But where is the yellow stone? Part 1

We spent a whole week, well M-Sa including driving, in Yellowstone National Park.  Haven't even been back home a whole week and yet, life has picked up right where we left off so it really seems like our trip was weeks ago.  During that week, we only sometimes got cell phone coverage but we pretended we didn't at all.  So there were no cell phones.  No tv.  No computer.  We did use the Ipad but that was because we had this super cool Yellowstone app with maps and descriptions of the attractions and all that.  

Let me tell you...it was AWESOME not to have BJ constantly getting work calls.  And between all 5 of us sleeping together in one tent and nothing distracting us away from real live conversation and togetherness, our family grew nice and tight.  

Really we did.  And I have to say, yes the girls may have had a couple disagreements but more often then not, they were each other's best friend the whole time we were there.  We were able to relax and be goofy and fun and it was wonderful.

We were in the car A LOT!  That's one thing about Yellowstone, you have to drive all over to get to see everything.  I feel like we saw most of it.  No back-country business for us though, just the regular (and some not as regular) basic, attractions for us.  Some of us were a little too scared of the increased likelihood of running into the big B word. (Shh, bears!)

Some of the pictures may look like the same thing over and over.  Like the shot of a cute baby boy in a backpack.  But they're not the same.  He's wearing different clothes.

French toast, campfire style.  YUMM-O!

At the top of a sort of mountain (it was really really steep).  Not sure whose idea it was to do a nice big hike on the first day but we sure wore out the young'uns.  Not to mention the heat.  Whoever told us it was going to be in the mid 70's must have really wanted to see us sweat.

Old Faithful going off in the distance.  This is still from the top of the mountain we hiked.

Mystic Falls.  The real destination of our first hike.  When we chose this hike, we didn't realize we'd have to go up to the very top of the mountain.  From the top, there was a hazy trail that apparently took you back down and around to the falls but after 20 or 30 minutes guessing where the trail was and feeling lost and close to bears, we went back down and took the easy senior citizen route to the falls.  No offense.  We like senior citizens around here.  Especially those on lots of meds. :)  All together, we hiked about 4 miles.  BJ carried Luke on his back the whole time and Bree on his front part of the time.

This was a very common sight for us.  Haylee had her camera and probably took more pics than I did.    She took it VERY seriously.

This was also a very common sight.

Old Faithful.  Up close this time.  We saw it go off 3 times.  Once from far away and 2 times nice and close.

Elk right near our campground.  We saw lots of elk but these were probably the closest.

Waiting for a s'more.

Blowing on the fire like Daddy.

Mid 30s in the mornings.  Hot chocolate became our bestest buddy.

Mud pots

This was bison # 1, on the side of the road.

The Dragon's cave....so stinky and loud!  It really sounded like a  fierce dragon growling and thrashing in a cave.