Yellowstone

Right before school started we went on a little trip with Matt's family to Yellowstone. It was the first time I had ever been. It was beautiful!

We saw....

    a bison......

    

  

                heat loving bacteria.....

                                    

and lots and lots of geysers! 

....including "Ol' Faithful".

My personal favorite. I've been waiting for this moment all my life!

I imagined meeting Smoky the Bear around every tree and corner. Luckily we didn't meet any bears. :)

Here are some more fun photos of the trip.

Matt & I threw some rocks for fun and she wanted to do it too.
Here she is trying to throw a rock in. She kept throwing them directly into the ground. She didn't understand the "throwing" part.

                                                

Matt's family is really so much fun! His dad has a job in Pocatello and his sister & brother go to school in Pocatello. The whole family is there! Sometimes I just tell Matt that we should find something to do so we could also live in Pocatello. I swear if we all lived together, each day would be more exciting than the previous one. I love vacations with the Hickenloopers. 

We saw Yellowstone in one day and rented a cabin. After a long, long, long day at the park, with everyone coming back exhausted, his family blew up balloons, through together a fruit pizza, and busted out with presents for Matt, to celebrate his birthday. Matt, I think, is the best person to give presents too.... I've never seen an adult get so excited over gifts. He got a couple of carabiners, an ATC, and a harness. He loved everything! 

It was so fun to play, travel, and hang out with his family. Truthfully one of my favorite parts was Ainsley. Talk about a little girl with no fear,  tons of curiosity, and humor. As we walked along the trail she had no fear to climb up things or to jump off of them. (This gives anyone obvious reason for concern.) We did stop at one place to look at some bears (behind some gates) and she showed us the sign language for dog. I can see the furry thing with four legs could be a dog.... but the friendliness of a dog? I think not. I was pretty good about seeing the bears behind a gate in a managed environment, again, I'm pretty grateful we didn't REALLY see a bear. :)

  

Don't you wish you could just take her home?!