Island Park/Yellowstone

My house is dirty, I still need to shower for the day and unpack from this trip, so it is logical that I am sitting here updating my blog, right?
Our little family spent the last two weeks driving, visiting family and more driving. We first went to Cody's parents house in Coeur d' Alene, Idaho (pictures are below) for a week and then we headed to Island Park, Idaho which is just outside of Yellowstone for a family reunion with my cousins and family on my dad's side. Both trips were very fun-and well worth the drive!
I decided I need to hire a photographer to come with me, and then maybe we will get more variety in the pictures-rather than just Max....and also we will get pictures of everything we did instead of just a few days of pictures.



I got one random shot of my brothers and bro-in-law hanging out around the fire in the morning...we had three campsites all together, my parents (where Cody and I stayed in their trailer, Rachel and Joel in tents across the street and my Aunt Amy and Uncle Jim. Lets just say it was a party, and I'm suprised nobody came and complained about us and the amount of noise we would make at night-we tried to be quiet but sometimes it is too hard!



Notice what Max is holding, a sucker in one hand and a cookie in the other. As much as I would love to blame the bad food on my mom for smuggling it to him, I have to admit that I gave him both! I think it was a mixture of too much fresh air and anything to keep him from running off into the woods-not to mention that he has figured out he is faster than I am-I was basically doing anything to keep him happy and close!



Max with Tanner, Benny and Rachel. He LOVES his cousins-sometimes a bit too much, he likes to give smothering hugs...anyway these three boys didn't like what we had for dinner that night so we borrowed some leftover chicken from my aunt and uncle and my mom just went down the line and popped it into each of their mouths. It was pretty entertaining actually-they all kept saying, "more chicken!"



My cute boys walking to the hot pots.



My mom and cousin Michael in front of a hot pot...it was actually cold that day so the warm, stinky steam off of the hot pot felt pretty good-you just couldn't breathe.



I think the boiling mud hot pots are awesome...Max loved the hotpots, he still talks about them and how they were stinky. When we would stop to look at them he would blow to try to cool them off-what a smart boy I have!



What is a visit to Yellowstone without watching Old Faithful-it really is an amazing place....I just need to figure out when to go there so you don't have to sit in traffic for hours-I felt like we were back in California!




Our attempt at a family picture-once again ruined by one of my brothers. The funny thing is, is that we took another one just to have my mom run into the background-now we know where they get it! I put this one up because I look like less of a walrus in it than the other one.



We spent one day on Island Park Resevoir-whenever we went out on the boat Max thought he had to drive it-of course nobody but his mom and dad would be mean enough to say no....so he got in a lot of driving time on the lake.



Max driving the boat, in heaven....