Island Park....round 1!

Just got back from our little Island Park trip with my family. Beware tons and tons of pictures. I am turning my blog into a book, and I want everything documented so I am not going to apoligize for the major overload of pictures. There, you have your warning.....I do not have the time to do one huge post so I will split into two...

Here we are after the car is packed and ready to go. We were ready to head out by 8:00 in the morning. That is super impressive for me. Granted I stayed up until 2:30 that night getting everything ready and woke up at 5:30 that morning. Yikes, not a whole lot of sleep. Funny as a mom, I seem to need less and less of that precious shut-eye. I run off 3 hours just fine.



Seriously what would I have done without our portable DVD player. Judge me now, but it kept these two entertained the ENTIRE trip. Very nice!


Carson's morning got started out right by some "Mickey" shaped pancakes. He didn't want to eat them cause it messed up Mickey's cute face. He has got mad love for that mouse.


We went with my Williams' side of the family (my dad's side). My grandparents, 2 aunts and uncles, tons of cousins. They rent a huge cabin on Bill's Island in Island Park. We always stop at Bear World, where you pay a ridiculous amount of money to see a few bears wandering around. Kinda crazy, but the little rides at the end make it all worth it for this boy.


Lincoln sure got spoiled this week. I have many little cousins, who very much enjoyed packing him around and being his little friends. Now that we are back home and I am not holding him 24-7 like he has gotten used to the past couple of days. Well, not pretty...tough love for the little guy.


Oohh, first train ride...big hit!


This one loves his Uncle Alan.


And this one loves his "fwiend Tell"...Markell in other words.


Loved the rides...Thiago and I were joking that we could have told Carson this was Disneyland and he would have believed it. He thought the 4 little rides they had were the greatest ever and was not a happy camper when it started raining and we had to leave. Just imagine his reaction to Disneyland next year, can't wait!



My kids sure worked up their appetites this trip....couldn't feed those little mouths fast enough.



Second day just hanging around outside the cabin, waiting for everyone to get ready.


Headed into West Yellowstone to do a little shopping. I love the funny little stores. Buying sweatshirts for us all, and cute little MOOSE pj's for my boys. Lots of fun.



What kid doesn't love these little bags of rocks and magnets. Of course we bought another bag to go with Carson's bag from last year. Along with a million other odds and ends toys that these shops are known for. I think we spent like 50.00 on funny little toys for Cars, and he has now lost about all of them. Somehow they have all disappeared.



Dinner at Canyon Street Grill...YUM! We are all about traditions in this family, and we LOVE this place. Best sandwiches ever!


The boys came all the way to West Yellowstone to play baseball on the sidewalks and parking lot of the IMAX. Funny boys, they did this for like 2 hours.


We would stay up late every night playing games while our poor children fended for themselves. Most nights we got them to bed first, but every now and then they would get to stay up. We played banana's which I am horrible at, but Apples to Apples....I am awesome...I was the winner!!


Poor Brev, this is how we found him sleeping one night.


Next day it was absolutely freezing. I don't think it got past 65 degrees while we were up there. It was soooo cold, felt like fall/winter to me half of the time. We bundled the kids up good, and headed through Yellowstone park. Lot of driving, which is hard on little ones. It rained throughout most of the day so we couldn't even get out and look around. Not a ton of animals were out...did see some bald eagles, deer and elk, buffalo's and one grizzly.




Finally the rain let up and we stopped at a little picnic area to eat a quick lunch. We shoved our food in as fast as possible and got back into our heated cars. It was sooooo cold!


Poor Cars...just shivering trying to eat his lunch. He wouldn't get in the car though, kept thinking he was missing out on stuff. So he sat there just shaking, trying to get his little lips to open wide enough to eat. Poor little guy.


Alright...that gets us through the first couple of day. Stay tuned cause I saved the best pictures for last. Nothing super special, I just got some really cute ones of our fourth day there. Thats it for now.