Yellowstone National Park

In June, we got the opportunity to go to Yellowstone with some of Josh's mission buddies. We stayed at a cabin in Island Park, and crammed as much as we could into our one day visit in to the national park. It was such a beautiful place, full of so many different things to see!

Besides bison, we probably saw more elk than anything else. We thought a lot about my Dad, wishing he was there to enjoy it with us.

About 5 min into our journey in the park, cars started lining up on the side of the road, so we decided to pull over and see what all the fuss was about. Sure enough, there was a black bear making his way along the river. You can tell from the pictures that he was pretty far away (and they are taken with a nice camera with a pretty good zoom), but it was still very cool to be able to see a bear!

The geological features of the park really are pretty incredible. The only thing that I really remembered about them from when I was a kid was that I thought they smelt terrible. While that is still true, I appreciated their beauty a lot more this time around. 

 Check out that color!

 Old Faithful!

There are two sets of falls in the park along the Yellowstone River. This is the first one (Upper Falls I think it is called). We parked our car close to this point and started hiking down to the lower falls from there. Seeing waterfalls this big makes me think about the power of our Heavenly Father. He has blessed us with such a beautiful world to live in!

This is a view of the lower falls. Avery loved looking at this waterfall!! She just kept saying "Ooooo" over and over again. It was pretty breathtaking. 

This is one of our favorite pictures of this sweet little girl!

This is our whole group for the trip. The Tolleys and the Starlings. 

 The hike back up.

 This was one of my favorite views of the day. It is looking down what they call the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. I loved the sky that day too!

Yellowstone Lake. I have great memories fishing out there with my Dad and Grandpas! I also remember being on the boat, trying to get back to shore with whitecaps all around us. I'm not sure if it was really as dramatic as I remember it, but I sure thought it was an adventure!

This is an amazing rainbow that was created above the lower falls as we hiked down to the view point. So pretty!!