We're going to play the Glad Game today. For everything about our trip that was sad, there was always something to be glad about. And sometimes there were some great things to be glad about without any sadness attached to them.
Ready to play?
We decided to split-up the trip up there. So we stopped at Cheryl's parents' house in Blackfoot, ID on Wednesday night to spend the night. We got there later than planned. As we were pulling up to their house at 11pm.....
Sad: June started crying and then puked all over herself and her carseat and the van seat.
Glad: It was great that we were pulling up to a house (with a washing machine) instead of our campsite. Everything was ready to go by morning.
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Sad: When we were about 15 minutes outside of our campsite in Yellowstone, June puked again.
Glad: This time there wasn't as much and we were able to clean it up quickly with wipes. Also, June was acting totally fine between these incidents and so we chalked it up to car-sickness. Also, we saw a moose on the way in, but didn't get any pics.
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Sad: The realization that it was NOT, in fact, car-sickness came when we were awakened by June puking in bed at 3am the next morning.
Glad: She was still acting totally fine before and after the puking, so at least we weren't dealing with a crabby baby on top of puke. And this was the last bout of puke from June.
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Glad: Some deer strolled into camp as we were getting things set up the first day.
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Glad: We had yummy wraps and then went for a walk by the lake after dinner. The scenery was breath-taking.
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The second day we drove to the mud volcanoes.
Sad: I didn't get to see them since June and Lady were asleep in the van. I stayed with them while everyone else went on a short hike to check them out.
Glad: Brent got some great pics for me to "experience."
The sulfur smell was extremely strong there. :)
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Glad: On the way to the mud volcanoes, we ran into a herd of bison (and yes, they are called bison. I had to look it up since other tourists kept calling them buffalo. I was sure they were bison.....and I was right. ;) ). We actually saw a number of herds while up there. Apparently it's quite rare to see that many.
This one walked across the road behind us as we were leaving.Sad: It started to rain.
Glad: Luckily it wasn't raining super hard, so we went and saw a beautiful waterfall from a distance. Then we drove around and made the short but steep hike down to the top of it. It started raining much harder right as we were coming back up to the top.
From a distance:
From the top:
This was AJ taking a pic of us trying to recreate the pic in the header of this blog.
Sad: Since it was raining, we couldn't go do the other hikes we had planned.
Glad: Luckily there were some indoor places we could go hang out for a while. So we went to the museum and watched a movie about Yellowstone.
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Sad: It was still raining hard once we were done at the museum. So we had a dilemma about what to do for dinner. Do we go back to camp and make dinner in the rain? And what do we do with the kids during that time? Or do we go spend a fortune at a restaurant in Yellowstone and also wait in a huge line because everybody else had the same idea?
Glad: So glad we had awesome husbands who made dinner in the rain (they were mostly covered by the awning on our trailer and a canopy that Brandon and Cheryl brought). Also so glad we had the trailer for the kids to hang out in and watch a movie until bedtime. B & C's kids watched a movie in their van and then braved the cold for a bit outside when the rain let up a little before bed. (My kids were already in their jammies and were quite upset with me that I wouldn't let them out to play with their friends.)
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Sad: After the day of rain and little sleep for 2 nights and a pukey baby, I was almost ready to throw in the towel.
Glad: Brent managed to talk me out of that nonsense and the 3rd day was absolutely beautiful. Sunny skies most of the day and the temperature was much more bearable.
Glad: We saw an elk on the way to Old Faithful. While waiting for more puke from Old Faithful, we went in the gift shop and bought souvenirs. Roo got his first pocket knife, lucky kid.
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Glad: After lunch we went to a beachy spot by the lake and decided to just "dip our toes."
You can guess how long that lasted. It's like that book, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie".....only it's "If you give my kids some water, they're going to get wet."
Dipping our toes.
Going a little deeper.
Splashing in the "waves."
Deeper still.
I didn't get a picture of it, but AJ ended up going all the way under. She's a fish.
June got her first taste of black sand.....literally.
And Lady made her first sandcastle.
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Going a little deeper.
Splashing in the "waves."
Deeper still.
I didn't get a picture of it, but AJ ended up going all the way under. She's a fish.June got her first taste of black sand.....literally.
And Lady made her first sandcastle.
Sad: It took us longer to get packed up than we thought it would, so we didn't leave camp until 11am.
Glad: But the timing worked out perfectly for us to see a bear on our way out. We were supposed to stay at least 100 yds away, but we got a bit closer than that. I'd say more like 50. It made Brandon quite nervous, but I was banking on the fact that there were other people much closer than us and so they'd be the first targets. :p
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Sad:
- The kids were......"restless" (read: horrible) on the way home. I'm showing a picture of June sleeping as proof that there was at least one moment where she wasn't crying.
- Somewhere in Star Valley, WY Roo said from the backseat, "Mom?" And I turned to see him holding his fingers to his mouth. I yelled at Brent to pull over, to which he responded, "Are you sure? Is he really going to throw up?" To which I yelled louder, "PULL OVER!" We got him out just in the nick of time. I was probably a little too forceful when grabbing his shirt and yanking him out of the van, but luckily he's very forgiving and was grateful (along with Brent and me) that most of the puke ended up on the side of the highway.
- Upon returning home at 9:40pm , all 5 kids had fallen asleep about 10 minutes prior. After helping Lady out of the van, she looks at me and happily says, "Momma, I not frow up!" And promptly threw up on the driveway.
Glad: Uh.....we were glad to be home and glad that more puke didn't end up in the van.
Oh, and one more thing to be glad about......
After discussing with Brent WHY our kids had been so "restless" on the way home, we realized it was most likely because we'd brought a bunch of sugary snacks in the car thinking it would be a special treat for them since they don't get them often. In hindsight, that was a very stupid thing to do. Lesson learned.
On another "glad" note, about halfway through the trip, the kids were telling me they were hungry, so I offered them more "treats." They all responded that they wanted "real" food, so we stopped and got in the trailer and retrieved "real" food for them: apples, oranges, bananas, and whole wheat bread and bagels. Turns out my kids are more sensible than me.
