Sunday, July 26, 2009

Island Park

Here are more pics of Island park area activities. Mesa Falls--near Ashton, Idaho


Mesa Falls

Big Springs...north of Island Park, Idaho area

Big Springs, Idaho...one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen

Whitney--Big Springs area

Nikki & Rachel swimming..or getting ready to jump in...

Robb taking kids for rides in the boat

Ryan and Jacob in the canoe

Macee loved the hammock

Scotty's fish

Kayaking!





Yellowstone!

We had a fun family trip this past weekend to Island Park, Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Our wonderful friends, Robb & Amy Boden invited us to stay with them at their family cabin in Island Park. Thank so much BODEN'S! We love ya!!!

Scotty & Macee

look REAL close to see the 2 small black bears sleeping in the tree! (lower part of the pic)


Jacob at " artist paint pots" area







Elk at Mammoth Springs area...just grazing right in town among all the people


North Gate--Yellowstone



Rachel---waterfall area


Yellowstone river



This geyser was actaully more amazing than "old faithful". It was erupting for 3 hours....and still going...Also the path you walk to it, you can get much closer....about 10 feet away. It was just amazing to see!


Friday, July 17, 2009

Medicine Bow Mountains, Wyoming!


Driving from Ogden to Denver and vise/versa can be very boring and DRY looking. Thankfully this June we had lots of rain to keep the hills green. Still...a long boring drive. So this time I convinced Mark to take a "side track". We took highway 130 from Laramie deep into the beautiful fir filled forest of the Medicine Bow mountains. This was amazing...we got to the elevation of 10,850 feet! It was a gorgeous drive with snow capped peaks and glacier lakes all around. We stopped at the Libby Mountain lookout point. They had this little castle-like lookout tower. The view was spectacular! Then as we came out of the mountains, there is a cute little town called Saratoga. We met up with the freeway just a bit before Rawlings. So THEN we still had the long boring drive to Evanston and on into Utah but we could always remember our little journey into the heavens at Medicine Bow mountains.

OH...we had to stop at the Lincoln Monument too on the way to Denver. It is a really nice rest stop just outside of Laramie on the 1-80 freeway. Kind of a freakishly BIG head of Abraham Lincoln but still neat to see nonetheless.





Whintey took about a million pics of the clouds on the way there...We did see some really great cloud formations!









snow pile! mid July!










Sunday, July 5, 2009

Silver Lake-July 4th

One day about 9 years ago, Mark was driving around Salt Lake City. He thought he would just drive up Big Cottonwood canyon to see what was at the end. He knew there were ski resorts but wondered what else. What he found has become a great favorite place for us as a family to go visit. It is Silver Lake....it is a small natural lake with a boardwalk path all around. (nice because we always had small kids in strollers) It is a natural "water-shed" area. We have seen so much wildlife...including moose. It's beautiful in the summer but the fall is spectacular as well!
We had a nice picnic and walk around the lake. Rachel, Molly & Macee

Whitney

Mark & Scotty
Jacob & Rachel
Macee & Scotty

the lake
our picnic site





Friday, July 3, 2009

Let Freedom Ring!

" what do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times...a patriotism that puts country ahead of self; a patriotism which is not short frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime."

Adlai StevensonLet's all be grateful for the great country we live in. Let's all not take for granted our freedoms. Be proud to be an American. Times may be tough....time to count your blessings and realize how much we truly have.