Yellowstone with the Berretts

Mid July we went to Island Park and Yellowstone with the Berrett side of our family.  We rented one giant cabin on the lake where the entire family stayed.  We had so much fun spending time as a family.  All the cousins were on cloud nine in party mode the entire time. I don't have any pictures of our first day.  We arrived at the cabin, the men went golfing and the women stayed with the kids and took them swimming on the lake.  The cabin had a paddle boat which we took turns taking the kids out on the lake.  Sienna and Zaida surprisingly enough swam in the lake.  Zaida was screaming for me to let go of her and let her swim...I was not so brave enough to do that.  Zaida is a fish!

 

Our first day on our way to Yellowstone we stopped at the Discover Grizzly Bear and Wolf exhibit.  The kids loved seeing all the huge grizzly bears up close.

 

This is actually a picture of a squirrel outside our cabin.

 

Back to the bear exhibit...

 

All the moms made tie dye shirts for the cousins to wear.  I think Sienna and Zaida's turned out pretty cute! 

 

 This little girl LOVES her papas.

 

 

 

 

walking in to see Old Faithful with Grandma.

 

 Waiting for Old Faithful to errupt.  I love this picture of me and Zaida because the last time I visited Yellowstone I was pregnant with this little peanut.

 

 

 Zaida was so wiped out...

 

 I am still amazed by all the geysers and hot springs.

 

 This geyser errupting is the tallest predictable geyser.  It can reach up to 200 ft!  It goes off every 7-9 hours and we were lucky enough to see it!

 

 

 

 The kids were dying to get their feet wet so we stopped  and played in the river for a bit.

 

 

 

 We saw so much wild life while we were there.  The kids were loving it!  I was not lucky enough to have my camera ready for the best sighting of all but I can tell you about it.  We were visiting the Grand Falls and driving  to a parking lot, when we noticed a man standing with his phone pointed at the other side of the road.  We were wondering what he could see.  We looked out our window to the left and a black bear came up out of the forest and on to the road...he quickly turned around and disappeared into the forest again before i could snap his glorious picture.  There were a few grizzly bear sightings which were too far for the naked eye to see.  You could barely make it out with binoculars.  We saw a bald eagle several times, elk, moose, hurds of bison, black wolf...the list goes on and on.  It was amazing!

The Artist mud pots

 

 

 

We got up close and personal to the lower falls.   

 

All the cousins except the small ones who could not make the climb.

 

 

 We tried to take the kids to swim at the firehole but it was closed.

 

 So we settled for this spot. Ha!  Both our girls got in and swam with dad.  They had a blast floating with the current down the river.

 

 

Our second day into the park we were in the biggest traffic jam because of this little family of bison.

Pretty amazing!