This summer at Sunday School, Danelle has been learning the Lord’s Prayer. We think she has been doing pretty well lately:
Archive for August, 2009
The Lord’s Prayer
Sunday, August 30th, 2009Doesn’t Quite Fit
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009Here are a couple of pictures that I thought should be shared, that just don’t quite fit for various reasons.
First we have our slightly deformed daughter. Normally we keep her feet hidden, but in this case we accidentally got a picture of the glove she wears over what we refer to as her “monkey foot”.
Here is a picture of the lab we dogsat for a week, Diezel. He didn’t quite fit in Koa’s bed, but that didn’t stop him from trying.
Elk and Chinese Food
Monday, August 17th, 2009Waking up in Livingston we decided we would try to make it to Kellogg at least, if not Moses Lake, which was 500 miles away. That meant lots of driving for the day either way. By lunch we made it to this Chinese restaurant attached to a gas station and casino. When hearing there was a Chinese restaurant Danelle really wanted to eat there. The food was better than we expected, and it was a good thing we ordered Danelle her own lunch special, as she really liked the sweet and sour chicken she had. Almost as much as she liked the colored palm trees.
Later on we stopped in Missoula and visited the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation headquarters. We had tried to stop there on our way to Idaho, but our map had it south of I-90, so we had no chance of finding it. Was a nice little stop.
Danelle even got to take some pictures there. In fact she took the rest of the pictures in this posting.
It was some point between there and Spokane I managed to break our point and shoot camera. Seems the lens mechanism is gummed up and not moving in and out correctly. Hopefully I can take it apart and see what is going on. So no more pictures from that camera for the trip, and the SLR was packed in the back that day.
Finally we reached Spokane, stopped at Subway around 5 and decided to go for it. After a long drive to Ritzville and wondering if there was a hotel there, we got some milkshakes at Zips and persevered through the longest hour of our trip. Turns out we found Thea’s limit for time in a car. Luckily after sleeping at Grammie’s house that night, we were able to play with Nicholas a bit in the morning and left for the final leg of the journey back to our house without incident. Returning to an 84 degree house the night before the hottest day ever recorded in the Seattle area. There sure is no place like home.
Yellowstone
Saturday, August 15th, 2009Before we even realized we had left Grand Teton, we found ourselves at the entrance to Yellowstone, along with the signs noting that hitting a 2000 pound bison would ruin your car and your day. We took careful note of that.
Of course the views were great heading North, but we had one goal, for Danelle to get to see a geyser, and we knew of only one reliable enough to give us good odds of seeing that. Of course it isn’t really that reliable anymore, but as we neared the area I saw steam in the air and told Dayna it was going off right then. As we got closer, the steam dropped, and shortly after finding a parking spot we saw streams of people leaving that area, confirming our thoughts. Finding an eruption sign we saw the next one should be at 6:45, it was 5:30 when we saw that sign.
Biting the bullet we decided we needed to feed the kids a real meal for the day, and wouldn’t reach a real town for at least a couple more hours. So we waited out that hour by eating at the cafeteria. Danelle really liked the lasagna, rice, and bison meatloaf. We’ll leave the food at that. We also made a quick stop to a gift shop and, remaining calm this time, were able to pick out an activity book.
This still left us with some time, so we meandered around the area looking at some small geysers and paint pots. We made it back to the boardwalk around the main attraction in time and were able to see it go off. I think Danelle was impressed, but it can be hard to say with her. Right about then, the geyser was starting to be outdone by a thunderstorm coming from the north. Which we of course had to drive into.
Luckily we got through it quickly and both kids were out pretty quickly. Since it was late-ish we didn’t make any stops at the paintpots, but did get to see a few buffalo near the road. And of course, tons of elk as we got to some more fields.
Eventually we got to our room, and everyone crashed for the night. But not before passing what Dayna assumed was a glacier and almost pulled over to let the kids play on the “ice” that was steaming. Then she had me take a picture of “Dayna’s Iceberg” so I could blog that.
Jenny Lake
Thursday, August 13th, 2009The day after the wedding we had breakfast with my family and some of my aunts and uncles that made it to the house we were staying at. Afterwards we were thinking about going to Jenny Lake in Teton National Park rather than staying to watch presents being opened. Nothing personal, that was hard enough for me to sit through with my own wedding presents. Somewhere along the way, we decided we’d go ahead and go all the way through the park and Yellowstone to get to Livingston, Montana that night. That would cut a few hours off our trip for the next two days when compared with driving all the way back from Driggs to Kirkland.
Over the pass into Wyoming, we were wondering a bit if our car could make it up the hill, but eventually we dipped down into Jackson Hole. After working through town we headed north and were able to see the Tetons from their other side. Nearing the park we made a brief stop at the visitor center, in which I realized that having a 3 year old that is well behaved in public 99% of the time ill-equips you for that other 1%. Enough said about that. We entered the park without further incident and headed to Jenny Lake. After several minutes of looking for parking we made our way to the lake and caught a ride to the West dock. This was the first boat ride Danelle remembers, which she seems to have enjoyed. Thea thought it was o.k. as well.
On the far side we embarked on the half mile hike to Hidden Falls.
I was a bit worried that after the attempt at Targhee, it would be a long hike up the hill. Luckily Danelle really enjoyed it today, trucking along by herself the whole way. We decided she likes narrow hiking trails more than ones that can double as an access road.
The falls were worth the hike, with us eventually making our way back down the hill and back across the lake. By then it was about 3 in the afternoon, and we had 3 hours of driving minimum to go, if all the roads were in good shape with traffic moving.
Which made road construction a bit hard to deal with, so just like us, you’ll have to settle with seeing a bear before making it to Yellowstone itself.
