Island Park With the Toone Fam

Ok, this is going to be a mondo post of our vacation, so I'm splitting it into two parts. The first being when my family, the Toones, were there with us, and the 2nd part with the Yospes. What an adventure we had! On July 16, we embarked on a 10 day vacation to Grandma & Grandpa Yospe's cabin in Island Park, Idaho. I realized this was my 4th year going there, and it was hard to believe! The first time, we were dating and Jake told me he loved me, 2nd- pregnant and keeping it a secret from the fam, 3rd- Cami was a lil baby, 4th- most fun of all!

A year ago, Jake got the idea, or vision if you will, of my family going to the cabin with us someday. Wouldn't that be awesome? We mentioned it to my parents around Christmas, they were all for it, we got the ok from Jake's dad, booked a week early this year, and have looked forward to all being together on vacation for the first time in a loooong time! The trip finally came, and I'm so glad everyone was able to get off work and that my parents were able to both fly out to UT and be here at the exact time for our trip. With my Dad's work/business trips/Bishop schedule, it's a miracle he was able to get away for 2 weeks.

We left on Friday morning on the 16th, after packing half our house, and met the rest of my fam at the Toone Dairy Farm in Grace, ID (They'd gone up the day before). Aunt Peggy cooked up some hot scones...mmmmm. They are one of my favorite parts of visiting the farm. :)
Cam's really cheesin it up for the first vacation picture! The farm is a good halfway point to the cabin, because it's about 2.5 hours there, and another 3 to Island Park. It's always a comfort to walk around the farm and smell the sweet hay, hear the clinking of metal gates, see the row of a hundred calf pens, and get a nuzzle from the farm dog. :) When we went out to see the calves, there was one that had escaped his pen and was roaming free. Jake was right there and willing to help, so my cousin Ben told him how to get the calf's hind legs and guide him back to the pen. The silly calf just dropped to the ground, so Jake dragged it across the gravel till he was safely home. I felt bad for his scrapes and trauma, but I was glad Jake was willing to get down and dirty and get the job done! Maybe the man I married has some cowboy in him after all! Yeeehawww!
Cami loves animals, but she doesn't like to get near them. Chicken! At least Grandma was there to laugh at her scaredy cat-ness.

But then Grandpa came along and worked his dairy farmer magic, and she suddenly loved the cows! "Come on, Grandpa, just a little closer and I can sit on her back!"

She and Ari loved watching the cows from a safe distance with Grandpa's watchful eye behind them. Mooooooo! (You should hear my dad make the noise...he's had years of practice). I love that even though he's a manufacturing engineer, when my dad goes "home" to the farm he throws on his coveralls and boots and hops on a tractor like he never left.

Jake got to drive this lil tractor around, much to Cami's enjoyment. He enjoyed himself. What guy wouldn't?

Cami's favorite part of the visit might have been this marble contraption that my uncle built years ago. It has provided hours of entertainment to all of us kids, and now Cami figured it out! It was nice to know she didn't want to pop the marbles in her mouth anymore, she wanted to watch them roll!

After a nice visit, we all got on the road again and headed to the cabin. We stopped once in Rexburg to pick up some groceries, and arrived early evening. Cami was a trooper in the car- she slept some, and was happily awake as long as I kept reaching back with fishie crackers and other snacks. Although it was pouring rain as we unpacked, it cleared up quickly and turned into a beautiful night. We built a fire in the firepit and cooked tin foil dinners- always my favorite! And then we sat around the fire that night, singing songs to Bree's guitar and watching the bats flying through the forest in the moonlight. Ahhhh. (Bats freak me out).

The next day, we rode the 4-wheelers that my parents had towed behind the truck they'd driven (all belonging to Jake's dad- bless him). Jake loves riding the back forest trails and finding new adventures every time he goes, and I'm usually happy just riding on the back of his instead of driving my own. Then later, we went out river rafting with the raft that stays at the cabin. It's always so much fun! There's little rapids that make it exciting in parts, and nice calm parts that let you take in all the beautiful nature surroundings. Just imagine Bree, Nathan and I breaking into song the whole way down the river..."Just around the riverbend!" Such nerdy fun.

That evening, we played frisbee golf at the neighbor's course, although it was a little tricky with the kiddos trailing along. At least we got a few holes in.

On Sunday, we woke up and got ready to go to church. Church is always such a big thing in Island Park in the summer, because they have around 3,000 people who show up for sacrament. They fill one whole building, an overflow building, and spill out onto the lawn. We got there for the meeting at 11, but apparently it's only at 9, 1, and 9 pm (crazy time). So with a few hours to kill, we headed over to Big Springs, one of my favorite spots. There are crystal clear springs with bright green surroundings and a little cabin of a man who used to live there that you can tour. Here's the whole gang, except for my dad who caught the bug that my mom had the day before, so he stayed home. (Luckily they were both great by Sunday night and no one else got sick!) I really like this picture. Allison and Nathan, in the middle, are expecting a baby in February. Yay!

Here's Cami and Ari enjoying John Sack's rocking chair in the little cabin. I stole this picture from Bree, who commented on how it shows their personalities perfectly. Cami is always goofy, social, loud and bubbly, and Ari is more girly, dainty, quiet and sweet. Cute lil cousins.

Grandpa blowing bubbles for the girls back at the cabin. I LOVE this picture of my dad! Bubbles can take the rough and tough out of any man. :)

We did go to church, by the way, and we were the first ones there in the overflow building. We sat right by the door, and it was impossible to keep Cami happy and sitting still. She kept wandering outside so one of us had to keep going out and walking with her. Super fun.

The next full day was spent in Yellowstone! It's about an hour drive from the cabin to the entrance through West Yellowstone, and we decided to do the small loop down to Old Faithful first. Jake was the guide, and did a great job of leading the 3 cars to see the best sights. We stopped along the way at Firehole Falls to take some pictures. Here are the original Toones...

And we stopped at the fountain paint pots to see cool stuff like this.

I love the gorgeous blue! But they sure are smeeellllyyy, from the eggy sulfur. Jake informed me when we were dating, that he is one day going to open up a restaurant in Yellowstone. It is going to be called "The Boiled Egg". The building will be egg shaped, and the menu items will all have something to do with eggs: boiled eggs of course, eggs benedict, scrambled, poached, egg salad sandwiches, french toast, egg nog, etc. And the food will be served in nests. It sounds quite fascinating, and who wouldn't want to eat at and get their picture taken with the egg shaped restaurant?! Nobody steal his idea, cuz I think it would be awesome if he actually made it happen someday. :)

When we got to Old Faithful, we parked by the Inn as usual, and had a nice picnic lunch on some benches outside. Isn't it nice to have a geyser that erupts at such predictable times? We knew we had one hour to wait. We took some pictures to pass the time...

The anticipation is always more exciting than the eruption itself. Nonetheless, it was fun to see. When we started driving again, we finally saw our first animal! This here fella was eating grass right off the side of the road, and of course everyone was stopped to take pictures of him.

That's the thing I love about Yellowstone, is that everyone is there for the same reason and gets excited over the same things. If one car stops cuz they see an animal, then every car behind has to stop and get out and see what the big deal is. At one point, we came across this group (herd? flock? smattering?) of buffalo by the road. We were so preoccupied with one to our right when Bree, who was riding in our car, said "Whoa, Jake, stop!" And here came a big ol bison right in front of our car from the left, snorting and grunting across the road over to a tree to scratch his back. They're such odd, ugly animals, yet so fascinating. Please tell me how their poop always lands in perfectly round discs that almost make me want to play frisbee with it.

So we finally made it to Yellowstone Falls, and got out to take a look at the Lower Falls from the most beautiful view in the whole park I think. You can see why they call it Yellowstone, although not really in this picture, because the mountain walls all around the falls are yellow stone. I love this picture with the sun hitting the top of the falls.

We then went to the Upper Falls lookout spot, which was the first time I'd been there but so cool! You look right down on the gushing water before it falls all the way down, and we were kind of wishing that a raft or someone in a barrel would come charging down the river and go over the edge. It would be cool to watch. But also traumatic since they would most likely die. Nevermind then.

The best part of the day was the fact that we saw 5 BEARS! One mama and her 3 baby cubs were walking through a valley and swam in the river. Of course, there were cars parked all over the place and people hiking over to the edge of the valley where you could actually see. We had binoculars which made it easier to see since they were pretty far away. Bree's camera has a better zoom than mine, so I'm using her bear pictures. And the other bear sighting was right at he end, before the park exit, where traffic was backed up for a half hour. We were wondering if there was an accident or what the deal was, and then we saw all the parked cars and people standing next to a stream watching something. So of course we had to grab our cameras and jump out, and that's when we saw this beauty. A big ol Grizzley!

That was way cool. He was just right on the other side of the stream, and everyone was really quiet so they wouldn't scare him away or worse, get him angry. That was a good ending to the day, and by the time we got back to West Yellowstone it was 9 pm and we were all starving. We ate dinner at a Wild West Pizza and Saloon place, which turned out to be very tastey, complete with pulled pork and baked bean barbeque pizza to add to the experience.

On Wednesday, my dad and David decided to splurge on waverunners! I hadn't been on one of those since CA, so it was a lot of fun. Bree and I went out together first, and we barely wanted to go over 25 or do any turns or go over any kind of bumps. hehe. But by the end, I was pushin 40 mph and felt so free out on the water! There are some ridiculous mansion cabins out there next to the reservoir, and a couple had helicopters out on the docks. David was quite the thrill seeker on the waverunner, and would chase boats to catch their wakes and do 180 turns. Jake had a good time, and even got on the tube that they rented to get pulled behind. He and Bryan went out together, and Bryan hid his face almost the whole time, and Jake forgot he had his flip flops on so we took them off and laid on them. They got an easy ride, so no one fell off, but that's always the best part! I did not partake of the tubing experience, since it was kind of crappy weather that day. The clouds and rain cleared out the lake pretty well though! Cami stayed back on the shore, bundled up in her crazy outfit, hangin out with Grandma.

There wasn't much for them to do. So hey, why not play with rocks?

They were cute little buddies all week. They loved these little camp chairs that Grandma brought for them. Although Cam kept standing up in hers, the little stinker. This is like a flip flop replica of the rocking chair picture. Cutie pies.

After the day on the lake, we built one last campfire in the firepit to roast hotdogs and make smores. I found this little guy in the wood pile...check out those beady eyes! He's actually pretty cute.

My dad got the urge to do a service project while we were up there. He thought it'd be nice to build benches for the firepit, to replace the old wobbly logs that were there. So he bought lots of wood at the local hardware store and got to work. He envisioned a hexagon, and that's what he created. It turned out really nice, and he used cinder blocks to make them sturdier, and tied the benches together with rope. When he does something, he goes all the way.

We sat outside for a long time, eating, talking, laughing and loving the whole feel of a cabin in the woods. Here's one last pic of everyone (minus Bree who took this picture), and I'm so glad we all loved each other at the end of a week with 3 bedrooms, an air mattress and a couch! This was an awesome trip for our family- one that we'll never forget!