Horse back riding in Estes Park

 Callie found a groupon for a two hour horse back riding trip in Estes Park.  We thought that sounded fun so headed to Estes with Rod on Saturday morning.  We dropped Rod off at the golf course around 7:30 am.  Our reservation for the horses wasn't until 10 a.m. so we had breakfast at Mickey D's, wandered around the Stanley Hotel, cruised through the Christmas shop, explored in Estes and finally arrived at the Elk Horn Lodge to meet our horses.  Cami rode Cheyenne who generally behaved.  Caylee rode Moccasin (pictured above)  who knew he was bigger than Caylee and did what he wanted until the guide got to him.  She tied the rope much tighter so he could no longer reach his muzzle to the ground to munch his way down the trail.

I rode Poncho who is sometimes called "Oscar" for Sesame Street's "Oscar the Grouch".  He used to be top horse but now has been demoted to the number three spot.  He is not to happy about that.  He spent much of his time marching along with his ears back and if another horse bum got too close to him, he would take a bite!  He was a bit naughty.  When I would pat his neck and tell him he was a "good boy", his ears would go up for a little while.  I can't remember Callie's horse's name.  I will just call him "Pokey" because he certainly was.  He only had one speed and it was slow except for the time he saw a short cut back to the ranch and tried to take it!  Fun day!

My New Hair Cut

Mom this is for you!

Vacationing with McNeils

On Saturday morning, we headed toward Jenny Lake and what should we see first off?  A BEAR!  It was very exciting.  There were a lot of people pulled over and out of their cars watching and photographing it.  One man got way too close and the lady ranger had to yell at him and escort him back to the safety zone.  We couldn't believe our good fortune to actually get to see a bear!  The word in the crowd was it was definitely a Grizzly but the ranger said it was a blonde black bear that had been hanging around.  There was an antelope out in the field also that seemed to be teasing the bear.

Rod and I in the Parking lot of Jenny Lake preparing for the boat ride across the lake and hike up to the falls.  Rod saw a couple walk by and told me he thought they were from our new ward.  So when I ended up next to the lady on the path to the lake, I asked her and sure enough that is who there were!

Worth the hike!  Actually, it was a short hike but a little muddy and snowy in places.  Unfortunately, Aiden slipped in the mud.  It was looking like we was going to take a bunch of the mud back down the trail with him but Celeste came to the rescue with wet wipes and got him all cleaned up.  Thanks goodness for Moms!  She always travels with an arsenal of band aids and wet wipes.

This was a delightful little bird.  I saw this species several times during the trip.

We saw quite a few buffalo or American Bison (that is for Cara) in the park.  They tended to like to walk on the road which delighted the tourists.  We were especially delighted to see the babies.

At the end of the first day, we went looking for a moose.  We drove the entire length of Moose Wilson drive with our eyes peeled.  At the very end of the road as it meet the main intersection was a moose.  We calmly stripped leaves off the trees while lots of tourists snapped pictures.

Mr Caleb had the best mode of transportation in the group and always caused a stir among the other tourists. He was a very good traveling baby, didn't hardly make a peep except at night when he "Peeped" very loudly so Celeste and Travis were quite sleep deprived.  I offered to take him but thankfully, they never took me up on it in the middle of the night.

Mr Pickle Pants telling Grandma a tall tale!

On the way into the valley, Rod and I saw Old Faithful erupting.  No one else did, so hence we sat around so they all could see it blow.  And blow it did!  We stayed in this area for so long, we saw it blow again.  So I saw it three times.  It was my lucky day.

Old Faithful. 

Evidently, we didn't walk the kids too hard because they all found time to have a dance with Grandpa.

Kathy, Caylee, Rod and Cami at Artist's Point.

So Cami really wanted to see a beaver.  We thought we were quite luckily seeing a bear, buffalo, Elk, Antelope, Deer and a moose.  So why not wish for a beaver as well.  Low and behold, we came around a corner to a traffic jam.  This guy was the cause of all the fuss.  What a fun treat!

Yellowstone Grand Canyon as viewed from Artist Point!

I loved all of the wild flowers.  We saw fields and fields of white and yellow flowers with a sprinkling of purple.  Very gorgeous!

Checking out the hot sulfur lakes.

I really wanted to see the bubbling mud pots.  I was not disappointed with this display.  It was fun to see how high and far the mud was flung.

A beautifully blue hole of thermal water.  It look inviting but we all knew better than to dip our toes in there!

We drove around a corner and low and behold this one started to spew!  It was perfect timing.

We didn't have to wait to see these ones go, they like to just keep on going!  I remember hearing in NZ that there were only 7 places in the world with geysers, NZ, Yellowstone, Russia, Iceland hmm. ...I can't remember the other spots.  Yellowstone by far has the most, more than half of the world's geysers are in Yellowstone. 

A man gave me a "tip" that there was a bear down this dirt road.  We followed up for a while.  We never found the bear but the view was fantastic.

Walking back to the car after our picnic

Picnic on the banks of Jenny Lake.  Aiden and Brandon were not supposed to walk in the cold lake but Aiden did anyway, so did grandma but I took my shoes and socks off first.  The boys and Caylee followed suit.  The cold water felt really good on my hot feet but the rocky sand was not so comfortable.  I have pansy feet!

As Rod would say "He is outstanding in his field"

Crossing back on Jenny Lake after our hike to the waterfall.

On the boat - Jenny Lake

This was our ticket on and off the boat.  Be Bear Aware.  Actually, we saw that slogan on signs in the Tetons and in Yellowstone.

Celeste trying to keep track of Aiden so he didn't end up in the river.  When we got off the boat, there was a bin with walking sticks.  I thought they looked fun so I found one for myself so did Caylee and Brandon.  Aiden had already gone up the trail.  I thought he would be sad if Brandon had one and he didn't so, trying to be the good grandma, I grabbed one for him.  Celeste wanted to know why I was giving a weapon to her sons!  Sure enough, Aiden tried to stab a chipmunk with it who was hopping for a free lunch not a stab in the eye!

Cami and Brandon getting ready for the first big outing.

Cool dude

On the way back to Jackson, we took the back roads through Idaho farmlands.  It was a beautiful drive and Rod and a great time driving it.  I don't think we went the speed limit.  Cami thought the locals were driving awful fast as they zipped by us when we were stopped for a diaper changing break.

Another great mode of transportation for Caleb

Back side of the Tetons.  What a glorious view!

As we left town, we saw three hot air balloons rising skyward.

The Big Youth Family History Event

 IT guys busy at setting up the borrowed laptops.  We borrowed over 40 laptops.  We had to have and extra DSL line put in for this event.  I worried we would not have enough laptops but we did!  Yea!

 Callie brought her laptop and stayed to help set up.  Here she is working on the "Time Line".

 Laurel Class Presidents who are members of the Stake Youth Committee who helped plan this event, Rachel Tenney and Amanda Barker.

 Jeanette Hall doing a little more work on the fabulous family history chart she had prepared and graciously offered to display at our event.  It was quite amazing and I might just want to copy that idea.  Hmm...

 This is the walk way these sweet ladies (Veronica Witte, Dee Bashford, Kelly Griffey and Keli Despain) created for the youth to enter the gym through.  I brought most of the supplies and then they worked their magic.  After it was all set up, Sandra Loucks opened the curtains and showed them their was a bench directly behind the curtain.  We had a good laugh, located the opening between the benches and moved the "walkway" accordingly.

 I backed over 80 of my old pictures for Rod's line and my line.  Cami and Caylee helped me string them.  We hung them on "family trees" marking the entrance into the room.  If you knew where to look, you could see a picture of Rod as a small boy.  There were quite a few pictures of  my parents and grandparents.  It was fun for me to put together.  Now I have to undo it and refile all of the pictures.  Manyana (Is that how you spell it?)

 I took pictures of these International flags off the internet, purchased material then recruited my quilting friends to make these flags for me.  They did a great job.  Everyone thought they were commercially made.  Becky Bright hung wires across the gym so we could suspend the flags and the posters identifying each "port of call".

 Sweet ladies who showed up with their computers fully loaded with indexing projects, ready to teach the youth how to index.  We kept a record of who indexed the most.  The winner was a boy, indexing 24 lines and then Audra Heeb indexing 23.  Most youth did 5 to 10 lines.  I wonder how many batches are left on my computer for me to finish up?

 These three popcorn bags were the prizes for the day.  They contained bags of microwave popcorn, theater candy and a $10 gift certificate to AMC.  As the youth completed activities in each port of call, they received a stamp on their passport which was redeemed for a raffle ticket.  Three lucky winners had their raffle numbers drawn.

 We meet in the chapel first for a 20 minute presentation and introduction by Steve Rockwood.  He did such a great job!  Then opened up the back curtains and invited the youth into the gym.  Here they come!

 The International dessert table.  We had it roped off so no one would eat while the computers were in use.  After we awarded the raffle prizes, the dessert table was opened up.  They went through the food pretty fast but all went away happy.  I made Mom's recipe for Swedish Cresent Cookies.  Their was one left at the end which Caylee and I shared.  Rod dropped her off at 3:30 so she and I could attend Ella Jones' baptism at 4:00.  It made for a really long day for me but totally worth it.  I was so excited over the success of the activity, I couldn't stop grinning.

 Indexers in action.  Notice the time line wall in the background.

 Family Search in action.  Notice Br Rockwood in the background.  During his presentation, he talked about always wanting to be a cruise director, so he put on the black bow tie, white suit coat and then dropped his drawers to reveal those plaid shorts.  The crowded roared.  It was pretty fun!  He was perfect.  I am so glad he helped us out.  We ended the event with remarks by Br Rockwood and then a video of Elder Bednar discussing the doctrine of  family history work.  It was a great way to end.

 Audra Heeb in the foreground and Clair Heeb int he background looking at familysearch.org.

 We had and MC and music playing during the event.  Rachel Tenney and Mark Hall seized the opportunity to share a little dance.  Notice the hanging signs.  I had a senior, Noah Weldon do the artwork.  They were really cute.

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We invited the full time Elders to help with the event.  Notice the time line in the background.  The youth were invited to put up birth, marriage and death dates.  We didn't take it down after the event.  It was too cool to see all of that.  Hopefully the three wards that meet in the Stake Center will see it tomorrow and maybe be a little inspired to do some Family History Work.

I am so very happy with how well it all turned out.  It was a miracle, we had enough computers, the decorations were outstanding, the food was fabulous, the volunteers were available in abundance and the youth showed up and seemed to have a great time.  I feel very blessed and grateful.