Yellowstone!

Friday, we let the kids skip school and made a day trip to Yellowstone. We had been trying to go before it got too busy with tourists and there were still lots of animals out and about. All of our weekends lately had been busy, so Christian suggested that we just let the kids skip the day and go. They were super excited to get to miss a day of school. We had a very enjoyable ride and saw way more animals than we ever have! We made several stops along the way and walked around to see the sights. 

We finally got to take our picture at the sign. Usually when we go through, we don't stop because there is so much traffic, but this day there wasn't!

 We saw lots and lots of buffalo on our trip. This guy was one of our first sightings.

Our first sight seeing spot was the mud volcano. We stopped here a couple of years ago and they boys remembered some of the spots. Landon was too little then, so it was all new to him.

As we were walking, we came across some buffalo hair on a tree. The boys thought it was really neat to be able to feel some.

 Our second stop was at the Brink of the Upper Falls. We hiked around for a bit, checked out the falls and then got back on the road. We stopped at Canyon village for lunch and went through the visitor center.

As we were driving, we came up on a large group of people gathered on the road, which usually means animals. It was in a spot where there really wasn't much space on the side of the road, so Christian got out first to see what it was. He came back to get us when he found out it was a bear. The people there said it was a grizzly, but we think it was a black bear. The boys were so excited to actually see a bear out in the wild! Seeing a bear was our goal of this trip and we had finally seen one!

Not too much farther down the road, there were more people gathered. We found out that it was a black bear. He was settled in deep in the trees. A Park ranger told us that if we drove a little more, we would find another bear that would be easier to see, so off we went.

We found the bears not too far away. We got to watch a momma black bear that had two cubs with her. The cubs were up in a tree just hanging out. Landon was really concerned that they were going to fall out. A

The baby bears.

Some geese and 3 babies

We saw this momma and baby on our way to Mammoth Hot Springs.

 We drove up to Mammoth Hot Springs to find lots of Elk. We had some ice cream in town and then drove a little more to the hot springs.

Checking out the Hot Springs.

 We walked along the boardwalk for quite a ways and didn't see much more, so we decided it was probably a good time to get headed back home.

We saw a bull snake along the walking path that totally freaked Landon out. He didn't want to some back the same way because he was afraid of it.

 The best part of the trip was on our back home we came across a momma grizzly and two cubs. They were so fun to watch. They were out in the open playing and eating.

At one point, the mom laid on her back so that the cubs could nurse. It was so cool!

We had such a great trip through the park. It was fun to not have to worry about hurrying through to get somewhere and just take our time and check things out. On our trip, we were able to see elk, deer, moose, bears buffalo and lots of rodents and birds. We met grandpa and grandma Foulger for dinner in Cody on our way home that night.