Yellowstone

Kenney and I were able to go to Yellowstone National Park at the end of August. We were amazed at all of the unique landscapes and other cool features of the park. We went with the Davis's and some of their friends. Unfortunately, there was so much to see that we were not able to see everything, but had a great time anyways. Sharon Davis loves to see all of the old hotels and buildings in the park and wanted us to see them too, so we saw a lot of the architecture.

I was set on seeing a bear, a wolf, a buffalo and a moose while we were there. We saw all of them except for the moose; we saw an eagle instead so I was satisfied! We did not see the wolf up close, but it was definitely a wolf.

This video is of a traffic jam caused by a group of buffalo crossing the road. They had a bunch of cute babies with them!

This video is of the grizzly bear with her cub. Apparently it is not normal to see grizzly bears so we were all very excited. We filmed it through the car so it is not the best footage, but you can see the bears!

This is the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It is a huge canyon with a gorgeous waterfall. We were actually able to go to a viewing area right on top of the falls.

Summer Living Conditions

I think we took saving money to a little bit of an extreme during this summer. We started off with a 5 bedroom house and 3 bathrooms. In May we were down to 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, and a kitchen/living room/dining room. We are really not messy people, but we had no space for anything. These pictures make us look like slobs; I promise we are not! We lived without a kitchen from May until September. I am still not quite sure what we ate or how we survived. Our 'kitchen' included a microwave, toaster oven, and George Foreman Grill. We had a bathroom sink, but it did not have cold water so the water softener made the water salty. Lets just say it was a LONG summer.

One morning I woke up and had to use the bathroom really bad (I was about 8 weeks pregnant). I went into the bathroom to find some guy standing on a latter outside the bathroom window scraping paint off the window seal. I ran back into bed before he saw me, but they continued around the room. When they were above our heads, they began singing. The video is of them after they were behind the curtains.

Family Reunion

We don't have much to say about the reunion because this picture says it all! We won everything there was to win!! Well, I guess it was nice to see everyone too. In quoting the Grinch and Kenney, "I won. So that must mean there were losers. A town full of losers." Our kids will forever be afraid of this picture and the way that their dad looks. I know I am!

All joking aside, we had a great time at Bear Lake and spending time with everyone. Don't worry Kenney made up for winning everything with his back-flop at Bloomington Lake!!

1915 Model T

One of our friends here in Idaho came by the house on a Sunday afternoon in his 1915 Model T and asked us if we wanted a ride. The car was awesome!! We had both seen a Model T, but neither of us had actually taken a ride in one before. Kent, the owner, takes the car out every once in a while for drives on nice summer days. We rode around the river and got a lot of looks from people; it might have been because we were in our pajamas or because we were in a Model T or both, we don't quite know!

The car itself was authentic. The front seat had to be removed to get to the gas tank. We almost ran out of gas so we had to stop and get some, but that was cool because we saw the gas tank and watched Kent start it. He had to crank it an everything. The lights were not even electrical. They were oil lights.

The Wind Tunnels

Our next adventure during the Summer of 2009 was the wind tunnels near Driggs, Idaho. We had to hike a LONG way. Ok so it wasn't that long, but to a newly pregnant, not too big of a hiker it was a long way. It was really pretty and nice to go into nature without seeing a snake.

I did not go inside of the Wind Tunnels themselves. Kenney was able to go in with Wes, our friend, and his wife's brother and sister. Mandy stayed out with me so I didn't have to sit there for 2 hours by myself. The opening of tunnels have a waterfall coming out that they had to cross before going inside. The opening itself was about 50ft tall. It got smaller and smaller inside, until there was a small opening where they could hear the freezing cold wind. Eventually, they made it to a big pit where people repel down and go to the ice caves. They didn't have any rope so they came back, and we hiked down the trail.

This is the opening of the tunnels, if you look close you can see the water at the bottom of the picture. It gets much bigger a little further down. The picture above has this big opening from a far off distance if you can see it. (It is almost centered, a little to the left and up)

The Ranch

Our 'family' here in Idaho (the Davis family) have an amazing 50,000 acre ranch in Central Idaho near Atlanta on the south side of the Sawtooth Mountains. It is amazing! We spent Memorial Day weekend up there during the Summer of 2009. The ranch has a huge lodge, natural hot spring fed hot tub and pool from Chattanooga Hot Springs, a tennis court, basketball hoop, fishing pond, hammocks, SNAKES (yes, I found a snake after being there for 2 hours!!), golf tees, four-wheelers, a landing strip for airplanes, etc. We had so much to do and the weather was great minus a few rain showers.





We spent every night in the hot tub. The stars were extremely bright and the sky had tons of shooting stars. Kenney spent a lot of time trying to get a hole-in-one off the golf tees. He can't seem to beat his record from England! We went on a tour of Atlanta on four-wheelers to see the mines and other sites. The first night we were eating dinner about 8 or so elk and deer came really close to the lodge. We saw a lot of elk around after that too. It was so nice to just get away and spend time outside enjoying the weather in Idaho for once! We loved it.

Here is Scott, aka Big Daddy, and Sugar ready to go on a four-wheeler ride. Sugar keeps those goggles on the whole time! She loves to fish in the pond too. The ranch is her favorite place.

This is Chattanooga Hot Springs. The water is pumped from here all the way under the river and to the other side of the ranch where it empties into the hot tub and over-flows into the pool. The water is so warm and soft. We had a blast spending time in the water.

The Crystal Caves

We have been told by a lot of people that we need to start a blog. Well, after 2 1/2 years we have begun! The Crystal Caves are somewhere near Childress, TX. We went to the caves with many of Kenney's siblings and his dad, around Christmas time in 2008. I almost refused to go in because of the extremely tight opening, but I decided that I probably should just do it. The cave was pretty cool once I was able to stand up and not worry that we would be stuck once we were inside!

See if you can find Brock in this picture. He is hiding pretty good.

Kenney is holding the canister that has a log for everyone to sign that comes to the caves. Everyone signed it and left their mark in Crystal Cave history! There were a lot of very small bats inside the cave too. They didn't fly around very much. Needless to say we were not sad about that!