Yellowstone 2010

As if the previous two weeks of cousin fun weren't enough, this past week we went to Yellowstone with Hardy's entire family and Jack got to enjoy lots of time with his adoring fan club on the other side of the family. He's the youngest on this side by about 6 years so all his cousin's think he's pretty entertaining, and he adores them. He'd wake up each morning and ask to go see the "big kids."

Poor Alli and Abbey were forced to play ring-around-the-rosie about 50 times standing in the hallway outside the bathroom at a pizza place one night (obviosuly Jack chose the location, not the girls). After they would "all fall down" Jack would jump up, grab their hand and say enthusiastically "AGAIN!" What troopers they were.





We drove to Mammoth Springs one morning.

Another day we went to the Upper and Lower Falls, and of course we visited Old Faithful. As it was going off Jack declared "It's big! It's hot!" Excellent observations, my man.

Jack really loved seeing all the elk and buffalo and on the ride home any time he would see cows he would shout "Buffalo!"

Not surprisingly, Jack's favorite spot was of course the Firehole River swimming area. He found himself a nice little alcove where he sat and threw rocks for a long time.

On Wednesday we had a special reunion and birthday celebration for Grandma Strong. Amazingly all 93 of her decendants were able to make it to the reunion. How grateful we are to her for making this trip possible.

Towards the end of the party they gave everyone a marshmallow gun for a massive marshmallow war. Jack didn't quite get the hang of it but enjoyed eating his bag of ammo.

Jack did amazingly well in Yellowstone. We weren't quite sure how he'd react to the high elevation, but other than needing two naps a day in stead of one and a little blueness in the pool, he was pretty normal. He did get quite cranky as we drove near Yellowstone Lake, but when I looked at the map and it said the elevation was around 8400 ft we decided that he got a pass on his crankiness.

What a fun trip full of great memories!