Yellowstone

 This was the camping trip of the season, hunting was fun, but going camping with the girls was a blast. Their excitement was so contagious.

 Well Shelby doesn't look too excited here. That is the beauty of all girls. There is always some type of drama going on. She was probably mad about not getting to sit where she wanted to or something.

 Hallie had the seat she wanted so she was happy.

 Mya can fall asleep in all kinds of weird positions.

 Hallie has been so funny with Abby. She used to be not much of an animal person, but she is such a guardian. She always wants people and animals to be safe and comfortable.

 As we drove the girls dozed off one by one. I remember how nice it was to sleep  on road trips in the famous pink and white van. I was always disappointed when we got home because I had slept so well.

 There is always a herd of elk in this meadow when you first enter the park. This was a pretty cool bull with some cows around.

 Every night we were there it would rain pretty hard for an hour or so and then stop. I loved being back in the pine trees.

 Mya won the award for silly faces this trip. I think that the girls got  a hold of the camera while I was checking into our camground.

 I was tired by the time we got there and got everything setup, but the girls weren't going to let me go to sleep without a fire and smores.

 Like I said, Hallie is an awesome helper. She got up early with me and pretended that she was a waitress and served food to everyone. We had pancakes, sausage, eggs and hot chocolate.

 The reason we went up here was because Therese and Rich were heading up there. They stayed in a cabin close by and came over for some hot dogs and they made us some banana boats which are bananas split open with chocolate and marshmallows set inside and cooked. They were good. Therese hung out with Abby and the girls while Rich and I fished.

 Like at home Mya always ended up sleeping right next to me.

 These girls slept well, it got a little cold at night, but not too bad. It is weird knowing that we were in bear country and not just black bears, but grizzlies. They have quite the system down to avoid problems. No food, coolers, containers or even water can be left out. All dishes and teeth brushing has to be done at an enclosed location and one night I snuck out to go to the bathroom and saw a park ranger spot lighting all campsites at about 1:00AM he even woke some campers up who hadn't cleaned up their site. It is a little nerve racking having kids camping with you and thinking about the possibility of bears close by.

 This was the last day, the girls were tired, cold and  cranky.

 I got a half smile out of Shelby, but she can hold a grudge like nobodies business.

 There are those elk again. We even had a nice buck walk through camp. We saw buffalo, coyote and antelope as well.

 Shelby was my navigator on the way home and Hallie had all of her bedding setup for a nice nap.

 It rained really hard on the way home, I am glad that we were packed up before hand.

 To get back to Abby, Hallie wouldn't let her be tied to a tree, she had to drag her everywhere. The best part was when it was her turn to pick up poop and Hallie threw a fit for a half hour, but she did do it, although she didn't like it.

 Mya was hillarious before the trip. She spent the whole night before leaving freaking out about the racoons. She had some idea that they were these out of control animals that were relentless. I had to show her the part on the great outdoors where the racoons just ate the trash. I finally talked her in to going and she was so glad that she went. She kept saying, "Dad I love camping, this is soooo fun!!" With a little scream at the end. Good thing she didn't know about the Grizzlies! That would have gave her something to be worried about.

 This rainbow was a full rainbow over Rexburg when we got home, it was bright and pretty cool.

 The rainbow ended just past the temple which was pretty neat to see.

 This is a little picnic area that got flooded which doesn't happen often in Rexburg. There was probably about five feet of water in there. It reminded me of when Dustin and I would go ride our bikes through these things after the rainstorms in Arizona. I tried to get the girls to do that, but they didn't want to have anything to do with that. They were freaked out that the water had filled that place up and Hallie was positive that we were going to have a life ending flood with a little tornado mixed in with it.