Where The Wild Things Go

'Tis midnight plus on day #6 of our little trip and I have got some catchin' up to do of our good times (and a few not-so-good-ones) on our trip. I know my sister has blogged and added pictures to her facebook and so blah-dee-blah-blah to her for being so on the ball. I DO have one extra kid than her so for those of you who are reading both our blogs, hang on for a lot of repeats. Probably. I don't even know if I can remember back to Sunday. Which is where I left off.

Sunday is the day of rest. Right, right. Or on vacation in Island Park it is the rainy day we drove into West Yellowstone to go to the Bear and Wolf Discovery Center and to get ice cream at Dairy Queen. It was a religious experience I tell you. If it makes all of you feel better we did contemplate going to the "visitor's" church where you can wear jeans, but the suggestion was veto-ed pretty quick. The Wildlife park was pretty interesting. You know me, I was all into the back story of the bears and why they were relocated (mostly because humans fed them and the "naturalist" who worked there was VERY bitter about the human ignorance on that social problem!) and also caught up in keeping Brock OFF the fences that kept the humans from becoming the food the bears would eat. We lucked out to see a half hour presentation on birds of prey which was about 28 minutes too long for el-Brock-o, but since we had sat on the front row we were on strict orders not to move or wave our arms. That whole situation proved pretty stressful. One of the owls "baited" [flapped its wings] and Caylee about had a coronary. Between my OBVIOUS city kids and the naturalist's LACK of personality the presentation is clearly 30 minutes of my life I will be frustrated to never get back. HOWEVER, the birds were interesting and, again, I dug the back story on why they were removed from the wild to live in West Yellowstone.

(Here's the "We're So Scared of the Wolves" picture, Caylee's idea)

We headed back to the cabin after gorging on ice cream and then visited throughout the evening. Monday morning Tyler was up before dawn to get a good mornings' worth of fishing in and the rest of us started packing up. (Hmmmm, I think this fishing hobby provides Tyler with MANY levels of happiness since he seems to miss the packing back up/cleaning on several of our trips.) Anyway, I climbed into the little attic space and found Marsha playing McDonalds with just Brock. He couldn't be more tickled. He kept asking her if she was his friend and about her Bomp-pa (translation- Grandpa/husband). I think he wanted proof that she really was a grandma, but how could he doubt after she would climb up there and make him hamburgers and hotdogs with play food for quite a while? Marsha's daughter, Megan, is having their first grandson in August and I have no doubt that even the baby won't have ruffles and lace, Grandma Marsha will have a GREAT time with him too.

Then it was time to leave and we had to get a shot from the porch

And one with Marsha and her entourage. She's so popular.

Before we left for Idaho Falls to drop the boys off at the airport, Marsha too us to her favorite Island Park spot to feed the fish. It was gorge-e-or-geous and the seagulls were pretty entertaining. We also saw the fattest rainbow trout just chillin' and some ducks, pelicans, and even a muskrat (nasty long tail trailing that thing!) Here's some of the wild things we saw over the weekend:

One of the things we wanted to do on our way back south was to stop at the temple grounds to see some of the temples in the areas we were driving through. First up was Rexburg where my kids said, "It's so nice that Jesus has such a big lawn." They're quite smitten with grass. We let the kids kick off their shoes and play around (yes, I don't know how reverent that is, but it has become a common theme at our stops.) Brevin, of course, cuts his lip open in a game of Red Rover. Bets are that's not going to be his first bloody accident this trip.

We loaded up the kids and moved onto the Idaho Falls temple and wandered around there for a bit. Caylee was SOOO having an attitude and refused to get out of the car so Tyler decided he'd stay in the car with her . . . that worked until he teased her so badly that she decided ANYTHING was better than staying in the car with "your husband that is so annoying to me" (which is how she explained her joining me walking around.) There was a visitor's center, which was so convenient for our bathroom needs . . . until the fire alarm went off. Luckily, after a headcount we knew it wasn't any of our kids who pulled the trigger, but we vacated promptly anyway and headed to an authentic mexican restaurant.

But instead ended up at Chili's. Tyler was so bugged that we didn't find a real dive, but Erin and I were relieved we weren't going to have any stomach rebellions on our drive to Burley/Albion after we dropped the menfolk off at the airport. Fighting the crowds at the Idaho Falls airport was a beast, but we survived even that and one showing of Madagascar 2 later we were exiting the freeway looking for a Wal-Mart to stock up for the next couple days. {*SIDE NOTE* Madagascar 2 is THE best movie to listen to in the car. I laugh at more and more of the dialogue EVERY time the kids watch it. I would be hard-pressed to pick my favorite line. Just to let you know.}

Since our bearings were a little off, Erin and I had gotten off at different freeway exit than we had planned and we were trying to figure out WHERE the heck we were and HOW to find the stinkin' Wal-Mart when I realized that I had flashing police lights behind me. And yes, it was that oh-crap-is-that-for-me-oh-sh!!!!t-it-totally-is-and-I'm-on-the-phone-and-on-a-bridge-and-where-do-I-pull-over-? moment. I got off the phone and pulled into some parking lot and a really nice Heyburn policeman came up to me.

Policeman: "Evening." Me (before he can even finish his greeting): "Was I speeding? I was probably totally speeding. I don't even know where I am. I was talking to my sister. We're trying to find Wal-Mart and we got off on the wrong freeway exit. I totally don't even know what the speed limit is." Policeman: "Yeah, well, I got ya at 47 is a 35. It's 35 right through the center of town." Me: "Yeah, I believe it, I guess, I was just lookin' for Wal-Mart." {Okay, my kids are silently FREAKING out that I'm going to get arrested. AND I am pretty sure that's a huge speed trap since Heyburn's center of town is literally a blink.} Policeman: "Alright, well, let's have your license and stuff and then I'll tell you how to get to Wal-Mart." {At this point I remember I KNOW I don't have current proof of registration (a fact we realized on our way north last week) and then I had to get out to dig through our glove compartment to find a current registration only to realize that we had 3 receipts for our trailer and NONE for my actual car. So, to recap: me, 5 buckled kids, with license, NO current insurance proof, and NO registration proof. I was a rambling idiot (as explained by my mouth diarrhea above) and when I finally looked at the kids Brevin was almost in tears so I just told them to all pray. And it must have worked because I was let go with a warning AND directions to Wal-Mart. It was very nerve-wracking.

We made it to the Marsh Creek Inn and slept in (which we all needed) and then spent a lot of yesterday be-bopping around Burley and Albion. We first toured Aunt Randy and Uncle Dan's home that they are building (with their very own two hands) and then had lunch at . . . wait . . .wait. . . listen for the angels singing . . . TACO BANDITO!!!! WHICH, you have to love small towns since I walked right in and saw our former neighbors, Ron and Carol Bench, sitting right in the front of the restaurant. I made them take a picture with us. Afterwards we went to the cemetery to put flowers on my grandparents grave (happy b-day Hazel) and my Aunt Dode's too. Then we took the kids to Storybook Park where the kids ran around and Erin and I tried to recover from our bandito overload. Caylee, of course, my social butterfly, made two new friends within minutes. The kids ran and swung and climbed and slid and then we took them to Randy and Dan's to do it some more, after a quick stop by King's to get some necessary un-necessary stuff (more candy, a toy snake, a package of policeman paraphernalia, and lipgloss . . . and more candy).

By the end of yesterday we were all tuckered out, but managed to stop at the local Albion cafe for dinner. It was mighty fine and just around the corner from the hotel. We quickly bathed and bedded and Disney TV-ed them so Erin and I could soak in some internet goodness. Finally, at 2:30am we called it another successful day of vacation and dreamt of Shoshone Falls and getting to the townhouse in Utah.