Everyone got to sleep this morning and just catch up and clean up from the long weekend.  The kids spent some time getting into the Olympics today and getting acclamated to it.  Rebecca, Caleb and Sarah climbed the mountain closest to our house today.  They ran several errands and got the car cleaned up from the long trip to Yellowstone. 3 of the kids worked on getting pictures pulled together for a photo contest that they are entering.

This evening I got to take Gretchen on a ride in my little red truck.  I think to her amazement she was only scared a couple times.  The truck didn’t even die at any intersection. Needless to say I can’t wait to get my little truck back when we get home.

I will get pictures out on the blog tomorrow hopefully.

After a good night's sleep we made many trips to the car to load/repack all our stuff. We went down and got some breakfast and headed out. Our initial plan was to do some sightseeing, Head to the town of West Yellowstone for an hour or so and then off to Helena.  Things are never as simple as they seem. 

Our first stop was to do a small hike around Pelican Creek which feeds Yellowstone Lake.  This was a nice easy walk and it actually took us to the beach of the lake.  Of course, we had to get in. The kids had a lot of fun playing in the sand and on a Sandbar.  Apparently this area is where Grizzlies during the months of October-May catch cutthroat fish for their meals.  Luckily we didn’t find any bears nor did we see any pelicans (which was odd).  We were prepared with the bear spray anyway!

As we left this hike and headed northward we ran into more Bison and Bison watchers.  This presented us with a traffic jam and a delay in our schedule.   One did decide to cross the road right in front of our car.  After that we got a glimpse of a few male Elk with very large racks.  Our last animal sighting for the day was a coyote which was really cool. It too crossed the road in front of us and Joshua got a great picture of it.

We took a short drive to view the upper falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It is not quite as impressive as the lower falls but it's still a waterfall.   There were some hikes here but we chose to skip them this time (not to Caleb’s liking). 

One of our last stops was for a late lunch as we overlooked Gibbon Falls which was beautiful.  There were several viewing sights and at each one the view got better and better.

The last stop of the day before we left the park was to travel back to a little creek called Nez Pierce Creek.  The kids all got their bathing suits on and played in the water.  It’s a nice shallow creek where they could easily build damns.  Christina has asked to go back next week to finish the damn.

During the last few days we have seen lots of international people. Christina has asked many questions about why she can’t understand them and Sarah has tried several times to explain this to her. Well today as Sarah and I stood in front of our hotel to take a picture a elderly Chinese couple approached us. They wanted their picture taken so we took it.  This was a fun way to show and see Sarah have to communicate with someone that she couldn’t understand.  Amazingly it worked. Later in the day the same thing happened with another pair of Chinese ladies but one of them spoke a decent amount of English.

As you can see due to animal sightings our “plan” got interrupted so we didn’t get back until a little later than we had expected.  Although it is nice to know that God always knows the plan.  This trip has shown us more amazing sites and wonders of this world God created.   We are very thankful for all we have seen.

Today started out early.  We awoke in our little bungalow around 7 and whisked (as fast as you can whisk 7 people) into the car. Our destination was the “Boiling River”.  There is a spot about 5 minutes from where we were staying where the Gardiner river has extremely hot water from the mountain (heated by the volcanic activity) flowing into it and it forms a hot tub effect.  One of the guys I work with had warned me that if we wait too late the place is full and you can’t get in.  So we arrived about 7:30 and then had to hike about ½ half hour to get there.  Luckily there were only 2 other people there.  Someone has taken rocks and created a little wall so that the hot water doesn’t escape too fast. This river sits in a valley and the sun was not even over the mountains yet, so it was quite cool on our hike. As you enter the water it is quite cool the closer to the river you get but if you get too close to the hot spring coming out of the mountain it is very very hot.  It is very challenging to walk through the water because of the large rocks to walk on which were often unsteady.  Caleb, of course, had no problem just walking right down and moving as far along as he wanted.  None of us were smart enough to wear our water shoes or flip flops.  I am not the most balanced person so my wonderful daughter Sarah walked with me holding my hands and helping me not to fall and break my neck.  I was also blind because my glasses were fogged up.  Sarah went back to help Gretchen but they didn’t get too far.  The rest of us had a nice chat with a father and son from Vancouver.  After about an hour or so we got out and dried off and headed back to the parking area.  Naturally on the way back Joshua climbed a large hill and Christina followed him.  As usual he got down just fine but she got stuck and had to have big brother Caleb and big Sister Rebecca come and get her.  Joshua was sitting at the bottom the whole time grinning.  

We got back to our cabin, took showers and packed up and headed out just in time to beat our 11 am checkout time by 15 minutes.  The next thing on our list for the day was to see the Mammoth Hot Springs. So we drove all of 1 mile to park and started the trek up this boardwalk that leads up past several hot springs.  These are amazing wonders and they create beautiful colors on the rocks as the water trickles down. The big negative to all of these springs which are caused by volcanic activity is the sulfur smell which to us smells like hard boiled or deviled eggs.  I am not sure we will ever eat deviled eggs again.

After getting back in the car we headed down the east side of the park.  We got all excited because as we were rounding a corner there was a mob of people (which means animals) and there on the side of the hill not too far from the road was a Black Bear.  Just after we passed it crossed the road.  Not too far from there we stopped again and there were bears playing in the woods.  By this time we were getting hungry so we stopped at Tower Falls.  There was a quick cloudburst of rain but it past in about 5 minutes and we were able to get our food out and eat lunch. After lunch we took a short hike up the mountain to view Tower Falls below which were beautiful.

Continuing down the road our next stop was at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  We saw a great view of the upper falls and then took the opportunity to hike to the top of the lower falls.  This was a 3/8 mile hike that dropped 600 feet.  We got down there and were amazed at watching thousands of gallons of water pouring over the falls and falling about 300 more feet. As we looked through the mist we could actually see a rainbow or something like it.  The view from there out into the canyon was amazing as well.  It is amazing how God has perfectly placed every rock and stream.

Our next stretch of road took us up to an elevation that topped out at 8900 feet.  On our way down we got to see lots of Bison up close.  There were several just sitting along the road and a herd of about 80 or so in the valley to watch. These animals are HUGE. I can see why it is best just to leave them alone.  Also on this stretch of road we took a side trip to see some petrified trees. This was amazing to see how this tree is now like concrete. 

The next stop was at the Mud Volcano.  Wouldn’t you think this would be a highlight for boys?  I think they would have loved it had it not had that sulfur smell.  It was really neat to see all the mud pots boiling.  We even got to go by a cave that had steam coming out of it and it made lots of noise. It was called the dragon’s breath.  To our surprise as we hiked through these mud pots we found a Bison just lying in the dirt. 

Our last stop of the day was at the Yellowstone Lake Hotel. We have finally graduated to a room with not only beds but a bathroom.  The hotel sits facing Yellowstone Lake which is Huge (Sarah called it an ocean). This looks like something from the 1930’s.  We had a nice dinner and walk along the lake. When we came back there was a String Quartet playing. Rebecca was in heaven. So we got to play cards and listen to music.  God is always full of surprises.

The question of the day is how did we walk from Montana to Wyoming and back?

It wasn’t as cold last night as the night before (only in the 50’s in July).  Thankfully everyone slept all night.  This morning was a slow start since we had to get packed up and move out of the KOA today.  This is quite the effort since we had a tent with lots of stuff on one side of the campground and a small camping cabin with stuff on the other side of the campground.  We had one of our favorite camping breakfast of pancakes with Hershey chocolate bars (since we had no syrup) and sausage.  I think we finally left the campground about 10:30.

Our first stop was to drive through Firehole Canyon.   There was a set of falls which was beautiful and an awesome canyon.   There was a swimming hole but we decided not to stop due to the crowd. So to compensate we stopped at a close by creek called Nez Pierce which allowed everyone to play for a few minutes.  Of course, that meant we had to drag them out of the water to keep moving for the day.

The next stop was called the Painted Pots.  There were several hot springs which are heated by the volcano under the park and each one causes this special algea to grow around the sides and they are sometimes unique and pretty colors. The big negative was a horrible smell that reminds you of boiling eggs or deviled eggs or rotten eggs, we aren’t sure we just know we don’t like it.  It apparently is the smell of sulfur and it comes with steam.  It is amazing to me how popular these smelly things are. Gretchen had to drive around several times to find a parking place there were so many people there.

It started to rain so we skipped more hot springs and drove to Old Faithful.  We got there just in time to get a seat on the boardwalk that surrounds the geyser.  There were several hundred people there and we all waited for about 15 minutes or so to see it blow.  It is amazing to see how high this blows and on schedule which is even more amazing.   Only God can time such things.  Even funnier is that once it blows everyone applauds it as if it were performing.  We spent some time in the visitor center which is pretty new and in the Old Faithful Educational Center which was pretty cool as well.  What an awesome learning experience about all the Geysers in the park and what causes them to spout off.  Our last thing at this stop was to see the Old Faithful Inn which is an architectural wonder of its own.  It is huge and built out of logs.  There is a really cool perch at the top of the ceiling that was originally built to house a small orchestra but due to an earthquake some years ago it is no longer stable.  We ended up spending so much time here that it was time for Old Faithful to blow again.  One of my co-workers had told me that he and his family enjoy viewing Old Faithful from the Inn’s deck.  So we meandered up to the deck got something to drink and sat and watched the show. Caleb, of course, wanted to be closer so he sat on the boardwalk again.  This time it seemed to blow higher and due to our viewing point we could see the sheer force of the water spouting out.  Now that we had spent a couple hours here we determined that we could leave.

We got back in the car and headed back north to see the geysers we missed due to rain.  The one that is the most amazing was  Grand Prysmatic  spring.  This particular one is like a huge pool that was level to where we were standing and had amazing colors surrounding it.  There was lots of steam also.  However, it was so windy that we could barely walk for the wind.   There was another pool here that had a wonderful blue color and you could see very deep into it because the water was so cold. We also learned that these pools are so hot that a human could die in less than 15 seconds.

Finally we headed out to go towards Mammoth our final stop for the day.  After a few stops due to animal watching we made it around dinner time.  We stayed in a nice cabin which is an upgrade because we got a sink but still no bathroom and we were all sleeping inside.  After dinner I thought we needed to go checkout the Mammoth Hot Springs to reduce what all we had to do tomorrow. The girls didn’t want to go so Gretchen and I took the boys and we drove up to the springs which again had that awful smell.   After a few minutes reviewing the hiking trail we determined we didn’t want to do a 2 hour hike at 8 pm. As we traveled back to our cabin right there in the center of town was a Bison eating and some Elk crossing the road. This whole free range idea is so new to me coming from a farm in TN that has fences.

The question of the day is there are 2 million annual visitors to Yellowstone National Park. For 2012 our family made up 28 of those. How did we do that?

I think I have to start this blog out by telling about our night.  We had gotten to bed around 11:30. The setup was for me and the 5 kids to sleep in our tent and Gretchen to get a nice quiet night in the camping cabin.  Again the MT/WY weather surprised us.  As the night started to pass on we noticed that it seemed to continue to get colder.  Remember it is the end of July and in any other normal state in the south you would never catch me in a tent because I can’t stand to sweat in my sleep. That was not the case here.  I think it got down to at least 40 or below.  No one brought winter pajamas and we all woke up with our heads inside our sleeping bags.   Rebecca, Caleb, Sarah and I didn’t sleep very well.

This day our plan was to take a trip to the Grand Tetons which was about 2 hours below Yellowstone.  As we traveled south we saw the entrance to Old Faithful and couldn’t resist so we stopped and it was going to be an hour before it went off so we got back in the car and headed for the Tetons.  The Tetons are amazing in size and vastness.  We stopped at the lake that reflects them and had lunch. 

After lunch we continued down the road getting better views of the different peaks of the Tetons. The Grand Teton is around 13k feet above sea level (amazing).   We found the visitor center and got some information on where we might see some wildlife. Part of that information was that there was a lake that had a beach.  Being from the south and missing the beach this summer sent us straight to this spot.  This was a beautiful lake that sat at the bottom of the Grand Teton and there were lots of people swimming, wind surfing and canoeing. 

As we   traveled out of the Grand Teton National Park we were still amazed at their height and amazing beauty.  There was a glacier on one of them (our 2^nd one of the summer).  We traveled back into the Yellowstone and tried to see Old faithful one more time but again it was going to be more than an hour before it went off so we got back in the car and headed to the KOA campground.

We got to the campground at a decent hour and found that a new bus of kids had moved in across from us and a rodeo was going on outside the campground.  We got   out our handy grill and had some good old fashioned hot dogs and hamburgers. Afterwards the boys spent some time putting together wood in just the right formation to start a great campfire.  Of course, if you have a campfire you have to have smores.  We finally got everyone to bed around 10:30 at least an hour earlier than the previous night.

On Tuesday we were able to go to the pool but it really wasn't the best day.  It was windy and not quite hot enough so the pool was cold.  I was glad the pool  was a little cold because someone threw up in the pool and my kids didn't want to get back in because they were cold.  They cleaned the pool and 30 min. later all the other kids were back in but we decided to leave. 

We worked on packing for our trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  We are to leave tonight (Wed.) after Tony gets home.  We will drive about 3 hours to get to the Yellowstone KOA.  We booked a cabin and a tent site.  Tony & I will switch off in the cabin and the kids can choose to camp or sleep on a bed.  Most of the kids are up for 2 nights of tent camping!  They are very excited. 

After 2 nights camping we will stay in Yellowstone at 2 different places.  We will blog about it when we get back.  We are looking forward to God's marvelous creation!

Here is what the kids are looking forward to seeing at Yellowstone:

Rebecca - wild animals - she really will be looking for mountain goats

Caleb - hot springs & elk

Sarah - any animal

Joshua - bears

Christina - bears and mountains goats

me (Gretchen) - water falls

The day was spent with everyone getting their bags packed and ready to go after I got home from work. I walked in the door and we only had a little left to put in the car and we were off. The problem was that it was about 6:40 pm as we headed out.  The drive down was nice and peaceful.  As always the countryside here provides beautiful drives.  Of course, it also provides for a drive in the middle of no where. I am continually amazed at how remote this state is.  The biggest town we went through was named Enis population 802 (that could have changed if someone had a baby today).  It was a very cute town.  There were also lots of big beautiful ranches. As we drew closer we began to see more campgrounds and places to stay. Once we arrived in the town of West Yellowstone we realized we were in the Panama City of the west (or so it seemed).  It took us a few minutes to find out campground but we finally did (it was the only one with a lit up sign). 

This campground was huge and was full. So we ended up in a camping cabin on one side of the park and a tent site on the other side of the park.  We were able to unload quickly and get our tent setup.  We had to be careful to put everything up. We were warned here about the bears again and that they will come eat anything we leave out.  By the time we got to bed it was about 11:30. (Tony)

Today we went to Hannaford Bible church to let Rebecca play their piano.  She has been missing our piano in MS even though we did bring a keyboard here.  We asked the pastor a week ago if we could come and he said sure.  Rebecca was so excited to play!  The church has a large worship team with drums, guitars, violin, keyboard etc...  So of course Joshua and Christina wanted to be on stage too to pretend to sing and play their drums but I thought that wouldn't be the best idea if we wanted to come back to worship and play the piano another time.  The kids and I had our devotions and then went outside to jump rope.  We all enjoyed listening to Rebecca play since it is like background music in MS to us.  We have all missed hearing her play!!! 

Ouside I thought the kids would jump rope with this really long rope we have but after a few minutes they decided to play tug of war instead.  It was comical for the most part.  Caleb tried to pull Christina and Joshua while Sarah stayed inside to listen to Rebecca.  I almost forgot - as we drove into the church parking lot there was a deer there !  The church is not in a wooded area at all.  The Wendy's is across the street and there are homes around the church!  It amazes us often where we see deer!

We came home and thought we were going to the pool.  It started to rain just a little so we decided not to go.  I got to read some while the kids played.  We really are enjoying our summer days here.  Rebecca keeps saying "We have to do __________ again before we leave!!!"  So she is starting our list for all the fun things we need to do before we head home.  She loves it here and is even planning for all the kids to make some return trip here when they are older .  I guess Tony & I are not invited!?  :)  We will see.....

After a very late night at the Symphony under the Stars we pulled everyone out of bed (literally in a couple of cases) and went to early church. Early church here is 9 am as opposed to 8 in MS so that worked in our favor.   One of the assistant pastors spoke this morning and he started off his sermon with a comment saying "haven't we had a nice HOT week this week".   We laugh almost daily at the local comments about this horribly hot summer they are having here in Montana.  Now, I will admit it is hot temperature wise but it certainly is not like MS where you just have to walk outside to sweat. Here it might be 95 degrees for part of a day but to cool off you just go in the shade.  All in all it was a good service with a sermon concentrating on the Corinthians and how they were treating each other.  After church we headed home and packed for a day trip.

In keeping with our summer tradition here in MT we loaded food/drinks into the car and headed south on I-15 towards Butte. There is an old Ghost town about an hour south of Butte called Bannack. Each year they have a weekend that they call Bannack days where people dress in period costume, have gun fights, hang people and do all that fun western stuff.  This year happens to be the 150th anniversary of the town. This town was founded in 1862 when gold was discovered and it then became the first terratorial capitol of Montana. The town lasted until sometime in the 1930's and is now part of a state park.  It has approximately 60 structures still standing and in good condition.

This was a little over a 2 hour ride from home and we rose in elevation about 2000 feet to almost 7000 feet above sea level.  As we turned off the interstate for the final 20 minute ride once again we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere (this happens quite often here).  The good news was that the roads were paved nearly the whole way (which is not the norm in this state).  We felt like we were being whisked back into a western movie/show like Gunsmoke.  This town is in incredibly good condition.  We walked into lots of houses where you could still see the many layers of wall paper on the walls. We went into the church and got to listen to a family play some blue grass music where we all sang along (I'll fly away).  Christina leaned over and asked how I knew any of these songs.  As we proceeded through town there was a post office, school, Hotel (with 15 rooms) and the jail (which interested Caleb the most).  There were wagons being pulled (loaded with people) by oxen. The kids fell in love with the oxen.  Everyone stopped and was able to make candles and we could have panned for gold if we had wanted to but we chose to skip that one.  Caleb was able to shoot a real musket that a man loaded with gun powder.  Joshua and I hiked back to where the actual gallows were where they hung people. Luckily there was no one still hanging there. 

At about 3 pm we walked down the street and a bunch of cowboys and saloon girls came out of the saloon into the street. The marshall came trying to arrest someone and the sheriff was there to keep the peace. That didn't last long as 2 men started arguing over one of the saloon girls and then the shootin began. Of course, the girl was killed and the madam of the saloon demanded that the culprit be hanged. So we proceeded to walk down the street to the hangin.  When it was over they asked if anyone wanted their picture with the dead guy and to my suprise none of my kids wanted one. 

As the afternoon went on a storm started settling in and the wind stated to blow.  I cannot imagine living in this town 150 years ago if this wind blew up the dust and dirt like it did today.  We could feel it hitting out legs and arms.  It just went to prove to us how hard a life this had to be back then.  As it started to rain we decided we should go. So we packed all back into the car and headed out of town into the wilderness.  Amazingly within about 10 minutes the temperature had dropped from 85 to 57.  As we headed back over the continental divide we drove into the rain.  We were able to stop in Butte and have dinner and then we were back on the road.  In our last 30 minutes of driving we rounded a corner and there across the mountain was a double rainbow. One of them had the most brilliant and brightest colors any of us have ever seen.  Again God is just awesome.

Today was another awesome day in Montana. It was about 85 degrees (no humidity) and we decided we would hike Mount Helena.  This will be the 3rd time for Rebecca, Caleb and Sarah, 2nd time for me and the first time for Gretchen, Joshua and Christina.  There are many trails that will get a person to the top of Mount Helena and each of them have different degrees of difficulty.  Of course the oldest 4 decided to take the Power Line trail which is the most difficult because it goes virtually straight up the mountain 1000 feet.  Gretchen, Christina and I chose the Prospect Shaft Trail which was not supposed to be quite as difficult.  However, if you have to climb 1000 feet no matter which trail it is then there is going to be some level of difficulty which we found out.  After several rests we made it to the top and saw the awesome views.  Gretchen swore on someone's grave she would never let me talk her into this type of hike again. After that scene on top of the mountain (just kidding no scene) we headed down the 1906 Trail which is a pretty steady decline.  As some of you may know going down can be just as hard as coming up but we made it anyways.  Our kids made it down about 20 minutes before us but that's ok.

After such a good hike this called for something cold to drink. Caleb must be a salesman for Costco because he always pushes for us to go there to get 59 cent drinks with free refills. Everyone else was helping him lobby so we headed to Costco. The funny thing was that as we were going in we realized how dirty and sweaty we were but decided that we weren't from here and no one really knows us so what does it matter.  Don't EVER say that. As soon as we sat down with our drinks and lunch ($16 for a family of 7 which is pretty good) a guy from my work and his family sat down next to us. Oh well.  Then the girls commented on how they see the same people at Costco every time they go.

In Helena there is an annual event called Symphony under the Stars held at Carroll College.  It is a free event and everyone goes down the night before or early the morning of the event and puts out blankets to reserve spots on the lawn.  In order to keep the Montana wind from blowing the blankets away you are to hold them down with cans of food which are later donated to the Montana Food Share.  Our friend Brett graciously vounteered to do this at 6 am this morning.  While we were on top of Mount Helena we could see all the blankets covering the Carroll College Lawn and it was beautiful.

We met up with Brett and his family aroung 6 pm (only after picking up a bag of kettle corn along the way). We spent the next 2.5 hours visiting and snacking on the food we had all brought.  The kids went off to play frisbee and go to the instrument petting zoo (yes I did say instrument).  This "petting zoo" is a tent where the symphony has musical instruments and lets people play them or try to play them.  While all this was going on the crowd started piling in.  We believe there were between 5-6000 people there.  This event would remind you a lot of the Bellhaven singing Christmas tree without the tree.  We have come to realize just how small Helena is because even though we are new here we saw several people we knew or had seen before. 

This was quite the scene because it had went from near 90 degrees earlier in the day to a wonderful 75-80 degrees or maybe even less.  This year's theme was western music and they had a famous violinst accompanying them.  The music was wonderful and the backdrop was breathtaking.  As we sat on the hill watching and listening to the symphony the sun was setting behind the mountains which was behind the symphony in the distance.  As the sun went down the stars came out in full demand.  it was fun to watch the kids try to count all the stars in the sky.  Some of the music reminded us of musicals such as Oklahoma or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and we think they were also playing the theme to either Bonanza or Big Valley.  We felt like we had been swept into one of those.  As the night ended and the symphony played their finale a huge fireworks show started and ended the night with a bang.

Again we feel so blessed to have been able to be at this event and hear the talents that God has given people and see how beautiful his world is as it was set to music.

(p.s. I love reading Tony's blog posts!!!!  I have just laughed my head off reading what he wrote! -Gretchen)

Today was a laid back day at the house.  The only trip we made was to Wal-mart because we have to eat and the kids just played here all day.  They even worked on our new 1000 piece puzzle.  Over the last couple weeks we have done 2 puzzles and we are now on our 3rd and largest. Joshua has never sat down with us to do a big puzzle before and he got interested in this big one!  Yea!  One more person to help do puzzles.  I love puzzles.  Tony & I used to do them ALOT when we were first married.