Happy Birthday to Me!

For my birthday Mom and Dad took me, Chris, and Julie through YellowStone and over to an art show. This is me and Chris standing at a bubbly non-erupting geyser. I wanted to get a sweet picture of us in front of old faithful, but somehow I missed the most predictable geyser in the world because I thought I had enough time to hit the ladies room. I was bummed. But I still got some sweet pictures with Chris (as you can see we are both sporting our hoodies tied around our waists... awesome)

After I missed Old Faithful we took the trails around and looked at all the other neat things near by. On our way back we got to see Old Faithful go off again. So I got the picture I wanted of me and Chris with Old Faithfull.

Here we're all waiting for Mom because she stopped so much to take pictures. Good thing she does.

We turned around to get some pictures of some Bison that were pretty much right on the road chillin. Chris really liked the one with a stick stuck on his head. It was kinda unsettling being so close to them, even though we were in the car. They are just so big, plus I couldn't stop thinking of the video they show all over as a warning of a guy getting tossed 12 feet into the air by a Bison.

We Saw 2 Moose on the side of the road too. Some people were stupid and got really close. I got out of the car, but stayed near by... just in case. It was a boy moose and a girl moose.

Here I am standing in front of the 2 moose! Scary!

This obviously was Chris' idea, aided by Dad's aiming skills it looks like Chris is the source of Old Faithful. He's a living natural wonder.

Here's Lewis falls, from Lewis river, that flows out of Lewis Reservoir.... what ever happened to Clark?

I think here Julie is the hunter... and Chris is the deer....

That is one GOOD LOOKING guy... aka my husband.

I guess I walked into the restroom right before this guy decided to walk nearby. Chris decided to run over to tell me, because he knew I would want to see, and missed out on the close shots. But Dad got this picture of him. I got to see him too, thanks to Chris.

I thought this was a cool picture.

We got some good pictures of this bedded Elk too. Here's one of Dad standing in front of  him. He didn't seem to mind all of us taking his picture.

This is a grizzly bear! We got there just after he had crossed the road and headed up the hill. If Chris was a bear... that is what he would look like!

It was a lot of fun. Thanks for coming over Mom & Dad!

Kayaking "warm" River

Today we went Kayaking in Island Park. It was sooo fun! Julie came along with Emilee (her roommate and lifelong friend) and Cameron (Chris' old roommate who is awesome). We stared out at the Outdoor Recreation Center.... trying to figure out how to get 5 kayaks into 1 Jeep. I can't believe it, but it actually worked. On the way home I did have to hold on to one though that decided it would rather be in the road than in my Jeep.

Julie carried over all the paddles and skirts.

Right when we found the put in spot, we saw a HUGE beaver swimming across the water. It went over to its friend beaver by their house. If you look close you can see there is a beaver on the left and right of the pile of sticks.

There also was a crazy bat flying over the river round and round (probably eating tons of bugs). This is Julie explaining how you're supposed to be wary of bats that you see in the light, as it is a sign of "rabidness". None of us got bit.

The skirts are so hard to get on the kayak, so we all help each other and wait for everyone to get ready to rumble! This is Julie and Cameron, who both have never Kayaked before.

Chris and Emilee have both Kayaked only once (me too). But we all look so excited!

And off we go!

The scenery was very pretty! But the water was very cold! We didn't really get any pictures of the more exciting parts of the river... as we were all too busy keeping our kayaks straight and trying the best we could to not get caught on rocks.

Julie forgot to plug up the hole in hers, and slowly took on water until she could barely do anything. Funny thing was non of ours were plugged, but she had the smallest kayak and probably ended up with the hole under the water a whole lot more.

Chris took charge of the camera. This is our new "untouchable" camera.

Here's me in front of a waterfall.

This is probably the aftermath of Chris ramming Julie and then taking an underwater picture. It was so fun. We all talked about how fun it would be to be super good, but then we'd have to learn to Eskimo roll.... and that is scary. But it sure is fun to go down a relatively calm river.