I have to split this trip up into two because between 5 Stoddard women, we have a LOT of pictures. I did my best to whittle down and delete and I will still be selective about what I put on here, but it's still a lot.
Tanner didn't come because he had just gone to Indianapolis and we have a Niederhauser camping trip coming up too. My dad had a work trip and wasn't getting back until Thursday and Austin had his last baseball game. Soooo, Austin, Shane and my dad came up Friday morning super early. All the girls headed up Wednesday morning. Dallin ended up needing to work so didn't come either. We stopped and got takeout from Café Rio in Idaho Falls. We took it to a park so the kids could run around and play. It was glorious. Lovely day and food and a great break to the driving. Even though it wasn't that far of a drive :)
Home sweet home for a couple of nights.
After we got to the cabin and settled in a bit we went down to Mack's Inn where they have pretty easy access to the river. We were thinking kids would just like to throw rocks, etc. I should have known better. All my children ended up SOAKED. I tried to just put Lottie's hands and feet in and she just wanted to splash and splash and it was exhausting trying to hold her. So she just ended up getting set in the water and kept eating the dirt and rocks. And then got mud dropped on her head by Greta. Good times. Harvey just made friends with all the kids there and went fishing. Someone gave him a net and he even caught (with some help) a couple tiny fish that he REALLY wanted to keep.
And then Greta ended up soaked and filthy and her diaper was huge so in the middle of trying to take her clothes off and get a new diaper on, this perfect photo happened. I love it!
It was a perfect day Thursday. The weather was way warmer than I was expecting. It was awesome. We came upon a nice long traffic delay I can only assume was from a big herd of bison off the side of the road. We pulled over into a little parking area to stretch and view and feed babies.
I included a lot of pictures of Harvey because he was in his modeling mood I guess. I was doing all sorts of awesome stances and poses and they make me laugh so hard that they all are here.
Showing off his muscles.
Practicing for his senior pictures.
A little jaunt to some waterfalls. Harvey was quite afraid of getting close to the edge to even look at them.
We had some snacks and then went to the artist paint pots. About a mile hike/walk/loop. On the way back around Harvey said that he loved it and wanted to do another quick loop. Haha. It was really fun. The kids were cute and he got pretty excited about the boiling mud. And it was really pretty!
He's just being silly - not throwing a fit. I feel the need to clarify that.
Exhausted after that. She took a shorter than I would have liked nap on the way up to Mammoth.
Lunch party!
This hike was pretty amazing. Mostly stairs and boardwalks around here. The kids struggled a little bit though. I think there was just a lot of tired. It rained briefly on us on the way back which was fun. And we saw a big elk sitting on the grass in between some house and a bathroom.
Checking out a furry caterpillar.
Yellowstone is just amazing. So crazy how this incredible, weird features just exist in the middle of all this other stuff.
AND - we saw a BEAR on the way out! It was awesome. The kids were kind of freaking out but there were TONS of cars pulled off the side of the road so we decided it was worth trying to get out and see what was going on. We were told there was a bear there.We had left the kids in the car and they were screaming. We weren't seeing the bear so I was getting back in the car when Heather saw it. So we pulled the kids out and tried to look. He had wandered into the trees up a little bit and we waited awhile in the mosquito infested banks of the river. Didn't think it was going to happen and then he popped out right on the other side of the river! Harvey got to see him and we watched him wander around for a little bit. It was really cool!
Then it was a chaotic late evening of getting back to the house and trying to do dinner and baths and bedtimes with hungry tired kids. But we survived and were ready for another day of fun!
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