July 31, 2013

In Which We Brave a Trip to Yellowstone


Forgive my lack of bloggy attention. Hubby has been traveling lately, the kids have started swim lessons, and I have been feeling quite a bit of morning sickness again.

So that's my lame-o excuse.

I just don't want to admit to feeling lazy lately.

I mean, what would that do to my image?

Wait... dang. I ruined that years ago when I started blogging.

Anyhow.

Way back at the beginning of June, we decided to take a family day-trip up to Yellowstone Park.

It's only a couple hours away, but I felt like we were stuck on repeat for just the worst part of a scary movie since about every five minutes we were dealing with this:

"Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are were there NOW? I'm going to throw up! Are we there yet?"

Since we don't have TV in our car, and we don't own any handheld gaming devices, and we have to be very careful about letting the kids read or do anything similar since car sickness runs ramp-ed around here, we have to stay entertained the old fashioned way.

Like... talking to each other! *gasp* I know, so last century.

Or, playing games like "I Spy" and the finding of the alphabet on signs and license plates. 

Yes, those games do still exist.

At any rate, the kids were thrilled when we finally pulled into the park.

Just a couple minutes in, there were a bunch of cars pulled off to the side of the road. So we decided to go see what all the fuss was about.


The kids weren't very impressed and wondered why everyone was standing around staring at that, so they took to exploring instead.


After we loaded back up, we decided to head towards the well known "Old Faithful" Geyser. But went about it quite leisurely and took a few of the side roads to see other sites.


As much as I love viewing these impressive feats of nature, the pictures of my seriously awesome kids are so much better.


So much delicious cheese.


How did a girl like me, end up with something so awesome as this?


(I can say such things because we were still at the beginning of our trip and everyone was happy and excited. I was singing a different tune by the end, trust me.)


The kids seemed especially impressed by the all the bison we saw...


...well, at first anyway. After a while Savannah got tired of seeing them and was wondering when they were going to get to see something cool, like a grizzly bear.

You'd think she'd be use to seeing those actually, considering I am her mother, and not always perfect.


We stopped off at the "Fountain Paint Pots" which the kids thought were pretty cool, and stinky.



After we spent some time there, we finally made it over to "Old Faithful", just in time for the next spewing.

Haha, love love love this picture.


It starts.


Full throttle!


The kids seemed fairly impressed.

After stopping off for some lunch and letting the kids run around and explore the woods, we were back on the road again.

Then Claira fell asleep.

And so did I.

So when Hubby decided to stop off and let the kids play in the water for a while, I volunteered to keep an eye on Claira, sort of, and finish my nap.

Hey, cut me some slack! Making babies is exhausting work you know!


..................That's not what I meant and you know it! Sheesh.





By the time the kids were done playing and everyone was back in the car, one had had a potty accident.

What's a family trip with young kids if you don't have at least one of those?

But I thankfully had the foresight to bring extra outfits for each kid in case of such an... experience.

Soon, everyone was changed, Claira was awake, and we were one the road again.


Hide-and-go-seek! Whoever spotted this guy first sure had good eyesight!


True to Yellowstone form, we hit a patch of road where the bison sauntered through the pavement, hanging out in and over it, heedless of the cars strategically trying to maneuver around them.

A few of them were so close we could have reached out and petted them.


But they are kinda gross.

And big.

And hairy.

And crusty.

With horns.

We passed on the opportunity.


At another point we pulled off to see yet another quick side attraction.



I don't remember what it was called but, holy stinky sulfur Batman, it was rank! I mean, wow, it was powerful.



The kids were more than happy to head back to the car and I don't blame them. I think my nose hairs had burned up at that point.


After that we stopped over at the "Upper Falls".




How was I suppose to enjoy the scenery when I kept getting distracted by so much cuteness?


At this point it was starting to get late. The kids were getting tired of jumping in and out of the car and attitudes were taking a turn.

We only made one more stop before heading out of the park.




Ya... this picture was one of those, "Look at the camera and smile!" moments, said in a growling tone through clenched teeth with narrowed eyes... lovingly, of course.


By the time we left, we had seen less than a third of the park.

Maybe someday we'll work up the courage to make the trek again and see another third.

Maybe....

July 26, 2013

"You Look Like a Monkey..."


The Hubs had a birthday last month. Okay, more like...eh hem, six weeks ago.

Gah! I know! I'm actually starting to think my blog is turning into my lame-o journaling and scrapbooking attempts. I start off doing so well, then I begin to fall more and more behind until I'm trying to catch up on something that happened years ago.

Do you know I actually have journal entries from my teenage years that go something like this: "Oh my goodness! I have so, so much tell! All these crazy things have happened and it's such a long story so, here we go."

And... that's it. So I'm sitting here all old now thinking, What? What happened! What did I do? Don't leave me hanging teenage self! Was it about a boy? Spill girl! Tell meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

But I guess I'll never know.

I'm still trying to decide if I should finally get around to writing about our family spring break trip from two years ago.

But that just might weird everyone out.

Anyhow, June was a rather busy month so you will still see posts popping up from that month.

But I digress. 

Where was I...? Oh yes, Hubby had a birthday.




Okay, So I just had to throw those pictures in there because they were so dang irresistible!

Even though Claira doesn't have anything to do with Hubby's birthday, I let her hijack this post for a bit anyway, just because I couldn't resist that smile.

I'm afraid Hubby's birthday was rather low-key. We went out to dinner, the kids and I took rice krispie treats to his office, and we made ice cream cake.


Oh, and sang "Happy Birthday" of course. "You look like a monkey" style.



The ice cream cake was a hit, as always. Except Claira wasn't too thrilled that she didn't get her own piece since she refused to eat dinner.


So ya, all in all pretty low-key.

Next year I will try to do better.

Maybe by then I will actually be able to think of a gift!



Dear Universe,

Why are men so dad-gum hard to shop for? 
It's just down-right mean to have created them that way.

Sincerely,
A desperate housewife. 

July 22, 2013

On a Sunday Afternoon


I gotta be honest, Sunday did not start out so well. I felt like we were in for a looooong day and I was in for a good guilt trip over winning the "Worst Mother Ever" award.

But surprisingly, things got better as the day progressed. 

After church, I wasn't feeling too good so I fell asleep on the couch for a little while and Hubby made the kids lunch... then cleaned up afterwards.

*sniffle* It was so sweet. I think I may have just fallen in love with him all over again.

After lunch, the kids kept asking me to tie their blankets and transform them into superhero capes.


Soon we had all sorts of bad guys falling before the mighty hands of justice!


Except Joseph. He insisted he was King, and that's why he couldn't smile.

Apparently Kings don't smile.

Okay then.


Claira insisted on having her own solo moment of fame.

Well yes ma'am!


After a while the superheros needed a break, so we went downstairs to watch a family movie. 

I've been trying to check out one or two old classics from the library. This time I had gotten "The Love Bug", which surprisingly I had never seen before.

Last week was "Pollyanna".

The kids really like these old classics, I think because you always walk away from it feeling happy somehow. The kids laughed and laughed during the "The Love Bug", which was funny in and of itself. 

After that we made dinner.

Well, I made dinner while poor Hubby willingly cleaned up the bathroom, which the kids had managed to flood... with used toilet water.

I say "willingly" meaning, it needed to be done, and he did it. Without freaking out too much.

It was nasty. The man just earned another notch of respect from me.


After dinner was "tackle daddy" time.


Which quickly turned into DOG PILE!




Why is it called "Dog Pile" do you suppose?


Anyhow, after that I read a couple more chapters of "Fablehaven" to the kids. It's slightly over Joseph and Jacob's head, yet the adventure in it is enough for them to keep wondering what will happen next. Savannah loves every minute of it.

We only have four chapters in the first book left.

My throat already aches just thinking about it, but I am determined to keep at it.

It's my new goal; to read good, fun books to my kids so we can all talk about them together. So far they are loving it.

So what I thought would be a terrible day ended up being a rather great day.

Small blessings.
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