Toads, and more toads!

I was wead-eating the lawn back by the ditch and all the sudden I saw something move - I immediatly thought it was a spider, however it was not! It was a toad! Oh I thought that was neat, and then I started seeing more! I went and got the girls, and Erik tagged along too! These little guys were hopping around EVERYWHERE!

Lauren wasn't interested in holding them at first, but it didn't take her long to get the hang of it! Since we saw so many, we had to make them a home!

 

 Lauren holding her toad!

 In the mean while, Sawyer really loves the camera and LOVES to take pictures with it. I didn't think it was the best idea at the time with her being so close to water. Anyways, this is what happens when little girls don't get what they want!

 She did finally get up, and cheer up!

 Here is the first few toads we caught! I didn't get a picture, but later we had 11 toads in the bucket!

 The girls played with those toads for quite along time, but we finally set the poor things gfree!

Just for fun, a few pictures of the girls!!

Where in the world is Tie Flume?!

Since we have family that live in Dayton, the Big Horns are right in the middle - and make a great place to meet up! My mom, Aimee and her kids, Kandace and the two oldest, and Lauren and I met up at Bear Lodge to do some hiking! Our plan was to go to Tie Flume. Before hiking we had to energize ourselves with a yummy lunch, and then we were off - so we thought! We drove to a spot were we thought would be a good place to start our hike and the sign said Tie Flume 1/4 (we took that as 1/4 mile). We started walking - when we had planned this we thought we would be on a hiking trail, but we were just on a dirt road! So we were walking, and walking! This 1/4 of a mile was starting to get pretty long, but we continued! After a while Triff and Lauren were not diggin the whole walking thing - and at this point Jaxon, Kysar, and Kynlee were so far ahead that we couldn't see them. We decided my mom would take Triff, Lauren, and Kaya back to the truck and Kandace, Aimee and I would go find the boys and Kynlee! Aimee and I thought that we could handle running up hill. Ha. Having just watched Olympics I felt that it might have given me an advantage, because I really started to feel like I was a fast runner, swimmer, you get my point! Ha. It did not help me at all! We did however catch up to the boys by calling them with our really loud voices!! As we started walking back to the truck we decided that it was no 1/4 mile to Tie Flume! When we got back, we realised the sign was saying it was 1/4 mile to the Tie Flume campground. My mom was determined to find this place, and even though everyone else was satisfied with going home, we loaded up in the truck and tried to find Tie Flume.

We drove, and as we drove we came upon this guy. I love moose, but what would we have done if we were still walking! Yikes! We were so grateful that we turned around when we did!

 

 The riding arraingements while trying to find Tie Flume.

 The kids had so much fun back here!

 So we are still driving, and no sign of Tie Flume. We even saw a guy on a 4-wheeler, and he didn't know a thing about Tie Flume, except for the campground which he tried to re-direct us to! This was not a good sign that this guy did know where it was! We drove a little farther, and then turned around! Apparently we don't know where we are going. We did pull off into an area that had some really old cabins. (To which Aimee told the kids, these where the cabins that the people stayed in while they built Tie Flume! Good one Aimee!)

On our way back we did see this guy again! Still very thankful to be in the truck instead of walking!

So we never found Tie Flume, but we had a fun time trying to find it!

The Mountains!

 

We decided it was about time for us to go camping, and so we loaded up our stuff and were off to the Big Horns!

This picture is so blurry, but it just goes to show the effort we make to have a pleasant ride!

 

He is just way to cool to get his picture taken!

 

As we were driving up the mountains we remembered that we forgot to get the ORV sticker for the 4-wheeler, so once we got to our camp ground we unhooked, unloaded and set off for Bear Lodge. As we were driving we saw the most vibrant purple and yellow flowers (they must have been blooming because we went up again a few weeks later and they were even close to being as bright) .

 

When we got to Bear Lodge we were surprised to see the Grandalen family there! It is so funny because we live 10 miles away from them and don’t see them around town, but when we drive an hour… that’s when we bump into them! It was so fun to catch up with them, and thanks to the long line of people getting there ORV stickers too, we had plenty of time to visit with the Grandalen’s!  After we got our sticker, we headed back to the camper, went for a 4-wheeler ride, the girls scoped out our camping spot, and then we were off to bed!

 

They did not stay like this for too long! In the middle of the night, I ended up moving Lauren with Erik and sleeping with the fussy Sawyer! But we did get some sleep J

The next morning we woke up and ate some cereal (I think that is cheating to eat cereal on the mountain – but it’s so much easier!) Lauren and Sawyer tried to help dad get everything ready! Then we set off to go fishing!  

 The fisherman!

 

It really isn’t that fun fishing with a 1 ½ year old! All she wants to do is throw rocks in the water, and that scares the fish away for a certain girl and a certain dad who are trying to fish! So Sawyer and I had to go try to scare fish away somewhere else!

 She didn't care where we had to go, she just had fun throwing rocks!

 So pretty!

 

We drove up the creek a ways and again, Sawyer and I had to make ourselves sparse! Motherhood is so incredible, at times looking at other Mothers and my own, I would see that they would have to stay back with a child – and I felt bad because they were missing out on the fun; but there is no missing out! In this case, Lauren was having an amazing time with her dad, and I was watching my little Sawyer having so much fun throwing rocks in the water – it’s the little things! You do it because it keeps your kids happy!

 

 Little Sawyer had to see what was going on too! This is her way to ride on the 4-wheeler!

 After fishing we came back to the camper for lunch and Erik and Lauren went back out to catch some fish! Nap time was calling Sawyer, so we stayed at the camper!

 After Erik and Lauren came back, we loaded up our stuff and before we could get to far we saw the Mickelson's and stopped to talk with them! Lauren and Libby had a blast together making concoctions of who knows what! And so our heading home at 3 pm ended up heading home at 7 pm!

I love having the Big Horns so close, they are the perfect get away!

Yellowstone - Part 3

Our next stop was the Lower Falls, isn't this gorgeous?!

 

 Triffen and Lauren enjoying the veiw!

My mom made up a little saying for the kids, when we get to Yellowstone we are going to get out walk around, get back in the car. Get out, walk around, get back in the car! That is exactly what we did (and what the kids really didn't enjoy most of the time!!)
So here we are... Getting out, Walking around..

Getting back in the car!

We then stopped at the Steam Boat Geyser!

 The crew taking a break (It was a nice hot day!)

 Someone always had to be on "Ben" duty! No telling what this boy might do!

 Walking back to the car! I was so grateful for all of the help with the kiddos!

 Then we stopped for some intentional swimming! Lila was such a good sport and got in with the kids and got here hair wet!

I stayed by the edge and helped the littles!

 

Not the most centered picture, but I just love her smile!

We were going to end our day after swimming and head back to West Yellowstone, but we were only about 15 miles from Old Faithful so we decided to hit up Old Faithful (just so we could see it twice on our trip!) As I slowly found out 15 miles does not mean 15 minutes away, going 45 mph and sometimes slower makes 15 miles drag on a bit!

The crew waiting for Old Faithful! We were pretty lucky and only had to wait about 20 minutes!
This is the only picture I got of Old Faithful! We were there TWICE and I didn't get one picture of it going off!
To the far left of Old Faithful there was another Geyser going off and it was pretty cool because it was going on for a good half hour (if not more) We kept thinking it would stop, but if we knew it was going to last as long as it did we probably would have gone over to it!

We didn't stay to look around because that was on our agenda for the next day. So we drove back to West Yellowstone to stay for the night. We were caught in 2 "traffic jams" on the way to West Yellowston just to see some stinkin elk!
When we got to our hotel Lila and Kandace went out to get us some food and the rest of us stayed and swam in the pool. We coaxed the kids out of the pool with some dinner and then we called it a night and went to bed!
The next day we loaded up and headed for Old Faithful again. We walked all around it (and with a 1.5 year old, a 2 year old, 2 4 year olds, a 9 year old, and 5 adults - you have to be creative, completely un-irritable, and ready for anything to make it through the day!) We had icecream and then headed out to find a place to eat some lunch!
Did I mention why I didn't have any pictures of the second day?! It might have been because of this little girl and another little boy who took 100+ pictures the first day! I have proof!

Anyways! We set out to find a place for lunch, but before lunch we stopped at a neat hotel (agian, I cannot remember the name for the life of me!) But Lila describeds it as looking like the hotel they had in Dirty Dancing!
After the Dirty Dancing hotel we drove and drove, and finally found the place we were looking for to eat our lunch! We let the kiddos burn off some energy and then it was back in the car to go home!
Awe, It feels so good to be home!