Continuing the Saga…

After we left Ron & Dee’s we headed East across Montana, heading for Yellowstone National Park. Ron & Dee suggested that we travel through the Beartooth Pass in Montana. We followed their advice and saw the most beautiful country ever!

We drove across Montana and then down to a place called Red Lodge. From there we went through Rock Creek Vista Point and could see for miles in every direction.

We started climbing up over the Bear’s Tooth Pass and saw the most beautiful mountains, lakes and wild flowers. We thought we were in the Swiss Alps!

the entire side of the mountain would be covered in flowers like this…

It was July but there were still many pockets of snow and it was very cold!

If you look past the sign, right above the “E”, you can see why it’s called Bear’s Tooth Pass

Then, as we were coming down onto the other side of the pass, we saw them… the most beautiful pair of mountain goats. You can’t see the other one, but there were two. We got out of our car to look at them and were standing about 20-30 feet away from them. We watched them for quite awhile until they wandered down the mountain side. They were amazing!

You can see both of them in this picture…

this was a river that we crossed over on our drive. We had to get out and hike to see it

standing on the bridge above the river…

And then, we finally made it to Yellowstone…

We were hoping to see some animals when we got into the park, and we weren’t disappointed… almost immediately we saw a couple of buffalo and it just got better from there. The following are the animals we saw and one that we didn’t get a picture of was a bald eagle.. enjoy the pictures!

we saw hundreds of buffalo… everywhere…

above… standing above the falls, looking down

below… standing in front of the falls where we had to hike down to get to this spot. It was a long hike back up!

who would’ve guessed that there are pelicans in Yellowstone Park?

This was another elk that we saw a little later. Look how big his antlers are and the crazy guy in the bottom of the picture… we stayed safe in our car the whole time!

As we were about to leave the park, we felt like we had seen just about every animal that we had wanted to see. Except a Moose. We were heading over a bridge and there was a big crowd of people. They were looking at a couple of large moose that were eating grass along the rivers edge. Success!!

We had a great time in the park and loved all the beauty of this amazing place. We were in time to see the sunset over the Tetons and then stayed the night at Teton Village

We made our way back to Provo to pick up Brian from EFY and had such a fun trip. We loved seeing new places and travelling new roads. It was all a great trip!

Montana here we come…

After the family reunion Robert and I had planned to visit our friends in Montana, but figured since we were going that far, we would make a few stops along the way… On Saturday, Robert, Brian, Mom and I headed up to Aurora to spend a couple of days with my mom and my sister, Cindy. We went to church with Mom on Sunday and then Robert, Brian and I travelled up to Provo after church. We stayed with Robert’s brother, David and his wife, Vicki, Sunday night. On Monday, we had a great breakfast with David and Vicki and spent some time visiting with them. We then headed over to BYU to drop Brian off for a week at EFY. Brian goes to EFY and usually doesn’t have a roommate planned ahead of time but he always has a great time. checking in outside of the stadium at BYU

He stayed in the E. Richards dorm in Heritage Halls, which is the same dorm that I lived in when I was attending BYU. He almost stayed in the same apt. as me… just two doors down! I got pretty nostalgic… that’s his window on the bottom right..

After we dropped Brian off, Robert & I drove up to Idaho to see Sister Sue, Robert’s Mission Mom from when he served in Spain. She lived in SLC for many years but recently moved to Idaho. It was great to visit with her again and get caught up on all the news.

After visiting with Sister Sue, we headed to Rexburg to see our good friends from California, Ross & Kathleen Baron. Ross is a teacher at BYU-Idaho and this was our first trip to visit them. We went to dinner at the hot spot in town, "Wingers" . Ross & Kathleen took us on a tour of the campus after dinner and we loved it. It really is beautiful there and we really enjoyed the cooler weather. This picture is taken from one of the buildings on campus and overlooks the valley and part of the campus.

The saga continues… after leaving Rexburg, we traveled to a little tiny town and were lucky to find lodging at one of the motels in town. There were only three… and they were all full. This place did have a couple of vacancies. I guess Idaho is a pretty popular place in July with all the fisherman and hunters, etc. We were lucky to have a place to sleep! We did love the accommodations, though, it was very picturesque.

The next morning we headed out again, slowly making our way to Montana… We had been told to stop and see Upper Mesa Falls if we were able and it was right along our way, so we did, and we were so glad! It was so beautiful!

The whole drive through Idaho and into Montana was so beautiful and we enjoyed it so much… even the potato fields were beautiful because they were different for us.

the potato fields… they were endless!

the Tetons from a scenic point in Idaho…

fields of horses grazing (my personal favorite…)

beautiful scenery of mountains and rivers in the Gallatin National forest

and then, finally, we arrived in Montana and to our friends, Ron & Dee Helling’s, home. I think it looked just like I thought it would! Dee and Ron have their own distinct style and their home and everything there reflects their love of animals and flowers and nature.

This is the backyard, where we had lunch, in the gazebo, and their garden is in the background.

We loved meeting their dogs, Harry & Hermione. We took a couple of hikes while we were there, we visited the museum where Dee works as a docent and Ron & Dee volunteer at a living farm exhibit. They dress up in period attire and play at the farm! Actually it’s a lot of hard work, but it seems like they’re having too much fun for it to be work.

walking across a foot bridge and standing in a field of flowers. the picture doesn’t do justice to the beauty of this place!

We also went to a farmer’s market and to a local concert in the park that was so much fun… and the music was even good!

We hope to make this trip again someday and bring some of our kids with us. It was a blast and we saw so many pretty things and had such a fun time with good friends.

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July in Arizona…

July is such a hot month, we try to travel elsewhere! Usually we travel up to Utah to visit my mom for the 4th of July, but this year, since we were planning a family reunion and I wanted to be here to help Kimber out with her new baby, we didn't go :(

Instead we planned for my mom to come to our family reunion with us in Sedona, Arizona. So, a few days before we left for Sedona, Mom flew to our house and spent a few days with us in sunny and hot Arizona. Those of you who know my mom know that she doesn't like the heat. We spent most of the time in the house or in the pool.
On the 14th we left for Sedona and along the way we stopped at a place called Montezuma's Castle where there are Indian Ruins. It was very interesting to see the places where these people lived many years ago.

We stopped for lunch along the way at a great sandwich place that Robert & I discovered when we came up here in March. The outside patio in back was adorable and was such a nice break from being in the car for 2 and a half hours!

We traveled up the road just a couple of miles to Junipine Resort where we stayed for 4 days. We had 3 condos for the entire group and we fit pretty nicely! The condos were very close together so it made it easy for all the grandkids to find their way to Grandma & Grandpas for dinner or early breakfast or licorice… We know what our role is!

The first item of business was to have a family meeting and hand out the family reunion t-shirts that Richard and Mom made for everybody. We wore them when we did activities or went hiking and I think the kids liked them. This will probably become a tradition each time we have a reunion.

Of course, Larry had to have his own special shirt for the occasion… ask him about it sometime and I’m sure he would be glad to tell you all about it.

I asked Nickie if she would plan some activities for the kids because she’s so creative and I’m not… She really went all out and planned some great stuff! One of the activities we did with the kids was to make tie dye shirts and they all did a great job. They had such a fun time dying their shirts. The adults helped to twist and tie the shirts, then the kids got to pour their own colors on.

After the shirts were done, the kids invented their own game called “chase each other with glove balloons” it was quite entertaining…

We went on hikes to see more Indian Ruins, played in the river, went to Slide Rock State Park, ate dinner together and had a day of games and races, which is tradition in our family for the 4th of July… we just did it a little later in the month this year. The beauty of Junipine was amazing and it was more enjoyable because we were there with our family. We had a great time and we look forward to another reunion in two years!

Larry, Ethan, Mason, Catherine

Larry, Melanie, Noah and Ethan

Richard, Sadie, Mason

Grandma and Noah.................. Mason

Great Grandma and baby Van

Great Grandma and all the grandkids