The 4th of July-Coeur d'alene Style

We decided last minute to spend the 4th of July in Coeur d'alene this year!  Believe it or not when we asked the kids if they wanted to go they didn't jump at the chance.  They love our neighborhood 4th of July pancake breakfast/parade and our cul de sac fireworks so much that they almost didn't want to go.  We finally convinced them but only by promising to leave after the breakfast.  Then a neighbor found out my kids were going to miss the fireworks and several of them offered to join us in shooting off our fireworks early!  So the kids ended up getting the best of both worlds.

 A neighbor family that just moved in has a kid the same age as all of our kids.  Libby has been praying for a little girl her age to move into our cul-de-sac since she was four!  She finally got her wish.

Then it was off to Coeur d'alene

Amber Waves of Grain!

We drove all day in time to get there to watch the big fireworks over the lake.  The kids were doubtful it would be as good as their beloved neighborhood fireworks, not having been to many big shows in their life.  But they were blown away...no pun intended.

No I didn't take this picture.  :-)

The next day we played around Coeur d'alene.  Levi and Rock went cliff jumping:

We ate Gooeys at the Coeur d'alene resort.  They were as big as Liberty's head and so delicious!

Libby was thrilled, but Levi was not so sure...

We were all hot and tired after a long day exploring Coeur d'alene in the heat, so we went back to the hotel for a swim and some popcorn.

The next day the girls rented bikes to ride along the lake and the boys hiked Tubb's Hill.  

You can see Levi on the middle rock if you look close.

 Then we played at the beach. 

And got some more ice cream.

Coeur d'alene was beautiful! 

And if you noticed that we are short one child, that is because Cade is working up at Scout Camp this summer.  

Yellowstone Part II

On our second day in Yellowstone we covered the southern portion of the park-ie, fewer animal sightings and way more geysers and hot pots.

Old Faithful

Kind of anti-climatic, but hey, now we can say we've seen it.

 Grand Prismatic Spring 

Blue smoke!  

This one was kind of a mystery to me.  They have gone to great lengths to build and maintain a walkway up to this pool, but unless you are 10 feet tall, you can't really see how cool this is.  It takes a helicopter ride or the internet to give you the real view:

From West Thumb we continued south out of the park to see the Tetons and Jackson Hole.

I LOVE the Tetons!

No trip to Rexburg is complete without a trip to my favorite frozen yogurt on the planet-Millhollow!  

 It has not changed one single bit in (almost) 25 years.

 On our way home, just outside of Idaho Falls and luckily near civilization we got a nice flat tire.  Drove over a screw that popped the tire in two places.

While we waited on the side of the road for our Uber, this was our beautiful view.

It was a gorgeous day and all in all the flat took only an hour and a half to get fixed.

Our last stop  on the trip was a river in the middle of nowhere so Reagan could look for rocks-he's really into geology.  

The trip was a great success.  The only thing missing was a Moose sighting.  

Guess we'll have to go back!

When Reagan got home, he started his first job at Papa Murphy's!

Yellowstone Part I

We gave Reagan a trip to Yellowstone when he turned 16.  He didn't get to take that trip in October because we didn't want to deal with Yellowstone in the snow.  Instead we took him the day school got out.  Turns out it was perfect weather and perfect timing as far as the crowds go.  Here's the story.

Our first day in the park it took almost three hours to get to Madison, a drive that should  have taken 15 minutes.  We started to doubt that Yellowstone was ever NOT crowded when we finally came upon the cause of the traffic.  It was not a traffic jam at all but a Buffalo Jam!!!

We got our first view of these big slow animals here:

We got out of the car to get a better look and suddenly they were not quite as slow as I thought and they started running towards us!  We had to jump back in the car before they stampeded us!

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone-So THAT's why it's called Yellowstone!

This canyon was my favorite part of the whole park!

Gorgeous!

Tower Falls

 Mammoth Falls

 Elk in the road.  They were all over, sitting in the grass, walking around, big as life.  No antlers though.  

Elk Herd

We stopped every time we saw a group of cars gathered on the side of the road looking at animals.  This time it was a mama bear and her two cubs.  Mama is the brown spot to the left of the middle standing tree.  Her cubs were hiding at the base of that tree.

We headed to the Lamar Valley next and got stopped by this guy and his pals.

All in all on just our first day in Yellowstone we saw: a mama bear and her two cubs, buffalo, a wolf, elk, baby elk, mountain goats, an antelope of some kind, a black bear and a bald eagle on a nest in the grand canyon.  What an amazing day!  And that was without binoculars!

We got caught in a rainstorm that left the most amazing rainbow as we ended our first day in Yellowstone.

Stay tuned for Part II

The Master Bathroom Remodel

Rock has been wanting to remodel our bathroom for years, but I usually prefer to spend money updating stuff everyone else can see and use.  I finally decided to go along with his idea and we recently had our master bathroom remodeled.  It was quite the experience and not really an easy one.  We hired a contractor, but not a designer so we had to pick all the tile, faucets, grout, cabinets etc. etc. etc. Talk about overwhelming!  Some people love this kind of thing, but apparently I'm not one of them. Too much second guessing and way too many options to choose from.  But I learned a LOT about myself in the process and overall, we are thrilled with the result!  Here are the before and afters....

Before

The goal was to get rid of the bathtub we never use (it's not jetted), expand the shower and make it a walk in where the bathtub used to be and expand the closet.

 Demolition

After

Walk in Shower.  Around the corner is a nice spacious shower!

We love love love our new bathroom!  The only downside is that now I really want to remodel the other bathrooms!