Stay on the Designated Walking Areas!

Yellowstone National Park is one of the most beautiful places on the planet! It is also filled with a lot of crazy things. The really amazing thing is that the craziest things frequently are the most beautiful. The boiling mud paintpots were really facinating, and weirdly captivating to me on this most recent trip. I found myself spending an unreasonable amount of time watching the mud form bubbles, and then break--making the most satisfying gooey sound!

On this trip, we also visited a place called "Fishing Bridge". It was easily one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen in my life! (Eliza thought so as well, and said that she would like her wedding announcement pictures taken there.) Fishing Bridge is over the largest natural spring in the North American Continent. It has the most clear water that I have ever seen, and makes all of the surrounding vegitation the most incredible shades of green. It looked like something out of a beautifully illustrated childrens' book-an illustration that could certainly never exist in our drab, real-life existance-and yet, there it was. It was amazing!

The day that the family went to the "Lower Geyser Basin" (where Old Faithful is located), it was very windy! Belle spent the day wrapped up like a burrito. Ethan was very excited to learn all about how the geysers were formed and came out of the experience wanting to be a Geologist (but, really, who doesn't want to be Geologist when they visit Yellowstone? It's like watching "Indiana Jones" and wanting to be a Archeologist.). Eliza especially enjoyed posing for the camera in the wind, and talking with Keith and Ella, two of her cousins. All of my time was spent trying to keep my hat on--and literally every picture of me on that day reflects this fact.
I would say that everyone should take their families to Yellowstone. My kids say that it is one of their favorite places to go. We live in such close proximity to the park--it is an easy drive. Bryan and I also took our Honeymoon to Yellowstone--and it was a lovely and romantic place. We will return again soon!

The Madness of King Bryan

My husband is an interesting guy. He can be a mellow, giutar playing, nice guy, and then become a wearing-a-tu-tu-on-his-head kind of guy in nearly the same breath. I just thought that the world should know what living at the Brady house can be like, and that I don't bring all of the madness to our lives!!

The Karma (and Dogma) of Jr. High...

As has been aforementioned, I have a cat, and a dog. Watching their interactions takes me back to my Jr. High days. Imagine a seventh grader--one that is really needy and thinks that there could be nothing in this world quite as amazing as being friends with a really cool ninth grader. The seventh grader spends an unreasonable amount of time following the ninth grader around and trying to be the ninth grader's friend. (This is what I like to refer to as "love-me-or-I'll-die" disorder.) The ninth grader, for the most part, ignores the seventh grader, until they get too close, or just too annoying, and then lashes out at the seventh grader, saying something really hurtful to the sensitive seventh grader. Now, in your mind, replace the seventh grader with my dog, and the ninth grader with my cat, and the bit about saying something really hurtful with hissing, growling, and wacking on the nose, and that about sums up Chloe and Precious's relationship. Maybe I should ask a Jr. High teacher how best to handle my cat/dog situation...