Weekend in West Yellowstone

We got to go visit John at his summer digs this weekend. We went on Friday afternoon and stayed until Monday.

Friday evening I pulled out a pair of child sized camp chairs that my mom had picked them up at a thrift store. Eloise was so excited! She dragged that little chair in off the balcony after dinner so she could sit around the living room in it.

Fina said "I need to borrow your camera!" The rainbows were really cool but we weren't so happy that it was raining.

Saturday we went into Yellowstone even though it was cloudy and rainy. John decided it would be fun to just drive around, and it sounded fun in theory but in practice it was pretty sucky. The kids got bored and the animals were all hiding from the rain. Every time we saw bison calves they would point out the window and yell, "BABIES!"

The rain let up and I convinced John to stop at a trail I kept wanting to do last year but the parking lot was always full. We didn't get to do the whole thing because we're fat and horribly out of shape it has stairs and we had the stroller. It was kind of nice that it was overcast because it wasn't too hot. But then we got done and back to the car and realized we had forgotten the water bottles at the house so we decided to drive to canyon village and buy drinks, and they were in the middle of a power outage so it took over an hour to wait in line and purchase our beverages. It kind of sucked. Then it rained a bunch more and we rode in the car until everyone was crabby, and then we went home and John was like "I've been up since 1:30. Good night, suckers!"

I made toasted cheese sandwiches and served them on the balcony. They look crabby but really they were excited. They just didn't know why I was taking pictures of them stuffing their faces. They love to sit on the balcony all evening long.

The next morning they played with the weird "daddy's house toys" while we waited for John to get home from work. I thought Eloise looked super cute in her "you look like a baby" outfit but while we were eating lunch she spilled her whole glass of milk on herself so I had to change her before we went out.

We went to the fountain paint pot trail which has pretty pools and mud pots and a few geysers, and mud pots are pretty much my favorite thing in the world. When we saw this pool Fina said to me "mommy, do you know which color is the hottest? The blue." So apparently all the trips to the old faithful visitor center have paid off. 

3 of my favorite things! One mud pot and the two best girls in the whole world.

I didn't even realize how pretty the sky was until we got home and I uploaded the pictures. It was a gorgeous day. And I even remembered the water bottles!

Serafina has to stop and take pictures of all the flowers she sees. These particular flowers turned out hilarious because someone touched her camera lens with grubby fingers so the white flowers in really bright sunlight look like they're glowing.

I tried to get her to pose nice by spasm geyser, but she was being a little silly and decided to take a picture of the sign while I took a picture of her. This day we were smart and all we did was drive into yellowstone and walk this one trail and then drive back out. I have to tell you though we were waiting in line for the outhouse after we hiked and the people who were coming out kept going on and on about how it was horrendously stinky in there and they had found that the only way to tolerate it was to put sanitizer on their hands and then hold them up to their nose while they did their business. So when it was finally Fina and my turn I geared myself up for a stinky outhouse, but as far as outhouses go it wasn't so bad. On a scale of 1-10 I'd rank the odor somewhere around a 3. Maybe those complainy dudes haven't been in as many outhouses as we have.

In the evenings I was often treated to a "shadow show". Fina would line stuffed animals and plastic horses up on the couch for an audience (leaving one cushion for me of course) and Eloise would sit on her little chair. The shows were pretty nonsensical but it kept her busy for quite some time.

After 2 nights of this, Eloise finally figured out that Fina was getting a lot of attention so she had to go get in on this. I don't mind sitting on the couch while my kids hide behind the curtains and giggle like loons. Eloise was a bear to get to go to sleep, so last night I kept her up until she fell asleep on the couch, then carried her to her playpen. It worked well.

Once she goes to sleep, she stays that way. She slept in until like 9 today.

After breakfast I cleaned the kitchen. Can you guess where Eloise's pacifier is?

Serafina went down to pick a nice bouquet of dandelions for the kitchen table since it looked so nice and she thought flowers would be a nice touch.

When the dishwasher finished, Eloise and her pacifier sat on the balcony for like an hour just watching the world go by.

It's surprisingly easy to entertain them at John's house, the wind around there is great for the pinwheels and they just love the balcony. (Note: I washed her look like a baby outfit on Sunday afternoon so I could make her wear it on Monday. When I put it on her she said "No! Not a baby!" So we have to stop calling it that I guess. She spilled on it and then changed into her birthday dress before we went home.)

We found that Daddy keeps otter pops in his freezer. Eloise wasn't sure what to do with them but after she watched Fina and figured it out, she decided it wasn't half bad. We had planned to hang out and go home after dinner, but John got home from work looking pale and exhausted so I told him we were going to just head home so he could take a nap. He argued that we shouldn't ruin our day plans because of him and blah blah, but I assured him that it wouldn't ruin our day. He and Eloise rocked in the rocking chair while Fi and I packed up all our stuff, and then we went home. Eloise was asleep before we even turned onto the highway.