Island Park and Yellowstone

The last week of June my whole family decided to rent a cabin up in Island Park for a family vacation. Now we have been on camping trips and such but we have never all gone and stayed in the same place for that long, so we were all super excited all 22 of us! We rented this cabin Each Family had there own bedroom and there was 4 bathrooms to share, it was a big place.


Oh yeah it also had a HOT TUB! who could forget about that. Bam would have sat in that all day and night if he could.On one of the days we were there we went to west yellowstone and went to the bear and wolf discovery center (or something like that) They had a bunch of bears and wolves there. you could sit and watch them and aren't we all glad that there was a metal fence in between us those bears were a little intimidating look at there claws huge.

that place was really fun if you got there in time the kids got to go in the bear place and hide the food then watch the bears go around and find it, but we did not get there in time maybe next time. I got a video of one of the bears running after this crow and swatting at it, but I could not get it to upload :(
Now onto yellowstone! we got into 4 separate cars and headed off with walkie talkies in hand. Well to make a long story short no one knew where we were meeting and come to find out the walkie talkies did not work that well and of course no cell phone service. So my car and my sister Stephs car ended up here


They said that when they first came to Yellowstone they all thought that they were in hell, and by judging this place I would have thought so too the water was boiling and bubbling and boy did in stink! We left there and started to go find the rest of the group and of course people were pulled off of the rode everywhere and we saw these
they were walking down the middle of the road and they were blocking traffic the cars could not get around them they were so close we could have touched them. Even though we saw tons of them I still think that they are cool they are huge! So after being lost from the group for about two hours we were all getting frustrated until we saw this you can't see it very well but it was a huge black bear just walking through the grass. It was so awesome and made getting lost so worth it. We eventually met up with the rest of the group and quickly made our way through the park to Old Faithful should I say old lame'ol the only fun part was when it shot up the wind was blowing and got all over everybody but a few of us who were trying to chase Chaetton, they were stinky.
They boys went on a few fishing trips but only Brian caught something and it was in an illegal spot but I think that they still had fun in their kickboats and no kids. We also celebrated Bams birthday there all he wanted was a truck that said yellowstone oh and a buffalo and a gun everything he saw he wanted and everyone pitched in and made it a special day for him thanks!
So now back to yellowstone and this time we all stayed together and so we got to get out and see lots of things like these


I cannot believe how much water there is there it was kinda scary to see all that power

On the way back to the cabin i was feeling bummed I just wanted to see a big bull moose but instead we saw thisyep a big black wolf jogging up the road. I secretly felt sorry for this lone wolf till he kinda stopped and looked at us and I imagined him stealing my kids for a snack. And they said because of him that is why I did not see my big Bull moose. Yellowstone really is a pretty place full of buffalo.
Another day we went to pan for gold I wish that i would have gotten pictures on the way there it was amazing but i didn't so you will just have to imagine it. a few pictures of the kids panning for gold.



we didn't strike it rich, but we all had a lot of fun, we found flakes of gold and the lady helping us got rich by us doing the work, so in the end we all got a little richer.
We had a great time and made lots of good memories. Thanks everyone that went for good times, good food, and good memories! Lets go to Alaska next year then we will really see a big bull moose.