Trip #3 ... Iowa

Well, it has been a really long time, once again.  So let me try to catch up a bit.  Jonathan and I took our little PT Cruiser and traveled once again.  This time to Iowa!  We figured that we spent over 100 hours in that little car by the end of this trip alone.  That is only counting commutes that are longer than one hour as well.  That's the sign of a wonderful summer together!  We really have grown close to each other as we spent those 100 hours talking or listening to books on tape.  This trip to Iowa was a great way to wrap up our list of vacations.

Jonny and I were able to spend two weeks in Iowa.  Even though we were able to stay so long it was still really hard to leave.  The first week we got to travel to temples with my family and enjoy being at home.  The second week, my whole family came to Iowa to go to a cabin.  Oh! We had so much fun.  It was great to see my whole family.  Then to wrap up the week, Krista got her mission call!!  It was fun to have most of the family there to witness that.  Couldn't be happier for her.

Alright, well, I am a sucker for pictures.  So, let my pictures explain the vacation.

Of course we had to make a trip out to High Trussle Bridge.  That is always fun for my family.  We tend to make it a competition and carry a bag full of rocks to the center of the bridge to throw off the side.

I took Jonny to the Omaha Zoo.  That is always a favorite of mine.  We sure had a blast together and spent about 6 hours there.

We loved feeding the birds there.  We were about to buy the sticks with seeds on it when I decided it wasn't worth the money.  I am really glad about that because we found about 10 sticks inside anyways!

We also took a trip down to Kansas City to visit the temple and mall. 

We made it to the cabin!  I also went on a whim and died my hair.  That was a lot of fun and thanks to Kim it actually turned out alright.  I have actually really enjoyed the new color.

 My nephew Braydon was an absolute joy!  Love his smile.

Grandpa getting some love from his grandchildren.

Another favorite pastime while we were there was badminton.  Do I know the rules of the game? Clearly no.  But man we had so much fun cheating and slamming that little birdie.  We laughed so much because of that game.

One day we went to a fish hatchery so that the girls could go fishing.  Jonny had fun catching fish with his hands and actually managed to get one.

Sunday walk with the family.  We were sad that Aaron had to leave but we were glad that we had most of the family there for most of the trip.

Abby discovered that she loved throwing rocks into the pond.  I think she only hit Scott once or twice ... It was a blast to watch her.

On one of the last days at the cabin we traveled down to the field of dreams to play some baseball.  That was a blast.  Baseball is actually one of my favorite pastimes and we had fun chasing the ball.

Molly was such a good sister and cousin.  She was always helping out.

Krista trying out her arm at the shooting range.  This is always fun for my family as well.

A classic midwest rainstorm.  Man I really miss those.  You know, the kind where you get drenched in less than a minute.  We ha fun sliding down the hill next to our cabin on garbage bags.

Overall, it was a wonderful vacation.  Nobody got hurt and everything really seemed to go smoothly.  I really love my family and anytime that we get to spend together is treasured.

Oh! and Krista opened her mission call on the last day.  She is going to Santiago, Chile!  My family is so excited.  Jonny went to a different part of Santiago on his misison and my mom also went to Chile.  We couldn't be happier for her.

Trip #2 ... Yellowstone

So we will be having quite a few vacations this summer due to having extra before classes start in less than a month.  It has been wonderful having so much time with Jonny.  On a spur moment, we decided to go to Yellowstone.  We camped there for 2 nights and were visiting the sites for about 2 1/2 days.  We managed to fit just about everything in to those 2 days.  It was a blast!  It was Jonny's first time and he was really impressed.  It was a great little get-away.

This is beehive geyser above.  Oh, it was SO cool!  We just happened to be walking by it when it went off.  We overhead some people sitting by it that it only goes off every 12-15 hours and they had already been waiting for a couple hours just to watch it go off.  It was so awesome!  It was a super tall one and the boardwalk was close enough that the water landed right on it!  There were a couple people walking through the falling water of the geyser.  This was definitely a lucky highlight from the trip.

We tried making homemade little peach pies.  They turned out alright, but it was a lot of fun to make.

The buffalo were EVERYWHERE.  Well, that is a little exaggeration, but they were always near our campsite.  We had only to walk 5 minutes and we could always find some.  There was never a day where they didn't blocked the road while we were driving.  When we passed, we drove within arms distance of them.  That was more than a little scary.  Those horns are MASSIVE and so are they!

This is a sweet coyote that we also were lucky enough to see every night.  I think that was really unusual.  We only ever saw him for a minute or two before he disappeared again.  The first night he was running on the road right next to our car!  That was pretty sweet.

We actually loved all the driving that we did around the park.  It was such a diverse and beautiful park. This particular road had snow all along it.  There were places where there was a 10 foot wall along the side of the road!  It felt like a winter wonderland.

Yeah, I didn't do so well with the stinky hot pots.  The smell of rotten eggs makes me sick!

Yellowstone Lake was massive!  It was crazy to see so much of it was frozen too!  Our campsite was on a little bit warmer side of the park so it only got down to the mid-30's at night.  During the day it was around 70-80ish.  It was kind of mind-blowing to see such a massive lake frozen.

Lots of pancake attempts and cool whip to cover up the burnt-ness.  We couldn't get our awesome little coleman stove to do anything but FLAMIN HOT because the propane tanks were full.  It was a fun attempt though!

Just starting to rain.  Thankfully it passed.  Our campsite had some awful winds though and two trees fell down.  They nearly smashed a couple tents.  Really grateful that they weren't ours!

Elk!  Right by the road!

This is the area right by our campsite.  Jonny and I went down to the river to sit and put our feet in to the water.  We got up to leave and I heard some crunching behind us.  I figured it was a another camper since it was a popular spot for people to walk around.  I turned to say hi and it was a massive buffalo!  Not 15 feet from us!  Scared the living daylights out of me.