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Got home about 2am this morning. I'm thrilled to be back where it's warm, the girls are thrilled to be back with their toys, and Jason is thrilled to be back to his yard, which he spent a lot of time inspecting in the pitch dark last night. Yellowstone was amazing. Mary Grace's favorite part was "the geysers and learning about why they shoot up, and the mud pots." Willa's favorite thing was "the thing Mary Grace said," and Evelyn's favorite thing was "going hiking and seeing the fairy waterfall." Jason loves being outdoors with his family no matter what the circumstances, and my favorite was watching the girls love it so much. Already planning our next trip. Big Bend? Grand Canyon? Hmmm.....

Wow.

Just sat parked on the road between Yellowstone and Grand Teton for
two and a half hours waiting for a wreck to get cleared (no
fatalities, thank God.) I'd say half the car occupants were out of
their cars drinking. It was like a big party. At one point Jason took
his lawn chair out to sit in the sun and do sudoku puzzles. I read
Mary Grace about 50 pages of Harry Potter. Definitely the most scenic
traffic jam I've sat in.

Our Junior Ranger

All the national parks have a junior ranger program where a child can
complete a series of activities and get a little badge. This was our
first time to do the program with Mary Grace. We got our activity
book, and quickly discovered that this was no kiddie busy work thing.
She had to attend a ranger talk and get the ranger to sign her paper,
do a hike, answer a whole bunch of questions that required visits to
different visitor centers, mark a map with places she had visited,
keep a camping journal, and do four pretty complicated activity pages.
That's more work than I had to do on this trip! If you know Mary
Grace, though, you can imagine how seriously she took this. She
carefully completed each activity and brought her workbook, clipboard
and pencil everywhere. It was awesome. She even had a long talk with
one ranger about how one becomes a real ranger. We have the sweetest
video of her getting her junior ranger badge and taking the junior
ranger oath. When she finished, I told her she could pick something
from the gift shop. I should have guessed, but rather than a t-shirt
or stuffed animal, she asked me to buy her the National Geographic
Yellowstone Profile book. So she's in the backseat pouring over maps
and photos. Our little Adventure Girl.

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Super-Children

Our daughters stepped it up today. We did a 5 mile round trip hike out
to a gorgeous rainbow-colored thermal pool and a 200 foot tall
waterfall. After one outing using two baby backpacks, I was forced to
admit that I'm too wimpy to carry the girls while hiking. Who was I
kidding? I'm lucky if can get myself and a bottle of water out and
back on a hike. Did I think going on vacation would suddenly turn me
into a Mom who works out and is in great shape? Actually, yes, I did,
and I was way off base.

So we went out on our hike knowing that Evelyn and Willa would have to
trade off riding in Jason's pack...and this did not inspire a lot of
confidence. Boy did they show us! They each hiked half the trail and
did almost no complaining at all. In fact they were rather adorable
and cheerful the whole time. Did I mention that I brought a bag of dum
dums along and continually supplied them to whichever one was
walking? Mary Grace loved it, too, but is on to bigger and better
hikes tomorrow. She and Jason are going to hike the tallest peak in
the park - Mt. Washburn. That is, if Jason can find some appropriate
footwear. His ancient hiking boots completely fell apart about a half
mile from the car at the end of the hike. He has been super gluing
them together for awhile, but the shoes have officially given up the
ghost.

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Wildlife

There is tons of wildlife here in Yellowstone, and it roams freely
through the park. We've seen bison, elk, ravens, and chipmunks so far.
The bison are amazing. I think they think we are little ants: tiny,
and a nuisance, but certainly not anything to worry themselves about.
We've seen about 20 so far, and even one mama bison with two babies 10
feet from a trail full of people. The best, though, was when we were
sitting in what we affectionately call a bison-jam where someone stops
in the middle of the road to take a picture of a bison in a meadow, so
everyone behind them has to stop, too. When the photographer had his
pics and started to move on, the bison just walked on into the road,
right in front of our car! As if the bison was saying, "I posed for
your silly picture and now I'm going to cross the street so stay out
of my way tiny humans.". I love bison.

I admit, though, that we are not the most patient when driving behind
people who stop to take pictures from the road. Today, we were behind
a line of cars and the person at the front kept stopping, then going a
few feet, then stopping, then going again. It was so frustrating. We
couldn't even see anything worth photographing, which made us even
madder. We were about to just go around the guy, when we realized he
was taking pictures of a beautiful fox bouncing through the meadow
right by the road. We both said "awwww!" immediately stopped our car,
whipped out both cameras and started snapping pics...completely
infuriating the people driving behind us.

Ok, this is silly.

For a place that constantly reminds you that it sits on top of an
active volcano, it's ridiculously cold today. A front came in last
night, and when we woke up it was snowing. Yes, you read correctly.
Ther are places where it snows...in JUNE, and apparently people choose
to live live here. We knew it would be cooler here, but it averages
highs in the mid sixties, lows in the forties. We happened to choose a
time when they're having a cold snap...I'd call it an insanely frigid
snap. It's 32 degrees and snowing and it's noon.

Admittedly, I'm the only one in the family who has been incapacitated
by the weather. Jason is happy as can be, and all three girls slept
through the night in their sleeping bags without making a peep. This
morning they were playing catch with a stick before breakfast like
they were pioneer children or something. I was immobile by the fire
trying to massage some feeling back into my frozen toes. We're doing a
nice indoor visitor center and a SHORT walk to see some thermal
features. Maybe I'll hop into one of them and warm up!

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Great camp site

Got an amazing camp site at our first choice campground! Set up camp
and on to old faithful for a geyser hike. In heaven.

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iPhone, how I love thee.

So far today we have used our iPhones to map our route, look up
hotels in Billings, find out how plateaus are formed (and spelled) and
find a beautiful municipal park in a small town called Glenrock for
our picnic lunch. This trip is our first no-reservation/no planning
trip. If you know me at all, you know that such an idea is completely
anathema to every impulse I have. But my planning is often my
downfall since I get so bent out of shape when things don't go "as
planned." So far all the meltdowns and tantrums have been performed
by our children, and not by me. This is fabulous. Although every once
in awhile I find myself wondering if I could install Excel on this
thing...

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Great Friends

Back in the day, we used to love hanging out with the Spragues. They
lived in Austin, and Holly and I worked together and were part of a
quartet of amazing women who (even though we live all over the country
now and have babies and different lives) still get together as often
as we can. It was just like no time had passed. Holly and Jon grilled
burgers and hot dogs for us and their sweet adorable children played
with the girls as if they had always known each other. Mary Grace
loved Reid and they caught tons of bugs and enjoyed scaring poor Holly
with them. Harper is a little chatterbox and loved showing Evelyn and
Willa all her toys. It would be SO fun if we lived nearby each other.
But then everyone else would have to hear about our amazing friends
and how much fun we have together ALL the time and it would be
obnoxious, so maybe it's for the best. Sigh.

On our way this morning to Billings Montana after a truly awful
McDonalds breakfast. Did you know they serve a breakfast sandwich of a
sausage with two syrupy pancakes as the bread? Ugh. The girls
looooved it.

Lunch on the road

Just crossed the border into Colorado. Was hoping for instant
mountains, but this looks just like Kansas. They should redraw the
Colorado border so that as soon as you cross over the border you catch
your first glimpse of the Rockies. Maybe then more people would
associate Colorado with mountains.

Anyway we had a nice picnic lunch at the Visitor Center, crossed into
the Mountain Time Zone (man they are proud of their time zone here -
signs EVERYWHERE) and on to Denver. Girls are being very quiet.
Probably plotting a coup.

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Kansas

Woke up in the rolling hills of Western Kansas. It's actually quite
pretty out here. The sleeping beauties are still asleep! Compared to
the last time we did this, this is a miracle.

Just caught Evelyn laughing in her sleep.

It's 2am and we stopped for gas and to change drivers when I looked
back and saw Evelyn in an unbelievably uncomfortable position with her
head falling back and mouth wide open. As I was trying to get a pillow
for her, she started laughing in her sleep. Now I have to admit, I
think my kids are pretty stinking cute, but that was gold star
cuteness right there. I would challenge the grinch (pre heart growth)
not to give that an awww. Seriously, though, the overnight drive is
going really well (knock on something). The sleeping beauties are
doing great.

We left around 6:30pm, stopped in Dallas to drop off the dog with the
world's kindest dog-sitters (jason's parents) and hope to be in Denver
by mid-afternoon. Based on the many scenic pull outs and some shadows
alongside the highway, we missed some pretty scenery just north of
Ardmore, OK, but we will also miss out on about seven hours of "I'm
hungry. She's looking at me. Mama! Mama! Mama!"

Oh, and for all you Texans, trust me, we do NOT want casino gambling.
If you think the endless strings of identical big box malls are ugly,
you should see these sprawling behemoth casinos covered in neon.

Jason's driving now, so I'm going to catch some Z's once my caffeine
buzz has worn off. Hope to wake up to some scenery in Colorado!

Sweetness

I'm sitting here after dinner watching Mary Grace and Evelyn color at the dining room table together. They are so sweet, with each one dramatically complimenting the other's work. Evelyn: "I LIKE the plant you drew!" Mary Grace: "I see you used a lot of GREEN! Good job!" Adorable. Willa decided at the last minute to go with Jason to adult choir rehearsal, so it's just two here tonight.

I know the whole kids-say-the-darndest-things is mostly just interesting to the particular child's parents, but the twins really do say such adorably weird stuff, and Mary Grace is so matter of fact and yet also patient with them. Makes for some hilarious conversation as I eavesdrop:

Evelyn: "I like purple. Only girls like purple."
MG: "No, Daddy likes purple."
Evelyn: "Yes, that's right. And there are stars at night."
MG: "Yes."
Evelyn: "I don't like storms. Sissy, do you like storms?"
MG: "Sometimes."
Evelyn: "Storms are BAD! There. I drawed a Redbud tree."
MG: "Mom. Evelyn just drew a Redbud tree. Isn't that awesome?"
Mommy: "Yes. Wow."
Evelyn: "I want to give this to my teacher tomorrow."
MG: "It's a stay home day tomorrow. You can give it to your teacher after the summer."
Evelyn: "Ok. Next time I want to draw a monster."
MG: "Well you have to draw it scary."
Evelyn: "I have a funny dance...watch!"

Love these girls!