. The moment I caught sight of it, I jumped out of the car and ran down the road to get a better picture. The little grizzly was up the cliff from the road and I was able to get a few decent pictures of him. It was so fun.

At the end of the day we of course had our picture taken in front of the Yellowstone sign. We had a great time in Yellowstone. I always want to go back when we leave. It is so beautiful.

She loves Him

Bailee went and stayed with Matt's parents for a week in Blackfoot a few weeks ago. While she was gone, I think that she realized how much she loves her brother. Despite that he goes in her room when she doesn't want him to, plays with her toys, doesn't play with her when she wants him to and a whole list of things that bug her. There were a few times when I talked to her on the phone that week that she asked to talk to Owen. One of those times he was asleep and she asked me very sweetly to give him a love for her when he woke up. It just melted my heart. I am so glad that they love each other .

Dumb Blonde (moment)

Ok, so I was uploading all of our pictures from our Yellowstone vacation. I watched ALL of the pictures flash on my screen as they were "uploading". Was so excited to get them on the computer and on the blog. I recently learned that it is better for your SD card to format it rather than delete the pictures and so I formatted the card. Up to this point I had made TWO dumb blonde mistakes. 1) assuming that the pictures were on the computer since I saw them flash up on the screen 2) formatting the card with backing up the pictures. Oh man! What was I thinking! Here is what happened... My new camera makes HUGE picture files and I had used up ALL of the memory on my computer loading just the first two days worth of pictures (along with the rest up to this point) so only about half of the pictures really made it on the computer. I can laugh now about this... but it is only because we had loaded most of the pictures on Kelly's computer before we parted ways on our vacation. So they were able to burn me a CD. Plus I have had several weeks to get over my BIG DUMB BLONDE MOMENT. So needless to say I will not be posting any more pictures of our trip until we get more memory for our computer, and it will be a lot more memory. I know that I can put them up off of the CD, but I want to do some editing magic and can't do that with out being able to save as I go.

Family Vacation Part II

On Thursday we headed into Yellowstone National Park. Matt took me there for my first time on our Honeymoon, it was fun to go back and take the kiddos. Matt's parents, Steph and Jack met us at the cabin on Tuesday night so they could come with us. We decided to do the lower loop for the first day.
On our way into the park we got the wonderful opportunity to see a nested Bald Eagle. The nest was fairly close to the road, we saw two or three others, but they were not nearly as close. This was the first time I knew that I need a lens for my camera with a better zoom (hopefully for our next trip).

Our first stop was at Firehole waterfall. I love waterfalls, they are so beautiful.

Steph and Jack

Our next stop was to see a herd of Bison, Bailee wasn't too sure about them, but it was amazing to be surrounded by them. It is hard to imagine that this is a small herd compared to what used to live in our country.

The wildflowers were beautiful and were everywhere. All the rain we had in June made for a lovely scene in the mountains.

Our next several stops were at some of the many beautiful and strange looking thermal features throughout the park.

Bacteria Mat

Boiling mud

Owen made us laugh several times on the trip because he would often point out the window and say "Oh Wow!"

Papa, Owen, Bailee, Jack and Maama

Our sweetie, Bailee has some sensitive senses. She does not like loud, bright and especially doesn't like stinky. The thermal features commonly smell of sulfur...she didn't like that.

The colors in some of the springs are so vibrant. You see things in nature of Yellowstone that you don't see anywhere else.

The Grand Prismatic Spring

Emerald Pool

Sunset Pool

All of our many stops led us to our main attraction for the day. Old Faithful. Unfortunately because of where we were siting we mainly saw steam.

Owen and Matt

Matt, Terry, Owen and I went for a walk on a 3 mile trail to see some other geysers while Debbie, Bailee, Steph and Jack rested. We were lucky to be on the other side of Old Faithful when it went off again. We had a better view on this side.

I had so much fun taking pictures with my new camera. I took about 600 over the four days, but this is one of my favorites.

Three Generations of Hansen Explorers

One of our favorite attractions in Yellowstone is this Sapphire Pool. I love the blue color, the water is so clear that you can see how deep the spring is.

My silly husband.

Old Faithful is as far as we got on the lower loop, the kids and adults were all getting tired so we headed back to the cabin where we had dinner then smores while we waited for Kelly to join us.