The Cabin and Yellowstone

As part of our Christmas this past year, my parents rented a cabin for a week in Island Park, Idaho, right near West Yellowstone. Well in May we finally got to go! We first went to my brother Jamison's college graduation:

Then we headed out of town. The cabin was so great! There was lots of relaxing, reading, watching movies, eating, and hot tubbing. The kids got in the hot tub almost every day the whole week and loved every second!

Jamison reading to the kids. What a nice uncle!

Tess chillin' in her sling.

 There was a whole lot of Tess-cuddling going on.

 Speaking of Tess, can you spot her in the picture below?

This looks safe. Jamison (a very tall 6'4" already) on top of a chair with Katelyn on his shoulders, holding a broom to swipe the suction cup nerf bullets off the high windows.

One night my mom pulled out some glow sticks, that was some fun entertainment for awhile.

 That is bunny on the right in the picture above. "Glow Bunny" as Katelyn called him. Below is what he looked like with the flash.

We had to make daily visits to the cabin offices to visit the resident dogs. One of them came and hung out on the deck with us while we were hot tubbing one night. They were cool dogs.

We went into Yellowstone Park a few times. There was a ton of cool stuff to see but to be honest, it is cooler in real life than it looks in the pictures. Here they are anyways:

 Brandon and the kids admiring Old Faithful.

 All the girls in front of Old Faithful. Me, Mom, Lindsey, and Heather

The kids got pretty tired of walking sometimes. Such a nice Uncle Bub to give Katelyn a ride!

  The kids tried to hitch a ride on Daddy's legs but it only lasted a few steps.

The buffalo were everywhere! Right up next to our car. Brandon swung his arm out the window a couple of times pretending he was about to slap one of them on the rear end which had some passing motorists cracking up.

Right from the first day that we went into Yellowstone, all Brandon wanted to see was a bear. We had heard they were hard to spot, especially in the area we were going to be in. (There is an area known for having lots of bears but it was still closed for the winter when we were there.)
We were lucky enough to spot 3 bears while in Yellowstone! A grizzly in the morning, then later that day we saw a bear and her cub. After we saw the first grizzly Brandon said, "Okay we can leave now! I saw what I wanted to see." Then we saw 2 more! It was exciting to see them in nature.

The kids had been wanting to get binoculars for a long time, even before our trip. They got some from the Yellowstone Gift Shop and used them constantly, mostly to look at nearby things. It was so cute to see them with binoculars around their necks all week, looking through them to see anything and everything.

Teddy Roosevelt Bear.

Yellowstone is exhausting!

This was the morning we left the cabin.

 Matching boys, Tanner thought it was the coolest thing ever to match Daddy!