Summer Vacation 2015

It sure has been a while since my parents have posted anything because they get so busy with life. This is Emily and I'm going to update you on what we did this summer.

First, me, Kyle, and Allison went to EFY (especially for youth). we left Sunday morning, got on a plane and flew to Provo, where Allison's friend who used to be in our ward picked us up. We went to  church with her family and then went back to there house and spent the day catching up. We had a great time and Monday morning we were sad to leave, but excited to go to EFY. We got checked in and went to our dorms. We were all staying in the new Heritage Halls. We also all got randomly assigned roommates but I think we all got pretty good roommates, or at least I know I did. Me and the other 5 girls in our dorm area had so much fun the whole week together. On Saturday I was really sad to leave them all. EFY was a great experience, I had so much fun making new friends and we did so many fun activities, plus it strengthened my testimony a lot. We learned so much about the gospel in one week, it was awesome.

Us at the airport with Allison's friend

Checking in at EFY

Kyle walking with his friends. Creepy stalker picture Allison took. (Kyle's the shorter one on the left)

Another creepy stalker picture Allison took. That's me in the blue shirt at the creamery with my friends.

On Saturday, Dad came and picked us up and took us back to their hotel, where we ate breakfast and then packed everything up and drove to our Great-Grandma Clayburn's house. On the way we stopped and watched the Provo parade. We've never been to a 4th of July parade because it's just too hot here, so it was cool to watch. There were lots of interesting floats.

Here come the storm troopers.

Once we got to Grandma's, me, Kyle, and Allison crashed on the couch, we were so exhausted from EFY. Once we got a nap in, we went to Little Ceasers for dinner. I know, it was a pretty fancy 4th of July dinner, don't be jealous. After dinner, we did sparklers for a little while, but t I was so tired that me and Allison went to bed before we watched any fireworks. We stayed the night at mom's cousin Megan's house because Grandma didn't have enough room. Megan had recently adopted a little boy, he was the cutest thing ever.

On Sunday we got up and went to church at Grandma's ward. After church, we went to eat lunch at Megan's house, and we all talked. Then, we all drove to Mom's Aunt Carol and Uncle Bretts' for dinner. We got to see a bunch of people we were related to, but I had no idea who most of them were. Dinner was good, we had grilled chicken, and salad, and some other stuff too. We also had cake and ice cream for dessert to celebrate Jessie's (mom's Cousin )Birthday. Kyle and Carter amused themselves in the backyard by doing pull-ups on a tree branch that stuck out. Later, when it got dark we used the fireworks that had not been used the night before. That was really fun because in Arizona we can't do our own fireworks because otherwise stuff might catch on fire, its so dry here. So that was a new experience for all of us kids, lighting the fireworks  and watching them go off.

Megan, Nick, and Jeremiah.

Here we all are, with Great-Grandma in the middle.

Carter doing pull-ups

Mom and Doyle

Us and Grandma

On Monday we packed up our stuff and left Great-Grandma's house. We were off to Yellowstone! It was a couple hours drive and we stopped at BYU-Idaho to do a campus tour because Allison has been considering it for college. They had a very pretty campus. We stayed the night at these little cabins a few minutes outside of Yellowstone and we got to them a little bit before dinner. Mom thought they would have an oven since we were told they had a full kitchen, but there was no oven, just a microwave. Since we were planning on having stuffed shells, we had to make them a different way that didn't involve an oven. They were a little messy, but they still tasted delicious. The cabin was very small, only had two bedrooms and in the bedroom me and Allison slept there was a bunk bed and about a foot or two of space on one side. it was very tight, not very much room at all. Kyle and Carter slept on the pull out bed in the front room/ kitchen.

Here is me and Allison's room. It looks even bigger than it really was in this picture.

This is our cabin. It was very small.

 

Tiny bathroom we all had to share.

 

Mom making stuffed shells



Monday night after dinner we decided to go to Yellowstone and check it out a little before bed. It was a very smart idea, because a lot of people were leaving the park so there were less people. The park is actually a lot bigger than we thought it would be. We went to see Old Faithful. It took us about 40 minutes to drive there, and it was a little less than halfway through the park. Old Faithful wasn't very crowded because it was later, so we got good spots. We sat down and waited for it to erupt. Dad looked it up on his phone, and the website said it would erupt anywhere from then to about 20 minutes from then, so we had no idea exactly when. We waited about 10 minutes before it went off. It was super cool to see how high the geyser shot water up into the air.

 

Some bison we saw on the way up.

 

I think these are elk. They were pretty cool to watch.

This is before it erupts. It constantly shoots steam into the air.

Still hasn't erupted but the bird is cool

This is Old Faithful in action.

Winding down

Allison is excited for it to start. its actually I n the eruption

Kyle pretending it is coming out of his mouth.

After we saw Old Faithful, we got back in the car and headed back to our cabin. It was pretty late, so we all went to bed.


Tuesday:
Kyle, Dad, and I got up early and went for a run around our camp area. Me and Kyle are doing cross country and were trying to stay in shape while on vacation. Emphasis on tried, we probably only ran like 3 times the whole two weeks. We got back to the cabin and after breakfast, we packed up some trail mix and all piled into the car to Yellowstone. Right when we got there, there was a big traffic jam. Turns out there was a bison in the road. We also saw some elk.

Look at how close it is to the car.



 

First up on our list was to see the Artist Paint Pots. These were one of my favorite things in Yellowstone. They were pots of mud, I think, and because of the heat under the earth, the were constantly bubbling, so they looked like paint.

 

 

 

Next we went to see "the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone". It was a beautiful canyon with a waterfall.

 

We got to climb down a very long flight of stairs to see the waterfall from down below.

This is us at the bottom of the stairs.

Next we did a beautiful hike alongside the canyon to another place to look at the waterfall. It was a very pretty view.

This is Carter in front of the waterfall.

 We decided to be lazy and choose not to hike back to where the car was, we just sent Kyle and Dad back to get it a drive to where we were. When they drove back to get us, they saw a bear. when they picked us up, we drove to where they had seen it and sure enough it was still there. It was far away, there was no danger, but that also meant it was hard to get a good picture.

 

 



After the bear, we drove to a place called Mammoth Springs. They had really cool rock formations.

 

Look at how cool it was. It looked like it was an ice castle, but it was made of rock formation

Steam pool

 

Elk living in the town, right outside of people's houses.

 

As we dove back to our cabin, we saw a herd of elk crossing the river.

Back at the cabin we made hotdogs for dinner and then we had s'mores.

Kyle tried to make his really cool but it didn't work. But it still tasted yummy.

Eating dinner

 



 Wednesday:
We woke up, ate breakfast and loaded up the car with all our stuff. That's because when Mom was booking the cabins, she changed her mind about how many days we wanted to stay at Yellowstone. So she tried to add an extra day to the cabin we were staying at, but apparently it was already taken so we had to take everything and move it into a different cabin when we got back from our day in Yellowstone. So on Wednesday we took everything we had.

Random bison

Cool blue water

 

Carter too lazy to walk. Kyle being a nice older brother and carrying him.

Look at how big Yellowstone Lake is.

Sitting on a log. Hope it doesn't break :)

Eww, kissing on a log

Pretty scenery

we saw another herd of bison

Look at all the steam coming up from the ground.

Cool little pond. You can see all the steam coming up.

 

It actually got so cold that when it rained, it started to snow a little. Definitely not something we were used to.

So, recall the fact that we had to change cabins. Well, someone made a mistake, we don't know who, and the date that we had a cabin rented was the next night, not the night we needed it. So, we had no place to stay that night. Luckily, there was a spot available at the other KOA down the road. Unfortunately, this cabin only had beds. No bathroom, no kitchen. There were "community" bathrooms and kitchens right outside of our cabin that we could use. It was kind of like camping. So we made dinner outside with some other people all using the kitchen area. It was kind of fun. This place was more geared towards families, so there was more stuff to do, like mini golf and there were bikes you could rent.

 



The four of us in a bike. We rented it for 30 minutes and had tons of fun taking turns pedaling and steering. It was fun to randomly jerk the wheel so the people in front would flop around. That's why me and Allison ore holding on really tight.

 

Us making dinner outside.

Our even tinier cabin than before.

 

 

After dinner, we all got ready for bed and went to sleep. All four of us kids were in the same room, there were two bunk beds. It was only a two room cabin.