Yes - I am slow in documenting our Vacation!

I am apparently not good enough to put the pictures in order so backwards we go!



This Barn was in Idaho on our way home - we stopped to take pictures of the backside of the Tetons and I turned around and the side of the road was covered in daisies and this part looked so artsy, so I snapped a few pictures.

This is the back side or should I say the Idaho side of the Tetons.

We went back thru Idaho to Provo for the Homer and Alma Petersen Reunion - That is Ken's Mom's Parents and siblings etc. I have to say that I really enjoy ALL of Ken's family - I have no picture because we just talked and talked instead. Pat and Larry Ashby hosted this time and did a great job. We ate, we talked, we remarked how the children have grown and the family has gotten so much bigger. I imagined Grandma and Grandpa were there in spirit - Grandma making sure she spoke with everyone and Grandpa making sure all the babies got their first taste of ice cream from him. I sure missed having them there - they were responsible for raising such a great family. I also really enjoyed getting to know some of the newest members of the family, either by marriage or by birth. My blogging friend Sue is a poet I admire, she is able to use words to express things of the heart and she wrote a poem and posted it right after we got back and it is perfect.

The Gathering
©2009 Susan Noyes Anderson

The greatest joy in life is found
where love and loyalty abound.
What sweeter sight...what dearer sound,
than all the family, gathered 'round?

That pretty much sums it up for me!

This is the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone - Ken and Logan went for us (Brenn and Dallin had headaches so we stayed home). What beautiful pictures they took.

It is fun to see the water boiling on its way downhill to the river.

This is the excelsior geyser - the colors were incredible! While walking up you could see the colors in the steam coming off of the water.

Logan is a goof!

Elk resting in the meadow.

More of the geyser - Can you see the orange, yellow and blue? I was trying so hard to get the camera to see what I could see.

The water looked like a tropical sea (except for the boiling bubbles of course)

The vapors were different colors. Lots of people looking. You walked on boardwalks because the crust of the earth is really unstable in this area - in other words you could fall thru and boil to death.

Logan being the Karate Kid.

The whole park talks about how you should leave the animals ALONE! Do not approach, do not feed, etc.. These bison were about 20 feet off the path, they seemed to be sleeping. Most of the people walked really fast by or were taking pictures from a safe distance, most people. There was a lady with a baby less than a year posing maybe 5 feet from this herd, you could hear the ranger lecturing her from a ways away. I was shocked you would get that close, they are HUGE! I just have a super zoom on my camera, its just safer that way.

This was cool - it really looked like a dragon lived in the cave - the water spurted out at interval and the steam bellowed out. Wonder if its Norbert?

This is inside the Old Faithful in - the hotel was built with interesting logs - not a straight one in the bunch. Dallin said this one resembled him and his guns.

This clock is about 15 ft long. The fireplace has 4 sides and I could have stood upright inside with no problem.

The outside.

This is Old Faithful going off - we waited for another geyser for about 3 hours and then decided we should go see Old Faithful (it was about 6pm) and then go back and wait for the Grand geyser. By the time we got to Old Faithful we missed it by 10 minutes - Brenn and I did not want to hike back to Grand so we waited in the visitors center and the truck until it was time for Old Faithful again. Luckily, Grand went off and the boys were just in time to watch Old Faithful.

This is Grand geyser - it reaches 200 ft when it blows and blows for about 12-15 minutes. It goes off about every 6 hours give or take 2 hours either way. We stopped and waited for about 3 hours before finally giving up (well Brenn and I anyway). But the boys were persistent and were rewarded with a grand display.

Pretty 'Grand.'

I love how blue the sky is and how high the water goes - the trees in the back ground are on a hill and it easily clears them.

Here we are - the wind was blowing the whole day and we got a little burned. If you go to Yellowstone be sure to plan a whole day around Old Faithful and the visitors center - there is plenty to do and see.

How these flowers can grow on that sulfur ground surrounded by hot water I cannot quite explain.

Mostly our trip seemed like a last hurrah before our kids start to scatter and leave the nest. We really wanted some time (2 weeks was good) to spend together that would be just us - play cards and games, read, listen to audio books (Percy Jackson and the Olympian series, 5 books almost 55 hours, I would definitely recommend for a long trip) food, sightseeing, water rafting, etc... Well you get the picture - cement some memories for the days ahead.

When I get the rafting pictures I will post those too.

Sniff, Sniff - YEAH!!

Can you be both sad and really glad? That is how I am feeling today. I sold the last puppy today. Sweet faced Sam found a good home with Trent - who is buying Sam for his wife's birthday and they are ssooooo excited.

Stella is on her own tonight - I think she should sleep in Brenn's room. That way she can keep Brenn up and not me (oh wait - I have to irrigate at 1:45 am to 3:15 am so I will be up anyway).

Well puppies were both really fun and a lot of work - I really like the extra bucks I made but my house ate all of that up! I wish in 1 year I could see all of the pups in their homes and know they are well cared for and good dogs (whoops, a little too attached I think).

Well on to other things like trying like crazy to buy a house for Brenn.

Yellowstone Part 2

Our first full day in Yellowstone we went to see Old Faithful. Little did we know you can, and we did, spend an entire day at the Old Faithful visitors center and watching the geysers. The picture below is called Castle geyser and it erupts constantly (can you see the water shooting out?)

This is the other side of Castle geyser.
The pools look hot but not too inviting since you can see them boiling! Most of the pools had a funny cone shape at the bottom, and were really colorful. The orange you see is algae, the middles are usually really blue or maybe teal due to the heat of the water.

As you walk on the path they have created to keep people safe (the ground is not stable, some of it is so thin you might fall into a thermal area and get burned) you can see thru the trees all kinds of steam and water streaming because of all the activity underground.

This is the Morning Glory pool. My Grandma told me this was her favorite and so we searched it out and hiked (walked up the boardwalk) about a mile to see it - they say is is changing colors from a deep turquoise to green because it is cooling off due to the trash and things people have thrown in over the years. In the 1950's the geologist made it erupt to clear out the garbage and found lots of interesting things (like women's underwear).

The area is full of pools - none quite as spectacular as Morning Glory but very similar in color and the cone at the bottom.

On the path there are about 20- 25 different geysers and they can only predict about 7 or 8 of them. Some within about 10 mins and others within 6 hours either way.

We thought this baby one was cute - notice the orange algae growing as it empties into the river. I really wanted to put my hand in the river and see how much all the run off warms up the water but there was not a good place to do that.

I was fascinated to see if I could catch the bubbling of the water - it was boiling so fast and the smell was nasty.

This is at Shoshone Lake - it was a pull out to see the view and most of those were just beautiful!!

Of course the kids have to ham it up a little bit.....

On our way into the park we were stopped with construction and it started to hail - I loved the weather and have not been able to re-acclimatize to the AZ heat (115 degrees today!)

I will post more on Old Faithful in my next post and find the pictures - I was trying not to have 300 pictures in each post.

Puppy post

Being gone for 2 weeks would not have been possible with out by sweet Sister in Law Kirsten! She took care of 5 dogs - 3 of them are puppies!!

Boy did those pups grow!! They are now Fritz size - it is hard to pick them up because they are so long and heavy!!

I had to post some updated pictures - They are sooooo cute - destructive - but cute.

Innocence - I see this and wonder how they can unplug the T.V. and rip up all of the newspapers!

They are actually doing really well - they are going potty outside almost all of the time, only one accident in 3 days - not too shabby for us being on vacation!