Yellowstone, Custard, and Rushmore

So I finally am getting time to post today...How is it that I spend hours in the car riding but never seem to remember or get the time to post on my blog?? The girls just loved Yellowstone National Park with all the animals. It was beyond beautiful there and so not what I had envisioned it would look like. There were so many different types of landscapes including: geysers with boiling pools and steam vents, forests, plains with buffalo grazing, and crystal clear lakes with ice capped mountains in the distance. What a variety, but all amazing. There were tons of animals to be seen as well. We saw the most of bison and antelopes, but we also saw elk, mule deer, and pronghorns, mountain sheep, grizzly bears, and black bears! The girls favorites were the bears by far! The grizzly bear was literally 5 foot from the car...not on purpose! Yep, I was like Girls DO NOT ROLL DOWN YOUR WINDOWS!!

After Yellowstone our next destination would be Mount Rushmore. We made a pit stop at Little Big Horn to see Custard's Last Stand. What a beautiful area of rolling hills covered in prairie grasses as far as the eye can see.

Mount Rushmore is just as beautiful and majestic as you think it will be. Unfortunately the sun was at an awful angle for pictures but it was still just breath taking. The girls thought it was neat for about .... oh 2.5 minutes until the wow-ness of heads carved into rock wore off. After that running around all the tourists and climbing on the park benches was much more entertaining.

We are now spending the night in Norfolk, Nebraska. Nathan spent several years living here while he was growing up. We will be visiting to some of his old family friends both this evening and tomorrow morning. It really does amaze me though that every time we meet up with a family (old family friends or stangers at McDonalds) who have a little boy Emma has found the new love of her life. Now mind you she is F-O-U-R and already about to commit her father to the nut house with her boy craziness! No matter how much we instruct her that boys/dating/marriage/kissing are only for adults and adult conversations she still constantly says "I'm going to marry him" or "He's cute!" Yeah......really scary! Like my mom said, I'm surprised she's not got a ring on her hand already from all the young boys she's met on this trip! Seriously kid you're going to give me a heart attack in like 8 years! Boy crazy at 4?? What happens when hormones kick in and we hit the du du du (sound effects) P-R-E-T-E-E-N years??? Prayer, that's what happens a huuuuuge amount of prayer!

Quick Update About Yellowstone

So I had this huge blog post wrote out and then I realized that Ihad posted it on the wrong blog! Uhhh! I'm sure my coupon blog followers could care less about us visiting Yellowstone. How frustrating. So I guess I will be re-posting tomorrow while we are on the road. Here are a couple of pictures though to tide you over!!

Baby Hannah's Newborn Shoot

I fianlly had a few moments to post the pictures I took for a friend from church of her 4 day old little lady. Oh how I love doing newborn pictures! Poor little Hannah was not too happy with me when I stripped the tiny 5 lb sweetie down for some diaper pics. Yep...she screamed but we still were able to get a few good ones.

Trip Update

So for all you Ohio Family and friends....this is what the west is like...BEAUTIFUL! Now don't get me wrong Ohio is great and all but how do you compare a cow pasture to this? Don't worry Mom. It's Beautiful but not quite enough to get me to put our house on the market (after all the hurdles we've jumped in remodeling??) and pack our bags to move out here.

I don't have too many pictures to share with you since most of the past few days has been traveling. We did leave Salt Lake to head on to Boise for the night where we just chilled in the hotel that evening and let the kids swim. After that we left for Spokane Washington where we stopped by the White Elephant Store. My father in law said that he and his family had visited there many times while he was growing up in nearby Idaho. This store has contracts with certain manufactures for their "seconds" or basically their non sellable items. These items all looked to be in perfect condition but for some reason the manufacture couldn't sell them. For example perhaps there was a warehouse fire or maybe a semi accident...whatever but the items all looked like any other items you would find in a regular store but discounted. The store was mostly camping supplies and toys but the best was the clearance room. It was like a walk down memory lane with almost all toys from the 80's and 90's still in the packages! Nathan and I were having so much fun and I'm sure the girls were like what's up with them??? They had an original Baby Alive (I had one of those!!), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Nickelodeon Gack, 90's Barbie clothes, and so much more! You know that stuff had to worth something on ebay!!

Last night we took the kids down tot he kiddie pool. This was Elijah's 3rd time in a swimming pool and he seemed to love it. I just hate him getting in and getting all wet with that nasty pool water (with kids with swim diapers on) and then sucking his thumb....blah!!!

We arrived just outside of Yellowstone National Park this evening and took the kids into the park for just a quick peek before dark. In just the short time that we saw Elk, Bison, Pronghorns, and Mule Deer. Maddelyn didn't understand why we couldn't see them closer and where the fences were? I think she thinks it's just a REALLY big Zoo of some sorts? Ok....remember we live in Ohio, all of our animals (cows, sheep, goats, horses, pigs) are fenced in but you can still pet them. We will be spending the day tomorrow back int he parks looking for more animals and visiting the natural springs and Old Faithful.

6 Months!

I really can't believe that our little man is 6 months old now! He has grown up so much in the past couple of weeks. He is now grabbing at everything with in his arm's reach and putting everything in his mouth. He coos and tries to mimic you when you speak to him. He still is the most happy smiling baby that any one could ask for! I did take a few "6 months pictures" on the road but I will need to take a few more when we get home to match the others on the black backdrop with my lights. That little booger is getting harder and harder to get his picture. You have to hold his finders out of his mouth with one hand and then snap the camera with the other hand all while trying to get him to laugh. I guess I get spoiled when Maddelyn just hears a camera cap come off and she is striking a pose for you. Elijah also must have decided that now that he's 6 months old...it's time to knock out a couple of milestones today...he sat up on his own and got his first solid food!! He was all about the cereal at first and was even grabbing the bowl and spoon but after a few bites he was done. Hopefully tomorrow night will go better? He did love it at first, he just was not in the mood. I think the combination of his stuffy nose and then eating thick cereal made swallowing it frustrating for him. I also thew in a few photos of the views on our way to Salt Lake City last night. The photos are mostly of Wyoming.

Colorado and Cute Etsy Shirts

I am finally getting a chance to post today. We had our longest hours on the road today (supposed to be 8 hours but with kids and mommy stopping it was 12!) Yeah and of course being in the middle of no where Wyoming you don't really get great Internet connection on the blackberry?? No surprising though when all you see for about 100 miles at a time are a few Prairie Dogs playing Double-Dog-Dare-Ya with semi's. Yep, LOADS of kid friendly entertainment! No in all reality the kids were great with the DVD player, Odyssey, the BEAUTIFUL views, and of course a super long nap.

These are pictures of the girls in their adorable "Name Shirts" that I ordered off a lady on etsy. Too cute! She did wonderful work and had pretty reasonable pricing on all the items in her store. VERY cute and unique birthday gifts!

Yesterday we took the kids to Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Co. They do have a nice visitor's center, tour, and bookstore but all the fun is downstairs in their remake of Odyssey! For those not familiar it is Christian Kids radio program that has been around forever. Basically it was the "Veggie Tales" for the kids in the 80's and 90's! I think Nathan had more fun than even the girls did yesterday! The had fun playing puppets, climbing through the many neat places in Odyssey, ridding the slide A-Bend-We-Go, eating ice cream at Whit's End, and even being in their own radio recording. Nathan got to read a script and Maddelyn got to do sound effects and then we got a copy of them in the episode before we left that day. What a neat souvenir.

After Focus on the Family we took the kids up to Denver to eat at Casa Bonita's. It's a Mexican restaurant that has lots of live entrainment. There is a cliff diving show, live mariachi band, arcade, old time photos, caricaturist, haunted house, people walking around selling glow in the dark necklaces/toys, a treasure room, and all in this HUGE restaurant.

I just had to share a few landscape pictures from Colorado.