Yellowstone vacation

In front of Castle Geyser, which went off for at least an hour--it's the first time I've ever seen this one go off, and it was pretty cool!

In front of the entrance to Yellowstone--yeah!
The kids and I as Old Faithful is dying down--don't they look thrilled!
At the Canyon overlook--this is Chris's favorite part of the whole park. The kids thought it was cool, but I guess you have to be an adult to really appreciate how beautiful it is!

In July we took our family summer vacation to Yellowstone. The kids had never been before (well, I guess Robbie had been when he was 18 months old, but that doesn't really count because he can't remember it) and they were way excited to see the geysers and animals. Their favorite part of the trip was seeing all the animals--buffalo, elk, eagles, coyotes, squirrels, deer, etc, etc. We didn't see any bears or wolves, but we did see some great movies about them! As far as the geysers, the kids thought they were way overrated. After we watched Old Faithful, Robbie's reaction was, "That's it?!" They actually liked Castle Geyser a lot better because its eruption lasted a lot longer, and they thought the paint pot stink was disgusting and cool at the same time. We covered most of the park during the 3 1/2 days we were there, including visits to Mammoth Hot Springs, Tower Falls, the Canyon area and Upper and Lower falls, Yellowstone Lake, the geyser basins around Old Faithful, Hayden Valley, and I forget what else. I also forgot how freaky it is to stand at the top of those huge waterfalls and watch all that water drop off to the canyon floor below--it gave me the heebies big-time, and Chris kept a SUPER tight grip on Talia while we were at Upper Falls. We went to some ranger programs at Madison Junction and Canyon visitors center, saw movies and other cool displays at other visitors centers, and drove A LOT!!! We saw an IMAX movie on bears, which was awesome, and the kids did the Junior Ranger Program and got their ranger badges! The kids were real troopers, considering how much time we spent in the car, but we did have a few episodes. For the first time on any of our vacations, we had some major meltdowns--by the kids, as well as by mom and dad! Thank goodness the hotel had a pool that we could play in at night--that always seems to make everything okay! The only real drawback to the trip was on Chris's end--he was DYING to fish, but since fly fishing is not really a family activity, that was shot down by the rest of us; he had to deal with fruitlessly gazing upon the fish-laden waters of Yellowstone and dreaming of future man-trips where the only purpose of the trip is to fish. Maybe I'll let him have one of those trips this fall--Ill have to see how well he helps out with the baby and the kids to determine if he earns it or not! (FYI--he's not going to be happy with me saying he has to "earn it", but we all know that's how it really works, don't we!!)