Last Day @ Yellowstone & Happy B'day Kinzie!

Old Faithful...not as big and magnificent as I remember it...at all.

Old Faithful with Tiny and Mom.

Being a big boy and balancing...thought he was pretty smart.

Ya, she gets that from me.  I cans till put my toes in my mouth if I really wanted to...but I don't.  :)

Great view of the Tetons...minus the smokey haze.

At the Elk Antler park in Jackson Hole, WY just after the street shoot-out they put on.

Kinzie getting b'day presents.

Who needs a playground when all you need is a dead tree between two other trees?

So, this last day most of us decided to take one last trip into West Yellowstone to make the token stop at Old Faithful.  I must say it's not nearly as cool and big and magnificent as I remember...it was pretty much a let down.

On the way there we stopped at the mudpots and a couple of other places.  After Old Faithful we found a little picnic area and had a little b'day party for Kinzie, Dezi's daughter, who was having a her 4th b'day about 2 days later.  But it's way more fun to celebrate early with your cousins than on your birthday with no cousins right?!

So, Dezi had made a cake for her, and Mom had a present for her and we all sang and had yummy sugar-cookie-cake.  Then the kids ran off into the woods and found the best playground ever.  Note-to-self...don't worry about purchasing a playground set, just get a dead tree and prop it up between to other trees...it works just as well.  :)

This is where we pretty much split up.  Dezi and Shancy and their families went one way, and then us (we were with my mom & dad) and Maysi's family went out another way.  We left the park through the South entrance and stopped in Jackson Hole, Wy for a bit and wandered the streets/stores and watched the shoot-out they have downtown every weekend.  Then of course, had to take a pic under the antler arch.

We drove over the the rodeo grounds to check it out.  When I was 11-13 or 14 years old we used to go to Jackson at least once a week (they have a rodeo every Wed and Sat for tourists) to the rodeo.  They have a junior barrel racing and the tourists who've never seen a rodeo LOVE watching these little girls run the barrels.  They cheer so loud!  It was the most fun rodeo I've ever competed in, and I won money to boot.  It was like my summer time job.  I seriously paid for school clothes with the money I earned in Jackson Hole.  So, this tourist town has a lot of fun memories for me and my family, mostly me and my sister Maysi, and maybe Kade.  The younger ones don't remember it as much b/c we stopped going regularly when we moved to Malad.

Anyway, after we left Jackson, my parents drove us back to Ririe, where we would be spending the next week with Shayne's family before heading back to Alaska.  So...2 weeks down.  One more to go!!