4th of July and Yellowstone

Hey everyone! So much to update you all on! 1st, it was my birthday and we had my whole family in town. My mom, Alyssa and I got up and ran the 5K. Now this was like the 3rd time since last years 5K that i've ran, i mean, running is so not my thing. So I was going to be happy with running to the first corner and walking the rest :) But I suprised my self and ran almost 2 miles straight. I stopped shortly before 2 miles to get some water. Then for the last mile I ran 2 blocks and walked the next. So I was pretty proud with how well I did. After the run, we went over to my parent hotel (because everyone else was still sleeping) and had breakfast there. We chose to forego the parade this year in exchange for a slow relaxing morning. I wasn't going to complain about that. So we hung out at the hotel for a while, opened presents and then went to the park for a BBQ. My family is so awsome, KC got me a glove so I can play baseball left handed now and Alyssa and Tyler got me a really cute shirt and my parents got me some books and a "baby food maker" (I've used it already and its the best!!). It was the best few gifts ever! We went to the BBQ and KC grilled us some hamburgers and hot dogs and a few of us got some steaks... yum! Then a few people went on a bike ride down the canyon. We rented some tandem bikes and a few rode skateboards. I didn't go again because of Owen, but we had a nap at home instead...that was more of what I needed.
That night we went to Staduim of Fire at the BYU football stadium. It was so cool. This was the first time I've really been inside the stadium for the fireworks. We had SheDaisy and the Jonas Brothers sing. It was so amazing when the JoBro's came out because the stadium just filled with screams. We were on the outskirts of the screaming but I wish I could have heard what it sounded like on the floor, it had to be crazy. We could hear screaming through the speakers so it had to have been super loud. But the concert was so good. I'm glad KC and my dad let me go (I took my dad's ticket). Then the neatest thing i've witnessed happened, a flag was brought out. It was 90' x 100' (huge) and it had been used for the last 10 years in SLC. It was worn and tattered so they burned it. A monument with a statue of the Olympic Flame was brought out and the flag was put into this cylinder thing and both the flag and the monument were lit on fire and we said the Pledge of Allegience and listened to patriotic music while the flag burned. It was such a neat experience to see. Then, of course, the fireworks were amazing!

Sunday we drove up to Big Sky Montana for our Yellowstone trip. We thought the drive was supposed to be about 6 hours and it ended up taking us closer to 9-10 hours. We had to stop and feed owen 2 times and then lots of bathroom breaks between the 3 cars of people. We had my family going up along with Aunt Theresa and her boys Preston and Ryker. So it was a long but very fun trip up to MT. It was amazing the difference in sceanery as we drove. The UT mountains changed to the Idaho grassy hills, to the Montana forrests. It was so beautiful the whole trip. We stayed in some cabin/townhomes that were right next to the Big Sky resort. They were perfect sized for our family. Monday was our rest and recover day. We went zip-lining down the resort mtn that we stayed next to. That was so much fun, I've never done it before so the first time was kinda scary but there were 3 runs and by the 2nd one it was just fun. Everyone went and I was so suprised that I didn't have any trouble getting Kim, Kat or Jeffrey to go. Everyone did great. After that KC took Dallin and Preston to find some dirt roads to drive on in his truck. He came back with a MUDDY truck. But they had fun doing it, KC even had to put his truck in 4-wheel drive for part of it :)
Tuesday was our Yellowstone day. We got up super early and left at about 7:30am. When we got there we went in the "west yellowstone entrance" and headed towards Old Faithful. We stopped at a few places along the way. It was all so beautiful, I was shocked that there was such beauty on the earth and its not everywhere, so Its not like I can see this sort of stuff in AZ. Our first stop was to the "Fountain Paint Pots". It was a path of lots of different hot springs, geysers, and the paint pots. You can see all the pictures in the slide show below. Then we went and say the "Great Fountain Geyser". Now this was luck that we saw this actually go off, apparently it only goes off once or twice a day and we got to see one just because Owen needed to eat so we stopped. about 20 minutes after being there the geyser erupted and it was the coolest thing to see. Water was consistently spraying for atleast 5 minutes and it was shooting really high. I'm not even going to guess how high because I'm never good at that stuff. But I'll put some video online later and you can see it. Later we found out that the next estimated time that it would erupt was at 10:43 that evening. Like I said, amazing that we got to see it go off.
Next it was on to Old Faithful. And again, our timing was lucky, we got there about 45 minutes before it was going to go off again. So we went and bought lunch and went out to watch it go off. This one wasn't as high or long as the "Great fountain geyser" but i guess its most talked about because of its consistency...hence the name "Old Faithful". But now I get to say I've seen Old Faithful!
After we finished there we drove to the start of the Mystic Fall hike. It was a 2.5 mile round trip hike that we went on to go see some waterfalls. It wasnt a hard hike or anything like that, actually kinda flat or small incline the whole time but of course I had to sprain my ankle...so I have a golf ball sized think on the sife of my foot right now...not fun. But I finished out the hike and the falls were gorgeous. It reminded me of hiking to Stuart Falls from Aspen Grove. But this was different because of all the trees and brush that is around. It different than the trees that are in UT. After that hike, we drove to the "Grand Prismatic Spring". There was another geyser in front of it and this geyser was crystal clear blue and was HUGE! But it doesnt erupt on a consistent basis and was actually dormant for 100 years before it started going off again. But it says that when it does go off the water shoots about 300ft into the air. How amazing would it be to see that? Then the Spring was next and it was huge and gorgeous as well. It ws so big that we couldnt really see down it because we had to stand so far away but the colors around it was so neat to see. Alyssa and I have a picure standing in front of it and the back ground is Orange. The neatest thing about the springs and geysers was all the colors aroung them. On some you could see the entire span of rainbow colors all in order. Its just beautiful. After all the geysers, springs, and waterfalls we were kinda tired. So we just drove up to Mammoth and looked for animals :) we saw a few bison here and there but never a whole herd and then we saw a bear that was a couple of hundred yards away. We didnt get a pic because you couldnt really tell what it was from the pictures but we saw it and it was so cool.
After Yellowstone we drove into the city of West Yellowstone and saw a community play of "Footloose". I thought it was cute and they all had fun performing for us. The only thing that wasn't fun was the 1 hour drive back to our place after the play got out at 11:30pm. Oh well, we made it safe :)
Wendesday morning (today) we (as in KC, Owen and I) drove back so that KC could get to his once a week class he had tonight. We drove for 7 hours and mad it back just in time. Owen did amazing on the drive home (of course) and slept almost the entire time.

So that was our SUPER FUN trip. I wanted to come home and put all the pics online right away so I didnt put it off and get to it weeks later. I hope you all had a fantastic 4th of July and area having a great week right now. Love you all lots!