Yellowstone/Tetons/Jackson Trip

I seem to always start posts with "we were lucky enough", well, we are lucky. Or blessed. And Nate's family was able to come out for 2 weeks. Unfortunately I still had to work a mostly normal schedule, but Nate got to work half days. And we had two of his younger brothers stay at our house the whole time they were here. Let me just say, LOTS of gaming took place. Anyway, it was so fun to have the whole family out here. We mostly just had fun spending time together, of course lots of halo, the boys played basketball a few times, bbqs, shopping, and more fun.

The last part of their trip I was able to get a couple days off of work, so Thursday evening after work we drove up to Lava (where Nate's grandparents have a cabin). We all hung out that evening and the next day Nate and I tried fishing at the pond, to no avail, but it was a gorgeous day. And that afternoon we all got tubes (Nate and I used our 2 person raft) and floated down the river. It was my first time, and it was A BLAST! It really made me want to float the Provo River too!

We headed off late in the evening and made it to our campsite late Friday evening. Our campsite was kind of like a KOA, with reserved spots and a bathroom close by. But it was pretty nice. Only a few trees would have made it better. But it was still nice and plenty of space for all of us.

We decided to have 4 tents, with Nate and I in our own. Nate's parents, Sandi and Matt in another. The brothers, Dain, Taylor and Ethan in another. And Dain and Taylor's girlfriends in the last. It worked out great.

We decided we would spend Saturday at Yellowstone. I've grown up going to Yellowstone. I don't know how many times I have been there, but I would guess 10-15 times because we went almost every summer that we went to grandma B's and we went to her house almost every summer when I was younger too. I don't know if I'd ever seen the east side of Yellowstone though, with Yellowstone lake. We always went to West Yellowstone, and went to Old Faithful, some colorful hotsprings and the falls. We of course saw Old Faithful and the falls too. It was fun to go, and remember seeing the same sights with my family as well.

Sunday we went to Jenny Lake in Teton National Park. It was seriously gorgeous. We decided to rent some canoes. Three of us fit in one canoe, so Nate and I went in a canoe with his dad. We paddled around a little point of land and then we got to a little area with a small beach and a rock to jump off. The water was absolutely freezing! But I still had to get in, a couple times, just to feel it and be with everyone else. I didn't take our camera because I was worried about it getting wet. After the lake we drove around a bit, with a stop at Teton Village, and then to Jackson Hole where we went into a couple art studios, went into an old fashioned candy store and took some pictures next to the antlers. We headed back towards our campground just into Teton National Park and found a spot so the boys could fish. I enjoyed lounging, reading a book and taking lots of pictures.

We had gorgeous weather the whole time we were there, except Monday morning it decided to rain. The morning we needed to pack up and put everything away, it decided to rain. So, it made packing up our tents a little difficult, we decided to find a pavilion and make some pancake for breakfast in the meantime. We finally got all packed up, with a few stops in between and made it home in the early evening.

It was a perfect end to having Nate's family here to visit us. We loved having them visit and wish we lived closer or were rich so we could travel to see each other more. Here's to hoping for Christmas.