Yellowstone Vacation

Upper Mesa Falls (outside Yellowstone National Park). No, I am not pregnant.  Do I look preggo in this picture?

 This July my entire side of the family rented a big cabin in Island Park, Idaho and spent a couple of days in Yellowstone National Park.  We had a blast!  It was fun to spend so much time with our family.  The kids LOVED the waterfalls and geysers.  (Sorry this post is travel-logue-ey.)

More Upper Mesa Falls

My cute mommy, who rode with us in the car the whole way and put up with my sometimes-cranky kids

 All of the rest of the pictures are from inside Yellowstone National Park:

Mammoth Hot Springs.  They are kind of dried up nowadays.  

By the river where we picnicked one day

In front of Tower Falls.  You can't actually see the falls in this pic.

Ah, here is Tower Falls!

In the background is Upper Falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

 This picture above and the one below are taken from the brink of Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  It made me so dizzy to see all the water falling down!

This picture is of Lower Falls taken from Artist's Viewpoint.  This place reminds me of my dad...he loved Yellowstone!

Hot water flowing into the river at Midway Geyser Basin.  My sister and nephew are in the picture, too.

 The pictures above and below are taken of the Grand Prismatic Pool at Midway Geyser Basin.  I loved how the steam rising off the pool was rainbow colored!!

Oh, yeah, of course we had to see Old Faithful.  We spent so long at Old Faithful Geyser Basin that we actually saw it erupt twice!  It was spectacular.

The next three pictures are of pretty hot springs at Old Faithful Geyser Basin.

Lion Geyser (before it started erupting)

Heart Springs

This geyser erupting is called Lion Geyser at Old Faithful Geyser Basin.  It erupted for like 7 minutes straight or something!

The following pictures are from Lower Geyser Basin.

Spasm Geyser seemed to be constantly erupting

Precious Evelyn, almost falling asleep.  It was a chilly morning.  

Evelyn did NOT sleep very well on this trip (and consequently, neither did anyone else in my little family...)  She sure loves her own crib in her own room!  

Pretty pool at Lower Geyser Basin.  Can't remember its name.  Seriously made me want to take a dip.

Firehole Falls

Gibson Falls

Me and my oldest niece. She is now taller than me!

 The following pictures are a few "selfies" my sister took of my extended family. I thought they were funny.

We are looking forward to our next Curtis Family trip!

The Buddy's Birthday

Jared had a fun birthday weekend.  On his real birthday we went to the new aquarium (see a few posts ago).  Then we had a yummy pizza dinner (Jared's request: Little Caesar's with breadsticks.) Grandma C and Grandpa S and Uncle Mason joined us for dinner and dessert (Grandma S was on vacation). 

Mason showing Jared how the microscope works!

Cookie ice cream pie (a recipe from my roommate Caroline).  Jared often does this face when posing for pictures.  Weirdy.  :) Notice Jared's classic Star Wars shirt.  He loves it.

The traditional song my side of the family always sings for birthdays.

Happy birthday, Dude!  What an awesome, wonderful boy I have.  I feel like in the past I have struck-out somewhat in choosing the right presents for Jared at his birthday and Christmas.  I will sometimes choose things that he doesn't really end up playing with. However, this year he got the PERFECT things for his interests: a Star Wars character encyclopedia, a microscope, binoculars, a wristwatch, an animal encyclopedia, rubber band airplanes, a book about the Periodic Table (not kidding--he's totally into it), and this amazing Snap Circuits Jr. board.  (Seriously, if you have a somewhat nerdy kid like mine who loves to put things together, this is the PERFECT gift for them.  It has kept Jared busy for hours!) Score!!!

We didn't have a friend party this year, but I think Jared had a great time anyway.  The Saturday after Jared's birthday, Alan and some of Alan's siblings took Jared to hike Timpanogos Cave.  Jared LOVED it.  He had a lot of fun spending time with people he loves. 

Vintage dress

It is fun to dress up my girls in old dresses I used to wear.  I'm so glad my mom saved several of them.  Here is the latest photo shoot of Evy:

Looks like she's waving!  Ha ha.

Evelyn at age 15 months

Maggie at 17 months old

Me at age 2

4th of July

On the 4th of July we took my mom up the canyon to Cascade Springs.  The kids love looking at waterfalls lately!  

My cute kids in their patriotic clothes

I loved the yellow flowers!

 In the afternoon we went to Alan's parents house for a movie afternoon.  We watched "Brave" and ate delicious treats.  It was so fun to see our families that day!

Summer Fun

We have been having a crazy but fun summer.  Grandma Curtis (my mom) has a pool in her neighborhood, and she is so awesome to invite her grandchildren to go swimming two or three times a week .  Jared has finally had a breakthrough with his swimming skills and has been loving it.  (He used to be so scared to put his head in the water--so scared that I told him I wouldn't put him in more swimming lessons until he would do it.) 

Alan, my kids, Grandma, and some cousins

Evy LOVES swimming and gets so excited when she sees we are getting in swimsuits

My cute kids and hubby

I love this girl

The point of this picture was to show Evy's cute swimsuit that my neighbor gave me as a hand-me-down, but she didn't want to cooperate.  The other kids wanted to be in the picture, too.

We got an annual pass to the new aquarium halfway through the summer and have already been twice.  We had a pass to the old aquarium that expired just over a year ago, and it was so awesome that we knew we had to get a pass to the new aquarium, too.  They made the animals have such cool living spaces, and there are some fun places for kids to play.  It was hard to get pictures of the animals in their tanks, but here are a few:

Jared on a cool rope bridge that is really high up in the air

Standing by the height comparisons of the penguins.  I remember when Jared was the same height as an emperor penguin, and now Maggie is that same height!

Looking at sharks

Evy looking at the clown fish, aka the "Nemos"

Cool arch in the Utah section