News ALERT!!!!!!!!

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP..BEEP ....We interrupt this regular scheduled blog post for an important NEWS ALERT



Ellie has graduated from KINDERGARTEN!!!!!!!!!!


...and MY are WE proud. :)





Here is the YEAR in REVIEW

First day before school

September 6th! Ellie's 6th birthday! (At the fair)

Ellie riding at Grandpa Pates

Ellie's traumatic eye cut.

First Lost Tooth

First Piano Recital

Percy joined our family.

Easter 2012

Many, many Book It Rewards at Pizza Hut.

Spring Break 2012

Stake Trek

The Very Last.....

Day of KINDERGARTEN!!!

Yellowstone Wildlife part II

Antelope

Elk

ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz I know, I know. Pretty Bad.

This Elk was standing right in front of our car. I had to sneak out to go use the restroom.

These buffalo were fording the river, it was quite impressive.

Apparently they were having their young babysat, because as soon as they got back across the river they began feeing their young.

This Buffalo was right outside our car, Barry keep his foot on the gas in case the buffalo decided to ram us.

....It just decided to relieve its' waters instead. :)






And then we saw............

GRIZZLEYS

This grizzley was close, I mean like 10 ft away! Not down a ravine, or across the river, but right on the side of the road. The rangers make you leave if they're that close, but the ranger hadn't made it there yet, so we got a good view as we drove by and watched it pick out it's snack among the foolish onlookers who were just STANDING on the side of the rode snapping pictures.

James's loved the bears, woke him right up. Lauren even pointed at them.


We saw blackbears, 6 grizzly bears, including a mom and two cubs, a snake, antelope, elk, buffalo, 3 wolves on a kill, and much much more! The wolves looked about the size of our donkey and struck great fear in my heart. I really didn't get very many good pictures. I am going to invest in a better camera for our next trip, because there is TONS to see.

Yellowstone part III More of the sites

Yellowstone!! Part 1

About the park.
"Yellowstone National Park covers an area of over three thousand four hundred and seventy two square miles or two million two hundred and nineteen thousand seven hundred and eighty nine acres. The vast consists of lakes, canyons, mountain ranges and the largest super volcano on the North American Continent.

The park is bigger in size compared to the states of Delaware and Rhode Island. The park acts a wildlife preserve as well and consists of a number of endangered species. The park was created by a bill that was signed into law by President Ulysses S Grant."





We drove to Yellowstone Wednesday after Ellie got out of school. To break the trip up, we stopped half-way in Idaho Falls and went to Jakers Restuarant. It was yummy yummy yummy. After stuffing our tummies, and I mean stuffing our tummies, we drove the rest of the way to Yellowstone and our adventure began!

We stayed at the Historic Stage Coach Inn

It was nice and clean, they had a tons of stuffed dead animals in the foyer and a grand staircase, but the feeling in the place was BLEK, I can't really explain it, but BLEK! We won't be staying there again.

Ellie was the first one to spot an animal. A buffalo! She was pretty excited about that.
I took a ton of pictures, so I will break it up a bit.


My pictures are in no particular order, but I think this was from our first day.
These pictures are taken at NORRIS BASIN

Down on the boardwalk.

Norris Basin is awesome! There are gorgeous pools and geysers. We happened to be standing right next to one when it went off and it scared the heck out of all of us! :)
We had a great time walking around, even when it started to rain on us it wasn't so bad.

James was fascinated by the steam coming from the mountain.

there was this deep looking hole off the boardwalk and I wanted to see what as in it, so I leaned over and streched my arm out as far as I could and snapped a picture. The kids thought that was pretty fun.

The picture can't even begin to capture the gorgeous blue color of the pools

The view after we hiked back up from the basin.


**Next post. Yellowstone WILDLIFE!!

Muffin Love

Do you ever see something, and just fall in love at first site.

I do.

but not very often.

I saw THIS at our local thrift store and just HAD to have it!

It makes me smile.

this muffin pan is old, really OLD.

It has 24 places for muffins. WOW! Beating my 12 and 6 muffin tins by a mile. It's so thick my muffins will never burn.

Best of all, it will shelter me if there is an EARTHQUAKE! :)
This thing is SOLID, no less than 5 pounds ....probably quite a bit more.

:)

Why I had to have it? I'm not quite sure.
Why I LOVE it?? I'm not quite sure either.

but I do know when I showed it to Barry and he said "That is AWESOME!!" I loved him too!!

:)

p.s. Yes the pan is slighty dirty, Barry made me rasberry muffins with struzzel topping to celebrate my find.

Trek 2012

We went on a Mini Trek with the Stake on Saturday, it was fun. We treked though the desert by Lake Walcott. Many of the people are going on the real trek in the summer so they wore their trek clothes, we went just for fun. 4.5 miles of lots of sand. It was pretty cold as first.

A kind family provided the children with some bags of chips, I think it gave them super energy, Ellie walked and ran a lot of the way.

See how excited everyone is. It was pretty cold. ;) James brought a whole pocket full of suckers. They were gone before we even got started. Barry says "where in the world does this boy, get all his candy from?" ;)

Everyone starting out

Barry helped the kids get the cart up the big sandy hill.

Lauren didn't really ride in the cart, (I didn't want her to dive out, or put her hand in the wheel) So I pushed her in a stroller but it got too sandy, so I carried her. It actually wasn't too bad, and Lauren was a perfect angel the whole time, she didn't squirm once to get away.

Ellie socializing.