Family fun in Utah and Yellowstone

I have about a billion pictures from the trip so follow these links to see the photo albums on my facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2199215&l=46520&id=17806428 http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2199223&l=229db&id=17806428
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2199229&l=73a95&id=17806428

Well, this past week was awesome! Not only did I get to see my family for a whole week, but we went to Yellowstone; and it was gorgeous!!! :) The only bad thing about the trip was that Kade had to leave early to get back to work. It's not easy for him to leave the farm during the summer, the busiest time of the year, for a whole week.
Kade and I drove to Utah on Saturday, July 19th, in time for my Grandma Blood's 90th birthday party with Dad's family. We also stopped by Mr. Mac for Aaronhead's mission clothes, where mom decided I needed to try on shoes they were buying for Stephen because we have the same size foot, very weird...
Sunday, we also spent with Grandma, going to her church and staying for dinner. Monday we drove up to the cabin. Kade loved it! I knew he would, that's why I bribed him to stay just until Tuesday, so he could go. The cabin was very nice and relaxing. The cabin supplied us with horseshoes, tetherball, pingpong, and fooseball. I beat Kade at horseshoes once :) hehe... Kade, Aaron, and I also went for a bike ride down the road. It was pretty hilarious when I first got on the bike. First, I probably haven't ridden a bicycle in who knows how long. And second, when I got on the bike there was a monstrous hill right in front of me. So, I gracefully flew down the hill completely forgetting where the brakes were. Kade was already long gone, and Aaron just sat there and laughed at me. Thankfully, I did remember where the brakes were before I got to the huge bump at the bottom of the hill, which would have sent me flying. Those dang seats are so uncomfortable! I couldn't sit down for a couple days after that bike ride...
Tuesday we drove to Trial Lake to go fishing, also very beautiful. I like this picture of dad. Sadly, I was depressed most of the time because Kade was leaving at noon. Kade loves fishing, so he was having a good time even though he didn't catch anything. But right after he left they caught 11 fish!! He missed out..
Then we went back to the cabin and ate them all.. I love fish :)
That night we played some more games and watched a movie.


Wednesday morning we left for Yellowstone from the cabin. It went by fast because the drive was beautiful. We stopped at the Grand Tetons National Park at Jenny Lake for lunch. Wow was that gorgeous!! I now have this picture as by desktop background. Then we kept heading up to Yellowstone. We were lucky enough to make it to Old Faithful right before it was about to erupt, so we didn't have to sit around for an hour waiting for it to go off again. That night we stayed at one of the four Best Westerns in West Yellowstone. We got confused trying to find the hotel because there were 3 within a block from each other.
Thursday we got to spend the whole day in Yellowstone, and got to see almost everything. Though hiking some of the trails would have been fun, but we didn't have the time. First thing in the morning we followed very slow cars up to the Mammoth Hot Springs. We saw an elk there too, just chilling right next to the hot springs. There were plenty of elk in Yellowstone. And you always knew where they were because there would be a crowd of cars on the side of the road watching the animals. Then we drove down to the Canyon and waterfalls (my favorite)! We stopped for lunch and ice cream and headed down towards the falls. I was kind of scared looking over the edge at the Lower Falls because we were extremely close to the edge. But my favorite was the Upper Falls, it was breathtaking inside of the Canyon.
Then we started heading back to the hotel, but mom, dad, and I wanted to go see the paint pots down by Old Faithful. So after forcing Timmy and Joanna to come with we headed down, while everyone else went back to the hotel to swim. We stopped at the Fountain Paint Pots where there were turquoise pools like this one, and bubbling mud holes, and small geysers that were constantly erupting. It was really cool, I'm glad I went, as were Timmy and Joanna. :)

Friday morning we headed back to Utah going through Idaho this time, not a scenic route but quicker. That night for dinner we had a picnic at West Jordan Park with Mom's side. The playground at the park was very impressive, it had a huge castle. While taking this picture, it was difficult running back to the group after hitting the timer on our cameras, but I did make it back. Sadly, I have my eyes closed.. haha..

On Saturday Daniel, Wendy and Jocelyn had to go to the airport in the morning so Dad and I took them. Then later in the afternoon Dad drove me back to the airport so I could catch my flight to Reno, where Kade was picking me up. I was sad to leave my family, but also glad to see Kade again. While I was away he was able to look for deer with Brandon all he wanted without worrying about me. I guess I'll see everyone again at Christmas, except Aaron of course he'll be in Chile on his mission.
Oh, and while I was away my garden exploded! Everything got huge, and I even see small cucumbers and watermelons forming! Unbelievably, my flower garden grew even bigger when I was gone! My sunflower plant has dwarfed everything we put in there. I'll have to get some pictures of that. The next thing I'm looking forward to is the release of Breaking Dawn :) Only 3 more days!!! Yay!!