Northwest to Midwest Part 2: Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone is amazing.  Seriously.  It is an American treasure, and it is now my dream to take the boys back over the years as they get bigger and can do more and more.

From Bozeman, we drove east to Gardiner, MT to use the park's North entrance.  The drive down to Gardiner alone is beautiful (that's why the area is called Paradise Valley, Annie!) and Gardiner was our destination for the evening.

There's a moose in the field.

The next day we (well, D and M, I can't see anything without my glasses!) woke up to see elk and antelope relaxing in the hills across from our hotel.  We had a quick breakfast in the hotel and then jumped in the car to explore as much of Yellowstone as one can with a baby and toddler in tow (i.e., not much).

The weather was crazy: on and off rain, then snow, and then a break of sunshine for our lunchtime picnic.  We didn't get to see much, but we did see Mammoth Hot Springs, Tower Falls and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  As we were driving, the rangers had to close the road ahead of us due to snow, so we had to backtrack and couldn't tour the northeastern section of the park like we planned.   I would love to go back to explore the Lamar Valley and the Northeast area, as well as Yellowstone Lake and Old Faithful in summer (I've seen it in winter.).

We had a picnic lunch in the Mammoth Hot Springs area where an elk herd kept us company.  Strangely enough though, two Chinese tourists came over and started taking photos of baby J - not the elk.  He is a Ridiculously Happy Baby, but it was a little bizarre!

After spending the full day in and out of the car, we had a delicious barbecue dinner back in Gardiner.  The next morning, we hopped back on the highway with another national park as our destination!

Northwest to Midwest Part 1: Bozeman and the Museum of the Rockies

We drove our fully-loaded Suburban east out of Idaho the day after Memorial Day.  Nothing makes you want to get rid of all THE STUFF like jam packing a POD and then trying to find a place for everything else in the car.....Anyway - on the fun!

Throughout our trip, M kept singing our mantra/jingle: "the great....American....WEST!" 

We stopped in Missoula for lunch.  We picked up Five Guys' burgers and had a picnic by the river.  There was a great playground with an old-fashioned carousel!  M sat on the dragon long enough for a photo op, but once he found out that it moved up-and-down, he downgraded to the chariot.  I guess he doesn't remember that he handled the up-and-down horse on the San Diego carousel just fine in 2014!

Bozeman was our destination for the evening, where M played waiter in the restaurant and enjoyed 2 seconds in the hotel pool and 30 minutes in the hot tub.  Hotel pools became our saving grace for getting the wiggles out on this trip!

Roaring at the T-Rex

After breakfast, we went to the Museum of the Rockies, which is great.  They have a wonderful dinosaur exhibit and D & I probably could have spent all day there!  M mostly ran around and roared at the dinosaurs, so I'd say he enjoyed it.

I also highly recommend taking a 3 year old to a planetarium show.  We watched the movie about black holes, which was fascinating, and M's reactions were priceless ("LOOK OUT, HERE COMES THE SPACE ROCK!!!").

Camping in the children's section at MoR

They also have a working pioneer homestead and other exhibits on early settler life and Native American life.  It really is a great museum and worth the effort if you happen to be in the Yellowstone/Bozeman/Big Sky area!

Bison sculpture constructed of musical instruments - of course our music lover found the electric guitar!

We ate lunch at another playground, shook off the wiggles again at hit the road for a drive through Paradise Valley down to the North Entrance to Yellowstone.  To be continued!

The famous Roosevelt arch, the gateway to Yellowstone!

Big Sky, Montana

We had this run all to ourselves!

This post has been sitting in my drafts for quite a while - I forgot about it but want to share these memories from our trip to Big Sky over New Year's.  I'm sure that most of America has had enough of winter, but here in northern Idaho this year, we never got much of it.  Big Sky is the #biggestskiinginamerica and it is awesome.  We had another wonderful and blessed week together with my parents and (most of) my siblings and their families in Big Sky, Montana again. 

Cousins together!  What a bunch of crazy boys!

Our pediatrician said it was OK for us to take baby J on our road trip (in fact, he said it would be easier to do it now, rather than later!).  And I was so glad to get to visit with almost all of my family.  We were sadly missing one sister (in Liberia with the CDC fighting the Ebola outbreak) and one brother-in-law (serving in the Navy and currently deployed).

M just adores all of his big cousins.

My parents rented one of the Powder Ridge Cabins.  It was lovely - it had plenty of space for everyone, the bedrooms were super comfortable and it was ski-in, ski-out right out the back door.  Although, I never would have found my way back from the slopes if I hadn't been skiing with my husband or brother.  I hadn't paid much attention to the directions and it was a little confusing even though the owners had provided little handouts to try to make it clearer.

First time on skis!

D and I skied two days while my wonderful mom, dad, sister and SIL watched our boys.  We got to ski with my brother and his two boys and it was great to see my nephews getting better and better!  We made some wonderful memories.  M had the time of his life playing with his big cousins, especially after asking "Can I go to Montana?  Can I play with my cousins?" 500 times during our 8 hour drive there.

On our way down to the White Otter Chairlift

D also took me over on the Moonlight side of the mountain, which was new to me and great.  I had a little panic when I thought we got on the wrong chairlift (taking us only to black ski runs!) so that girl yelling "thank you, Jesus!" at the top of the chair lift?  Yes, that was me when I discovered that no, there actually was a blue run for me to take down. =)

L-R: Nephew, Brother, Husband with Lone Peak in the background

It was a wonderful, fantastic trip full of great family memories.  Thanks, Mom & Dad for all the memories that we will always treasure!

Chairlift selfie with the same crew!

A Week at Big Sky in Pictures

Sunday: Sledding, toddler-skiing, snowball fights at the house

Monday: Skiing with my husband and brother.

Tuesday: Skiing with my sisters, and randomly running into our cousins on the mountain as they went whizzing by us!

My sister on the left and my cousin in the green jacket on the right!

Wednesday: Happy New Year!  Scary cliff-side skiing and our annual family talent show.

Thursday: Skiing and chairlift riding with my little nephews - what wonderful memories!

I must have yelled "SHOW ME PIZZA!!!" at him a million times as he went screaming down the slopes!

Friday: Craziness!!

My lift ticket fell off my jacket; once I got a new one, I nearly got blown off of the lift while trying to catch up to my sibs; then they closed the lift shortly after I got off due to the insanely gusty winds; then I panicked worrying about all of us getting back down to the base!  The winds were so bad that the snow pack was blown off almost down to the ice and dirt!  Thankfully we all made it back down and together safely, thank God!  First time skiing in gusty wind like that - don't think I'll do it again and I was very glad that my nephews did not try to ski with us that day!

Big Sky, Montana

We spent New Years in Big Sky, Montana with my extended family.  When they say "the biggest skiing in America" they aren't kidding!

We stayed in a wonderful home ("Twin Lift Lodge") that was across the street from the White Otter chair lift.  We could actually put our skis on by the front door and ski down the driveway to the chairlift, which whisked us over towards the main base area.

The house was great for our family because it had a couple different sitting areas, so the kids could be playing in front of the fire while my brother and dad vegged in front of the bowl games.  It had tons of windows with great views of the mountains, including Lone Peak (the highest peak in the area).  One down side was that there weren't enough dining chairs for everyone to eat together.  We had 13 people but there were only 6 chairs at the table and 4 seats at the bar.  Not a big deal, just something to note.

Points to Note:

• the driveway to our house was steep, but not too steep.  we didn't know what to expect, but I think in the future, I would always call to find out what the driveway was like, considering we aren't super experienced winter drivers.  there was some other homes on our street that had REALLY steep driveways!
• Big Sky resort has a great parking set up - we could pull right up to the main base area and park for 15 minutes for free to drop off folks for ski lessons and daycare.  they also had a quick shuttle system between the free lots and the main base area - the little kids thought it was pretty fun to ride this open air shuttle (essentially a trailer with benches on it towed by a truck) and it was smooth and efficient
• that said, I couldn't imagine doing Big Sky without a car - there are a lot of different housing options but most of them seem like they are too far away to just walk to the lifts
• take the first day to acclimate!  for the second year in a row, we spend the first day visiting in the cabin, not skiing.  this has really helped me to acclimate to the altitude, and makes the rest of the week more enjoyable
• there's only one road up the mountain to the base of the ski area!  we went down to the Meadow Village to shop on our last day and we got stuck for 20 minutes because a truck was blocking traffic up the mountain.  We needed to get back up the mountain to pick up the babies from daycare, and thankfully my mom was able to pick them up because we weren't moving.  I started to panic about not getting back in time to pick up M, so in the future, I need to plan better so that I can avoid this type of thing! 

All in all, it was a fantastic trip.  The skiing was unforgettable, even the last day where I nearly got blown off and then stuck on the lift (yes, both!), and then nearly panicked trying to ski back to the base due to the crazy high gusty winds - future post to come on that!