A Day to Remember in Yellowstone

I'm still feeling nostalgic for Yellowstone--for the cabin and the mountains. My walks in the mornings used to seem so beautiful, and now it's like I've seen the light! Ok, it's not THAT bad, but wow...Yellowstone and Montana are exceptionally beautiful. The Bos family is officially back on schedule, back to our routine, and it's not too bad after all. The weather has finally reached summer temps, so Annabelle and I are making it a point to have our exercise and park time completed by 9:45am--quite a challenge, but not entirely impossible, and actually VERY rewarding when accomplished :) BUT...I digress. Our day in Yellowstone was one for the record books! It was a rainy day, but that only made it better, more picturesque, more comfortable, and perfectly suited for our rain jackets. Josh, Annabelle and I all got new rain jackets the week before we left, and it turned out to be the BEST purchase we made for the entire trip (not to be confused with the best purchase I made ON the trip...more on that later). Our day began with a stop in West Yellowstone; we always stop and shop around in the little strip mall--so fun! We also went to the little grocery store, where they had little shopping carts just Annabelle's size--nobody has those anymore! She loved it, until it tipped over in the aisle. After that, she had nothing but angry expressions and comments directed toward it.

At the strip mall in W. Yellowstone

Eating the yummy popcorn Grandma bought them--I think Annabelle even ate more than Paige!

The fam (isn't it funny how Josh has his hand on the bear's arm?) Ha ha

We then headed into the park, and made our way to Old Faithful. On our way, Brittany came over the walkie-talkie screaming "Animal!!" It was our first sighting of the trip! It got us all excited, then turned out to be a big bird. I don't know about everyone else, but I don't get excited about birds, and I was actually hoping for a Black Bear or a Moose.

We grilled some burgers in the Old Faithful PARKING LOT! Brittany was ill-informed when she told us there were picnic grounds. Oh well...it all worked out, and the burgers were quite delicious! Side note: Our next purchase prior to the trip will be a BBQ! It was during this portion of the day that we noticed Annabelle had little red sores on her head. Then after a little investigation Josh noticed there were little bugs in her hair, biting her head! After even more investigation we noticed Paige had them too, and finally we drew the conclusion that the cute, friendly, wonderful Lab back at the cabin--the Lab who jumped in the water to fetch the stick and ate our leftover steaks--had FLEAS!!! So gross! Annabelle was quite fond of that dog too--such a disappointing end to what could've been a long, 3-day child-doggie relationship. Sigh...

This Elk walked right in front of our car! So fun! I actually stood up through the sun roof to get a great view

Speaking of great views--Artist Point! I LOVE this place--it doesn't get more sublime

Getting soaked at the top of the Lower Falls...and not caring one bit! Hey...we're only there for a day!

After this, we hiked down to the top of the waterfall at Artist Point--so insane! I can't even wrap my brain around that amount of water--it was awesome! Not only was that awesome, but the drive home was awesome! We were coming home around 9pm, and the scenery was incredible, all different colors. It was probably one of the most beautiful drives I have ever been on. When we got back to the cabin, the night ended perfectly with a little gray mouse running across the floor, and no one ever finding it. You gotta love cabins!!