wandering around & home again

ahhhh! back home again. after a fabulous two week vacation, we're home again and getting back into the swing of things. we rolled in to some fabulous weather, and have been enjoying eating outside. today we ran around doing all of those post vacation errands that come up. you know, little things like having food in the house and stuff like that. :)

also a quick trip to gymboree to redeem my gymbucks. i heart 50% off cute stuff, like this super cute coat. i'm hoping the size 12 will clearance out & i can pick one up for myself. it's a sickness, i know! lol. they were nice enough to hold some stuff for me while i was heading back from vacation. {have i mentioned how much i love the staff in that store?!}

and yesterday was all about catching up on household things. i'd like to say i am now caught up on all of my laundry, but sadly, i haven't even started it! yah, i'm still THAT girl. did get a scrapping assignment done, though. but stan got the yard looking amazing. he's pretty darn fantastic that way (and every other way)! so after a long hard day of catching up, a soak in the hot tub was in order.

i'll work backwards through the last week of vacation to try and catch up. we drove through the night on the way home, picking up a fair amount of the insect population from wyoming, montana, idaho and washington along the way. we used to make this 18 hour drive driving through the night every year... but i think we're getting a little too old for that, because poor stan is still trying to recover from it!

along the way home we drive back through grand teton national park & yellowstone. we stopped at brooks lake near towgotee pass to check out the view there too. not too shabby to have to drive through such amazing country to get home. :) the rest of day 11 pictures are here.

on our last full day at the ranch we went on a hike up to split rock & and an old abandoned logging cabin. the girls had never been up there, so it was a lot fun showing them the places stan used to hike as a kid. {the ranch has been in stan's family for 5 generations now. it's awesome to have a place where the whole family can get together from all over the country.} the rest of the album from this day is here: day 10 album.

day 9 of vacation was spent tooling around the lake and taking the girls horseback riding. emma rode rusty, who is now 38, and was the same horse stan learned to ride on as a little kid. how cool is that?! the rest of the day 9 pics are here.

grandpa gene (stan's dad) is such a good grandpa... or grandpappy, as we like to call him. the girls "did his hair" for him several times on the trip. the giggling could be heard from all around. :) we spent the day fishing, playing horse shoes & shooting. (a man's dream day!) the rest of the day 8 pictures are here.

ahhh! the first full day at the ranch! lots of r&r was in order. kicking back, doing some fishing, visiting with the family. all around peaceful day (and only a few pictures to show for it.)

torrey in front of the torrey lake ranch sign. can you guess where we got her name? we headed out from yellowstone on day 6 and drove down, through teton national park, to the ranch. man, those tetons just come out of nowhere at you. simply amazing to marvel at God's creation! the rest of the pictures of day 6 are here.

so that's it! two weeks of fabulous summer vacationing. we couldn't have asked for a better trip. i'm looking forward to a nice week at home in the sun before heading out on saturday to c.h.a. happy monday (the last few minutes of it, anyway!)

**please forgive the overuse of the words ahhh & fabulous. :)**

america's first national park

ok, dumb title, i know! but i'm typing this as i race against the clock for our check out time here at the yellowstone koa. we're heading down to see stan's family for a week of unplugged time at their ranch in wyoming. i had a bunch of pictures i wanted to post, but dang that time running out! so instead, i am gonna post my pics of the day, and link to albums with the pictures on them. day 1: we stopped at the lewis & clark caverns in montana a couple of hours north of yellowstone. we've driven by them tons of times, but have never stopped. they were so dang cool! click here for day one album.

day 2: we hiked the geyser basin and caught this very cool site of old faithful lit by the sun with the storm clouds in the distance. amazing. click here for day two album.

day 3: we hiked the grand canyon of yellowstone. we started at the north rim and hiked all the way to artists point on the south rim. spectacular! really makes you feel just how small you are in the grand scheme of things. click here to see day three album.

day 4: we took a bike ride & hike to fairy falls. all i can say is WOW! we were blessed by a secluded little place where we could picnic and play in the cold water. click here for day four album.

day 5: we hit west thumb geyser basin, fishing bridge & rented a boat on yellowstone lake - all things we'd never done in the park before. click here to see day five album.

i better get off the computer before we get charged for an extra day here! lol. we're now heading down to dubois, wyoming for a week with stan's family. i'm sure i'll have a zillion pictures to post as soon as i'm back to an internet connection. have a fabulous week!