Happy Birthday Tim 2019

This guy right here is our everything...he's an amazing father, husband, son and friend.  Tim works hard to spend quality time and make sure we all get enough of his attention.  He is loyal and loving and rarely gets stressed or ruffled.  He is the complete center of Luke and Ruby's world and they can hardly handle it if he isn't here to kiss them good night.  Spending time together at the reservoir as a family was the perfect way to celebrate our favorite guy.  Happy birthday Tim!

Ruby made Tim his own special sand cake.

Sisters make the best friends!

After the reservoir, we found plenty of other opportunities to continue the celebration. 

Sunday dinner in Santaquin

Cherry Hill with the Whitesides crew

And a homemade German meal at home.

Man we love you Tim!

Lagoon with Grandpa and Grandma

We had plans to spend one last Friday at Lagoon before school started and were excited when Grandpa and Grandma asked if they could join us.  Tim ended up dropping us off then going to Ogden to spend time with Brycen.  I loved having the extra company, and the kids especially loved having Grandpa and Grandma there to share in the fun.  They were good sports to follow us around and cheer and wave at the kids, then we even convinced them to go on a few of the rides.  We are just the luckiest to be able to create such great memories together.

One of the best parts about going to any amusement park with my dad is his love of carnival games.  He's pretty good at them, and especially loves the challenge.  He spent a lot of time with Luke and Ruby letting them choose a prize to win and making sure they each ended up with the toy they wanted.  They were pretty excited about the new pets, but really just had the best time playing with grandpa and watching all of his skills. 

Watch out world when they get their licenses

Forever and always the merry go round will be my favorite.  I love being able to go on it with grandma and littles and everyone has fun.  The history of it is really interesting to me - I just read about how close it came to being burned in a huge fire at Lagoon in the 1950's.  They said the firemen focused all of their efforts on saving the ride because it would have been nearly impossible to replace the hand carved animals. 

The kids loved spending time in Pioneer Village and showing grandpa and grandma all of their favorite spots.  Grandpa and Luke had the best time in the gun museum, and of course, the jail was a favorite.  We even discovered a new cabin to tour that we had somehow missed in all of our visits.

The kids convinced me to go on the log flume - and honestly seeing how happy they are in this picture made the long lines and sopping wet feet all worth it.  We had to wait at least an hour in line - but it seemed to go a lot faster once I started telling jokes.  I found a great list of kids' jokes and had a lot of the people in line joining in on the fun.  The kids thought it was all just a great time. 

Yellowstone - July, 2019

After spending a few fantastic days in the Jackson Hole area, we loaded up our gear and headed north to Yellowstone.  The drive took us up through Teton National Park and was absolutely beautiful.  As we entered the southern entrance of Yellowstone, our first stop was the West Thumb Geyser Basin area.  We didn't ever make it that far south last year and were excited to see a new area of the park.  The hydrothermal areas are right on the edge of Yellowstone Lake so the views were fantastic.  It's so strange to see how the "hot pots" flow into the lake - we were pretty sure we wouldn't ever want to get in and swim in that area.  After a year away from Yellowstone, we were all completely enthralled by the beauty and the mystery of all of the pools, geysers, and bacteria fields.

Next stop was the Old Faithful area where first things first, the kids completed the work to become Junior Rangers.  They took their responsibilities very seriously and it was great to see them so interested in preserving these areas of nature.

Call it cliche, but watching Old Faithful is really one of our favorite things to do in the park.  This times we had to wait a little extra - she wasn't quite as faithful.  We were able to see the geyser erupt three times, each with a varied perspective from a different location

And the geyser field behind Old Faithful was just as awesome as we remembered.

Anemone Geyser, AKA the toilet bowl, one of our favorite geysers

Ice cream at Yellowstone always tastes better

When we went to Yellowstone last year, Grand Prismatic Springs was hands down, our favorite location in the park.  When we went this year, we were a little disappointed - there was so much steam being blown around by the wind that you could barely even see the pools.  It's interesting how much the views of any area in the park change depending on the time of day and weather.  So this year we didn't get the views we wanted, but it is still my most favorite.

We made it to West Yellowstone late Saturday night.  Our original plan had been to head home early Sunday morning.  But we decided that we couldn't go home without spending a little time in the Grand Canyon area.  Visiting the sights along the river meant a long day, with about 8-10 hours of driving, but it was totally worth it.  We love how big and bold the canyon area is, and are always amazed at the diversity of the area.  

Plenty of places for monkeys to climb

The power of the water was completely awe-inspiring...

And a little bit terrifying

As we got ready to leave the park, we were a little sad that we had not seen very many animals on this trip.  So it was a perfect ending to the outing when we found a few small buffalo to befriend.

I am not sure when we will make it back to Yellowstone, but for now, we have amazing memories of a great family trip.  We consider ourselves so lucky to have had the chance to experience the wonder of it all, together.