Yellowstone Vacation July 4--July 7

Yellowstone – Day 1, Road-trip
For the Independence Day weekend, the DaBell family (Michelle’s Mother’s family) decided to take a trip up to Yellowstone. It was actually just Dan & Jean’s family as well as Michelle’s immediate family (minus the Baum’s). Anyway we took the road trip starting Friday morning (after I finished putting up flags for the scouts of course!). I was pretty excited to go because I had never been to Yellowstone. I think Michelle was more excited for me to have my first time. It was like the first time we went to Disneyland, I think she was more excited for me to go my first time than I was excited for me to go my first time. What a fun wifey she is!

Nicole was the lucky person for the ride up that got to sit in the back seat with Sammy. He had a rough time the first and last hour of the trip, and Nicole nearly lost her sanity. It’s funny because Michelle and I usually can just tune him out when he is being fussy, but not some of the aunts who aren’t used to him. So after a little while of fussing, she is going nuts and we aren’t really paying attention to it. That was probably exaggerated by the fact that I was listening to Eragon on cd, so I was only focusing on that and the road. :-)

We stopped for lunch at Bubba’s BBQ grill in Jackson Hole. It was great food!


The route we took went through Jackson Hole and up through the Tetons. They are an amazing ridge of mountains, and we’ll have to plan a vacation there sometime as well. I’m sure there are some fabulous hikes and views to enjoy!

The lodges in Yellowstone we stayed in (Lake Lodge) were quite cheap. They were pretty simple but did the job. The cabins were located just off of Yellowstone Lake. Of course it was a beautiful area, and we even enjoyed some roaming Bison right close by. In fact one evening 4 Bison came roaming right through our little cabin area. A couple nights we heard Coyotes howling and they sounded quite close. Our neighbors got up early to see some bears in the area, but we weren’t ever lucky enough to catch a glimpse.

Here are some pictures of us by the lake.


This is Heather with Sammy. After Nicole went crazy on the way up, Heather became our passenger in back with Sam. I think her tolerance level is a bit higher from tending Sammy throughout the month of May, but Sammy did his best to try her patience at times! These road trips really make us thankful for the pacifiers! Remind me to congratulate Ronald Binky on an amazing invention. (M– is that really his name? D – Crapper invented the toilet, so why not?)

At nights we talked and played games all together. It was pretty fun even though there were 16 people crammed into one little 12’x12’ room. We played “The Name Game”, and “4 Socks on the Couch” and “Catch Phrase”. Aunt Jean was getting a little rowdy and unsportsmanlike with her post game victory dances, and so Ralph did some post victory antics to offset those. One night Ralph and Jean were actually on the same team so we did our best to ensure they lost so that it didn’t get too out of hand!

Yellowstone – Day 2, Old Faithful
Our second day of Yellowstone we hiked to the Natural Bridge, went to Old Faithful, and saw some of the geysers and hot pots in Biscuit Basin.

The Natural Bridge hike was funny because we heard some information that said it was just a 100-yard hike out of the parking lot. Well it turns out that it was probably a mile to the spot, and then a 100 yard hike off of the path. Oh well it was a fun hike and we had a great time with it.


Cousin’s (in law) and second cousins. Sammy’s second cousin Blake was only around for half day Saturday because they had to get to another “work” conference in Alaska. We thought it was funny that the whole trip was Mike’s idea and then he tried to get out of it, but we were glad to see them for a couple days.
Below the bridge
Above the bridge
Tanna, Jed, Pete & Abby. Pete & Abby were so cute with Sammy! They would always come say hi, and try to include him in their games. Later on there is a picture of Abby and Sammy holding hands as we walked along one of the boardwalks. Darling!
Wildlife on top of the bridge

More wildlife
More wildlife
Sammy really enjoys going on hikes, though half the time he just enjoyed the nap! So did we!
Old Faithful was pretty cool. As we were driving down the mountain to get to the Old Faithful area, it was going off and steam soared above the trees. That was a fun start to the Old Faithful experience. I couldn’t believe how many people were there to see this geyser. There was a massive parking lot and a huge crowd around the boardwalk waiting for it to blow. We had some lunch then found a shady place to sit and watch.

Hurry and get a picture while it is going!

Then we went on a walk around some of the boardwalk trails that have a bunch of boiling pots and mini geysers in the Old Faithful area. They were fun, and amazing to look at and think about how thin the earth’s crust is around here; but the smell wasn’t too pleasant! We termed those areas free fart zones. :-)

Goofing around on a random rock that looked like it was the base of a statue at one point. We tried to see how far back we could lean before we tumbled off. Easily amused I suppose.
Relaxing after some ice cream. Those rocking chairs out front are for sale, but who would pay that much money?!

We then went to see some smaller geysers and springs in the biscuit basin area. To be honest, we enjoyed those more than the Old Faithful area. Old Faithful was cool, but the surrounding boardwalk wasn’t as cool as the ones in the biscuit basin boardwalk. There were a couple deep clear awesome springs, that were really amazing.

Michelle with the Sapphire spring. This was one of our favorites.

Sammy, Daddy, Grandpa

Baby plumber crack to go with Grandpa’s plumber t-shirt
The water 100 feet downstream was still VERY Hot

We then made a quick stop at the Blacksand basin:

Let’s be honest, Sam doesn’t mind if I’m wearing his hat, he tries to pull it off most of the time anyway.
Annette & Ralph aka: An’ma & Am’pa
Heather & Nicole in front of the Sunset spring.

We finally finished the day at Keppler Cascades. This was an amazing slot canyon view with a big waterfall and sheer drop off. Totally worth the 3 minutes to pull over and see the view.

On the way back to the cabin we saw some Bison, the final picture being just west of our cabins.

Heather: Hey! Is that a bison? Or a really dark rock with horns?

Yellowstone – Day 3, Grand Canyon
The third day of our Yellowstone trip was for the Canyon area.

The first stop was at Dragon cauldron’s. My favorite part about these was the dragon’s mouth. It was a big cave that looked and sounded like a Dragon was breathing inside. The steam and mud gushed out of the entrance with a sound of a Dragon. Pretty Cool!

Here is the darling little picture of Sammy and Abby.
Stinky Sulfur Sauna
Heather trying to decide what stinks – Sammy, the sulphur pool behind her, or the fact that all we keep seeing are Bison! If only a bear were hanging out on the other side of the pool!
boiling mud pot

In front of the dragon’s mouth
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was awesome! I think these were my favorite sites to see. There was the upper falls and the lower falls. There were a couple of viewpoints to see the falls from above, and then a hike “Uncle Tom’s trail” which was stairs to about ¾ down the canyon. From here you could see the larger lower falls about as close up from the bottom as you could see. It was totally worth the 300 something stairs!

The upper falls. We would eventually go to that viewpoint on the other side just above the falls where you can see people standing.


The lower falls

The next few pictures are all from Uncle Tom’s trail bottom

Another destination of this Grand Canyon area was Artist’s Point. This was downstream of the lower falls and had some breathtaking views.

Nicole and her Mom

It’s a bit rough on a little guy that doesn’t walk. He doesn’t really have much freedom to move around – he’s either in a stroller, a car seat, on being held. So when we stopped for a bit, we let Sammy forage around in the bedding that was used by Jen’s fiancé Cody.

We stopped for lunch at a little pull out area down by the river.


We finished out the day by seeing the other side of the canyon at the viewpoint that could be seen in the Upper Falls pictures. This was awesome! We were super close and Sammy even thought it was cool.

Family photo time!
On the way home we stopped at a little visitor’s center. They had a bunch of the animals found in the park taxidermied and on display. It was pretty cool. Jen found Sammy a little ranger hat that looked darling!

Sammy thinks it is funny to bite daddy. My first defense is to just rub him with scruff and make him giggle. The problem with this method is he thinks we are playing a game – if I bite Daddy he’ll tickle me.

So I had to resort to biting back! That seemed to do the trick. It is like a game of mercy. I think he finally realized that this is not a game he would win
The lodge had an LDS sacrament service at 7pm. It was a nice testimony meeting.
Yellowstone – Day 4, Road trip home
Alas, the quick trip had to come to an end. We went to see a couple more sites on the way out, and then started the journey home. On the way to Yellowstone we went through Jackson Hole and up through the south entrance, so on the way home we decided to go through the West entrance and come home through Idaho. The West entrance road had quite a lot of wildlife so that was fun. We saw herds of elk, moose, had a bison cut us off when he crossed the road, saw a bald eagle in his nest, and smashed zillions of bugs.

Here is our last little hike around steamboat geyser:
Sammy thinks Cody is cool. And Nicole is too!

And our final stop was for one last waterfall:


On the road again!

We stopped at Craigo’s in Rexburg for some buffet lunch. It was excellent and we were glad we got the referral from the Grunigs.

Well the trip was lots of fun! We only wish we had more time to do more hikes and see more sites and even take our bikes to do some of those rides. We’ll definitely have to do it again!

Yellowstone Conspiracy!
Heather had a running joke with us that the geysers have died and are run by machine and pipe. Old Faithful has a guy down below the surface opening up a valve and then closing it. We found some evidence supporting this claim:

Pipes! So why would pipes be run right through the middle of nowhere!!

A shovel! If these holes appeared naturally, why the shovel?! We performed a quick carbon dating test (we looked at the rust) and it appears to match the date of the appearance of the holes!! Aha!

Thanks Heather for keeping it fun.

Scouts Rocket Car Derby

This is what being a scout master (asst) is all about! This combined the kids having fun, us playing with explosives, and the families all enjoying the evening together.

Project: A normal pinewood derby car kit was given to each boy. In the back end we had drilled a hole that would fit a model rocket engine. There weren't a whole lot of rules or limitations, some boys (let's be honest, some dads) went all out and others didn't do a thing except put on the wheels (this design actually took 3rd place and was a fraction of a second from being in the championship run).

We then got 200 feet of wire for a guideline and set up the track. Some pads were put in place about 20 feet from the end to slow/stop/derail the cars. It was a lot of fun and we plan to do this every year if we can! Here are a couple runs:

Happy Belated "Chosen" Week!

For Sam

Each summer for the past several years I have attended Core Academy. It's a fabulous 3-day-workshop for teachers filled with new ideas, great food and free stuff, held in various locations around the state. The last two years my 2nd grade team and I have made a vacation out of it.

This year we went to St. George and had a wonderful time together. We went shopping at the outlets, to the movies and Tuacahn, laughed our guts out, ate all the delicious food we could find and had an all around amazing time. Thanks ladies!

This year was a big deal - but last years' escape to Heber City brought an unexpected miracle that I will forever remember.

June 12, 2007 - I woke up bright and early, kissed Dave goodbye for 3 days, and drove to Clinton in order to meet the girls at 6:00 am so that we'd have enough time to drive up to Heber and be on time for our first Core Academy class at 8:30 sharp!

We arrived on time, I said "hello" to my cute cousin, Marcie, who was working for the Core Academy, and found my seat. We dove into the new math curriculum and started charting the differences between it and the old curriculum. About an hour later, my cell phone buzzed in my purse. Embarrassed, I clicked the silent button and ignored it. Again, my cell phone buzzed in my purse. I couldn't believe it! What could be so important? Dave KNOWS I'm in class, why is he bothering me?

I went back to concentrating on the presenter and made a mental note to check the messages at our first break. The opportunity arrived shortly and I made a bee-line for the parking lot. What I heard was Dave's happy-yet-shaky?-voice telling me something like this:

"Good morning, Love, I know you're in class, but I just got a call from our
caseworker, Brenda, and she says she needs to meet with us tomorrow.
I told her you were out of town, and she was pretty disappointed. I'm not
sure what that means exactly but call me when you get this. I love you,
call me!"

A thrill of incredulity went through me - are you serious?? No WAY! We had received our adoption approval notice only a month earlier - our profile wasn't even online yet - how could anyone even know who we were? Most adoptive couples have to wait a long time before getting "the phone call," surely this couldn't be it! I didn't dare hope as I immediately called Dave back and we laughed about the irony of the phone call. Then we talked about the seriousness of the invitation. I asked Dave to call Brenda back and see if I really needed to be there or if she just wanted us to sign paperwork.

As it turns out - she really did want me to be there. So Dave and I hatched out a plan that included him and his dad driving our two cars up to Heber later that night in order to leave one car for me to drive back the next day, so I wouldn't have to miss much of the Core Academy.

I walked back into class with a look of disbelief on my face and shared the news with my teacher friends. Of course, they freaked out. I was just so stunned that this could finally be it that I didn't even know how to respond. I was also worried that this might not be what we'd been praying for and even then there were still so many "if's." I don't really remember much of the core academy after that as my mind started focusing on the possiblity of adoption.

June 13, 2007 - The next day I sat through six hours of class, my heart beating, my hands sweating, until I could leave to meet with Dave and our case worker. The time finally rolled around and I jumped in the car and hurried to the Farmington LDSFS agency where I met Dave. We walked in to the office and sat down on the couch. Brenda came in and asked us how we were doing. "Pretty good" was our hesitant reply. And then she spoke the words I will always remember, "I have something for you!"

We stared at the envelope in unbelief. Our emotions welled up and over-flowed as we pulled out the most precious letter and gazed on a picture or our beautiful angel birthmother. She was having a little boy - and she wanted to give him us! Nothing can compare with the feelings of joy and elation and surprise and gratitude as that moment. Finally! Finally! Finally!

As my eyes fell on her picture, I knew who she was. I had seen her in a dream several weeks previous - a dream I hadn't told Dave about because I didn't want to jinx anything. I don't remember much about the dream except her height and long dark hair. But in the dream I knew she was going to give us her heart. And when I saw her - the tears flowed harder - she could easily pass as one of my sisters!

We were also thrilled to find a letter from the birth father. From what we'd learned in our adoption classes, this was rare. Most of the time the birth fathers aren't involved. We read both letters over and over and over again trying to let the words sink in. They wanted to meet with us, face-to-face!

Our son was expected to arrive in about a month - July 17th was the due date. A MONTH! There was so much to get ready, so much to do. We had nothing for the little guy - not even an empty room in our new home!

But none of that mattered - for the moment. Our prayers had been answered. The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, had provided a way for our family to begin. He knew this little spirit needed to be in our home, to be loved and cared for and brought up in His ways. He had chosen us to be parents. He had whispered His will to our sweet angel and she through her love, faith and hope was willing to sacrifice for our son. What a joy to be chosen!

Disclaimer: This is NOT the end of the story...but this post was becoming a novel and we have other things to post as well. Stay tuned!

All is Well in Zions

Okay, get ready this post is way too long. What can you do? On the weekend of May 30-June 1 we took a quick weekend vacation down to Zion's National park with Greg & Wendy, Annie and Mike (and Mike's nephew Levi), and Bruce and Joe. The ten of us crammed into two cars (gas is expensive!) and took the trip.

This was Sammy's first big road trip and of course his first trip to Zion's. We were excited. There were going to be a few firsts on this trip and we were anxious to see how the Super Sam would do. It turns out that he is quite the trooper, and lets us be at ease a bit for going to Nauvoo in a few weeks.

Uncle Joseph was a great help on the way down. Whenever I got sick of sitting in my seat, Joe was there to give me snacks and feed me and all sorts of things. He is my hero!


Here is my first big hike! I was so excited to be in Zions! Dad got this cool backpack carrier that made the hike a ton of fun. I even had big red handles to hold on to and chew on. I loved being taller than everyone! As long as Dad was moving I was happy as a peach. It was only when we stopped that I got a bit ornery. I'd yell to motivate Dad until he finally got moving. I don't see what the problem is, I'm only 25 pounds, and the trail wasn't that steep. It was the Watchman's tower hike.

We finally made it. It took us a couple hours, and then it was photoshoot time of course!




One of the big questions for the hike was what would happen if the little guy got tired. Would he sleep or just be a pill. Apparently the answer is sleep. The whole hike down Sammy took a little nap.
It was so hot that we all stopped by the river. I wasn't excited about getting in the river. My baths are never cold, so I have no idea why I would be interested in standing in freshly-melted-snow-water. I have no problem being held by Mom while she stands in the icewater though!

I'm having a great time, let's do another hike! Dad said his shoulders were pretty sore after the 5 hours of hiking. I thought for sure that he would be ready to go after a break at the river and a shuttle ride up to the trailhead for the Emerald Pools. Afterall, I had a nap and was ready to go!

Turns out, Dad is weak, so uncle Greg helped out. He is cool and huge. Look a tree!

Oh sure Dad, act like you can handle it just for a photo.
Here I am with uncle Greg and aunt Wendy
This hike was real nice. It was in the shade almost the whole time. It was great because that meant I didn't have to wear that annoying hat that Mom and Dad keep putting on me.

Well, after a full day I was hammered. So was Bruce and Joe.
We really had a great time. Mike's mom and dad were so nice to let us all stay over (as well as another family who were in town for a baptism!) and Blaine gave a nice sunday school lesson. Christina (Mike's mom) has a cool tradition. Whenever someone comes to stay the night, they sign a little traveler's log. It is neat for them to look back at those who have come through and to read their comments about the great food and fun that was had. What a great idea!

Anyway, Sunday came quick and it was time to come home. Halfway home we stopped at Fillmore for a break. They had a little play place at the Maverick outside and we had Sammy try a slide for the first time. At first he wasn't exactly sure what was going on but caught on quick and actually quite enjoyed himself.


The Tiger Woods' fist pump sums up the whole little trip. We had a great time and it was a total success. Sammy was awesome, the weather was awesome, and it was awesome to have a good time with the family.