A traveling life

We thought you (or at least the grandparents) might enjoy some pictures from our travels. 

These are from the hostel that we stayed at in Teton Village out side of Grand Teton. It is kind of a combination between a hostel and hotel. We had a private room with a bunk bed and two additional twin beds, but there were also traditional hostel rooms that individuals could just get one bed in. The kids loved the game area down in the basement. They also had a full size fridge, ice machine, laundry facilities, hot plates and microwave that we could use. And Stash tea on the lobby. During ski season I think it is a pretty full and fun place to hang out!    

 We have had plenty of less than happy moments in the car and hotel rooms, but overall the kids have been great travelers. Katie Beth and Mark have spent a good amount of time in the back making up games with the stuffed animals and babies that they brought along. I almost told them that they could each only bring one, but now I'm glad I let them bring a couple.

We have had LOTS of picnic lunches and found many different and fun parks along the way, often that we just see alongside of the road. There is also a playground app that we put on Kev's phone that we've used  a couple of times.

Being 3 (or 7 or 8 or 10 or 30-something) is hard sometimes. I could post a whole series of these Simeon pictures.

 These Angry Bird shooters are the best McDonald's Happy Meal toy ever! All of the kids have played with them, but they especially entertain my two most rambunctious children, which is so helpful in a small room!

 I could also post a whole series of "Andrew reading" pictures. Here he is reading Calvin and Hobbes that my dad loaned us for the trip.

 Um...where do they think the grownups are going to sleep tonight?

Overall we have watched almost no TV in the hotel rooms, but here they all are enjoying Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. There was another night that we found High School Musical on the Disney channel while they were eating Ramen, which felt like it was a page directly out of my younger sister's childhood.

 You can't tell from the picture, but Mark is in a "spybed" (A sleeping bag underneath the desk.) This has become his preferred sleeping spot.

Dinosaur National Monument

On the Dinosaur Train

The quarry

A fossil in the quarry wall. We could actually touch it!

by Andrew

Today we went to Dinosaur National Monument. It was really awesome! There was a shuttle that had pictures of dinosaurs on it and Simeon called it a "Dinosaur Train". We rode it to the quarry. The quarry was a wall of rock with a building built around it with the rock wall as one of the walls. In the rock wall there were dinosaur bones! On the wall opposite the rock wall there were some fully put together dinosaur fossils.

Extra notes by Daddy

The Junior Ranger program here was nice and felt like a manageable amount of work for the morning. The park itself is split up between the quarry to preserve the fossils (and other areas close by where they are still digging) and other landscape and wildlife preservation area. They purposefully chose to preserve the quarry area so that people could see the fossils  in their archeological place. They weren't finding any new species and felt this would be valuable or the public. Aside from a picnic lunch we really only allowed time for seeing the quarry.

From Mama

After the park we drove two hours and stopped in Fruita, CO for mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, a small, friendly parish. We sat right up front and in the middle of his homily the priest, who was African, stopped and addressed Simeon saying, "Little boy, take your feet off the seat and sit up so you can listen good." Thank goodness the priest was friendly and Simone is my fourth, otherwise I would have been mortified. As it was, I was only embarrassed. After mass the priest wanted to make it right with Simeon and took the cross from around his neck and gave it to him. We ate dinner at a local Mexican restaurant and then drove the rest of the way to the Apache motel in Moab, UT. Apparently John Wayne used to stay here often. There was a nice extra space just big enough for a rollaway and mini fridge and Simeon scored the rollaway for the two nights we stayed.

Grand Teton National Park

String Lake

 Grand Teton was Kevin and my favorite stop on our first cross country trip and we were very excited to bring our kids back. The Teton mountains are beautiful, rising sharply from the ground and lakes below with snow covering their peaks.

First view of the park

The only moose we saw :-(

Our first day we had a picnic lunch at String Lake and then set out to hike along String and Leigh Lakes, but we didn't make it as far as we planned. By the end, it took us two hours to hike two miles. The kids had so much fun playing the whole way--climbing rocks and gong down each small path to the lake. Simeon stuck his feet in the water, shoes and all, and was quite pleased with himself. They pretended to be rangers, teaching Simeon who was the Junior Ranger in training. Katie Beth was the navigator with the map. At one turnout they built a pretend fire to cook dinner. Mark and Andrew explored the bottom of the lake with their stick drones and receivers. Where the  lakes met there was a flat wooden bridge to the other side where the kids climbed on a huge rock and then we decided we better turn back. Back at the start of the trail the kids all took their shoes off and waded in the icy water.

Our Ranger

The navigator and junior ranger in train

Pretend campfire - I loved how they all played together

He looks cute and innocent, but he's really sticking his feet in the water - shoes and all.

Testing the Ergo weight limit

Cooling off at the end

We went into the town of Jackson that night for dinner and to pick up groceries before heading back to the Hostel where we were staying.The Hostel was the first place we haven't had breakfast provided by the hotel, so it took a bit longer in the morning to go down to the kitchen to make breakfast and pack lunch.

Antler arch in the town of Jackson

Our second day we hung out at Coulter Bay on Jackson lake. The kids played in the rocks, setting up another pretend game and we had a picnic for lunch before taking a boat ride out on the lake. The narrated ride shared some about the formation of the Tetons, which are geologically young mountains as well as about the wildlife in the area. After the boat ride we went back to our spot on the bay to finish up the junior ranger books and play some more. I think we would have stayed and played longer, but we needed to turn the booklets in before the ranger station closed.

Picnic lunch

A lot has changed in 11 years, but we still love Teton!

They are playing another restaurant game.

That evening it was nice to have a hotplate to make dinner instead of just a microwave. We boiled spaghetti to have with salad and cooked vegetables. While the kids went to bed I caught up on laundry.

Yellowstone

After Mt. Rushmore, we didn't get a picture of Crazy Horse, but we do have Silly Horse in the car.

"Is Christmas coming?"

Our welcoming committee

A collaborative project between the Warner kids and parents

Driving to Yellowstone and once we arrived it was exciting to see snow in May. Simeon asked if Christmas was coming. The kids were glad to stretch their legs, running on the dark sand by the lake before we went over to Fishing Bridge. On the banks the kids threw rocks into the water. A friend gave me some hand sanitizer and I'm positive that she never would have guessed it's first use would be after Simeon mistook bison dung for a big rock. 

On the beach - Snow capped mountains in the back

Sand angel?

In Yellowstone we saw lots of wildlife. We saw bison, 311 bison! We saw a black bear, elk, pronghorn, chipmunks, a fox, and through a scope we saw a white wolf dining on an elk carcus.We also saw a pelican and geese. At the end of the first day we came across a field of 100 bison, including lots of babies and the second day we had a very slow drive through part of the park while we waited for a herd of bison to make their way down the road.

Elk

Mama and baby bison

Coyote

Simeon's bison

 We saw Old Faithful erupt twice. Andrew's prediction about the timing of the  next eruption was correct! It was actually closer than the park ranger's prediction, which was pretty exciting. Old Faithful is a geyser. Below ground there is a small tunnel, like plumbing, and something as small as a penny can plug it up.

Other geothermal features we saw included the mud pots and artist paint pots.  The last time we were here the sulpher smell really bothered Kevin and Mary Beth, but it didn't seem to be as overpowering this year.

Artist Paint Pots

Lunch on our second day was very exciting. We were eating lunch and the kids were sitting on logs on the edge of a field when across the field a black bear came out of the woods. Mama quickly snapped a picture before throwing all of the kids and food in the car.

Yellowstone had the most involved Junior Ranger program and was also the only park where we have had to pay a small fee for the book. The National Parks have started a program called Every Kid in a Park, which gives 4th graders a free pass to all the national parks and monuments. Because Andrew has just finished up 4th grade we have been able to use this for our admission to all of the parks we've gone to, which has been great!

Proud Junior Ranger

Sunset leaving the park