Hooray! Vacation!

We are home from a spectacular vacation to Yellowstone National Park.  We enjoyed the scenery, wildlife, and the company of some great friends during our week in the town of West Yellowstone.

In addition to vacationing, I've been participating in summer classes at Bal Swan on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings;  as well as a group Speech Therapy class set up for kids with hearing aids and cochlear implants on Wednesday mornings.  I enjoy class times, but look forward to playground times most.

I am looking forward to another big trip in a few weeks for my aunt Julie's wedding on August 4th.  I get to be one of the flower girls.  Mom and Dad don't have a lot of faith in me performing all my duties for that day, but, I plan to wow them all!

I think I can expand on vacation details more with pictures... however, there are over 500 pictures to choose from, so I'll try to narrow that down to about 20!

Here goes:

Getting ready for the trip... Mom said, "let's see if the backpack still fits you."  Not sure this is what she meant.

Entering Grand Teton National Park on the way to Yellowstone.

Mom and me in front of our resort.

We drove out on Thursday and on Friday we went to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center located one block from our resort.  We were able to hear the wolves howling in the mornings, evenings and during the fireworks on the 4th of July. 

Eddie and I had a nice time at the discovery center.

Hello Mr. Grizzly Bear... glad you're in your cage.  Saw one of these in the wild off the road in Yellowstone, but didn't get a good picture of it.

Glad we saw these at the center - we didn't see any in the wild.

Later on Friday, we went for our first hike in the park.... "Where to next troups?"

This 'little' fella decided to cross the road between our car and Dave and Lori's car.

The whole group checking out one of the geysers... this one hasn't gone off in at least a decade, but when it does, you know it... it shoots several hundred feet in the air.

Just a nice shot of the many geysers and hot spring pools in this small area.

Hi friends!

Travel companions, Paul and Heather.

Travel Companions, Lori, Eli, Dave and Eddie

And, of course, Mom, Me and Dad.

Bullwinkle hangin' out by the river... a moose, just in case you thought it was a horse!

Saturday was a full day in the park.  We did the North loop and spent a lot of time at Mammoth Hot Springs pictured here.

Paul, Heather and Dad posing in front of a feature at Mammoth Hot Springs.

The stairs down to Lower Falls at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

The Falls... quite nice.

Thanks for carrying me around Mom!

Sunday, we spent a beautiful day with Mom's college friend Mary and her husband Kurt and their kids, Andrew, Garrett, and Olivia.... unfortunately, we took mostly video that day - but that super fun too.
Here is a picture of Daddy and me in front of a geyser on Monday when we explored the south loop of the park, including Old Faithful.  Hey dad do you small something?

Here's Old Reliable!  Had a fun time waiting for it to go off... lots of fun characters in the park that week of the 4th of July.

On Tuesday we went west to visit Quake Lake.  Here's we are posing among the wildflowers.

One of my favorite moments of the trip was throwing rocks into Quake Lake with Eli and Eddie... splash!

The sunset from our condo... pretty nice setting.

Yup... we were really there!

The whole group at the park entrance just a 1/2 mile from our resort.

I know that was  a lot to take in, but we had so much fun that I wanted to make sure you got a good idea of what we all saw.

Hope you're all enjoying a great summer and enjoying some vacation times also.

God's creation is glorious!
Til next time,
Lydia