Camping with the in-laws

We're back from our camping trip!! We just spent a week with Jason's dad's side of the family and it was great...but tiring. Here's what we did...

Monday:

Jason's family came and picked us up in Rexburg and then we headed off to Bear World. Its only like ten minutes away, but Jason and I have never been. We went and drove through this little "wildlife preserve" thing where they just let bears run around...sometimes right up to your car. Jason's cousin and his family were in the car behind us, and they saw a bear grab onto our bumper and try to hang on as we drove away! And you can see in one of my pictures that bear is trying to open the sliding door of the van! Pretty crazy.

After we were done driving around we stopped and looked in the gift shop and went into the petting zoo.

Once we were done with that we drove to Lava Hot Springs near the Utah border, where we camped at a KOA and set up our tents. After that we went to a water park with CRAZY tall, steep, windy water slides and had some fun there. I didn't take my camera there for obvious reasons, but here's what the slides looked like:

I went on all of them except the yellow one. I just didn't want to walk all the way up those stairs...there were A LOT! Once we were done there we headed back to camp and had hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner.

Tuesday:

I don't have many pictures from tuesday because that day was mostly filled with driving to Jackson, WY and then white water rafting. Here's some pictures I got off the website of the company that took us rafting:

Luckily no one in our group flew out, but it was pretty intense at some parts. I was pretty scared in the beginning because I don't really know how to swim, but when it was over I was glad I went. We got to see a bald eagle while we were on the river, and I realized that I'm pretty lucky that I feel comfortable holding my mother-in-law's hand. =)

After our whitewater trip we came back to camp and roasted hot dogs on the fire for dinner and just sat and talked. Then it started to rain and things got a little crazy because some people didn't put the rain fly's on their tents and we had stuff laying out everywhere. Luckily the rain stopped after not too long and we all went to bed.

Wednesday:

We all got up pretty early and went on a hike in the Teton National Park. We hiked around Jenny Lake and then up to a place called "Hidden Falls." The hike was fun, except I didn't relize how intense my new family is about hiking at a fast pace. I stayed in the front most of the time on the way up, but that resulted in blisters on each of my heels because I didn't want to stop to pull up my socks. If I had done that, they would have left me in their dust. Oh well. So after we got up to the falls we stopped and ate a bunch of snacks and took pictures.

On the way back down I took it a little slower and that was fine. We were a little more split up going back and I was in the last group. It was nice because i got to walk with Jason's aunt Gina and her son Ryan and get to know them a little better.

On our hike we saw a deer that almost tackled my 11 year-old sister in-law Heidi, a moose from a far, and a marmut (looks kinda like a beaver/squirrel).

After the hike we drove back to camp and raced to the showers. I got there first and got cleaned up and then helped Heidi and my new cousin-in-law Kelly comb out there hair. I was able to get to know Kelly a little better when she let me do her hair in pig-tail braids. =)

We all just hung around camp for a bit and then Jason and I went into downtown Jackson Hole with his brother Mason, and Jason's cousin and his wife. We just looked around in gift shops and had some fun until we met up with the rest of the family for dinner. We went to this place called "The Bar-J Chuckwagon" where we had dinner and watched a show. It was pretty funny, there were a bunch of cowboys telling jokes, singing and playing all kinds of instruments. After that was done we all drove back to camp and went to sleep.

Thursday:

We left Jackson and drove to Yellowstone. We spotted a buffalo on the way to camp which was pretty cool. When we got to our campsite we set everything up and had some lunch while we waited for everyone else to get there. Once the rest of the family arrived we relaxed for a bit and then decided to go see Old Faithful. When we got there we had about an hour to kill before it was scheduled to go off so we went and got ice cream. Then we sat and waited...and waited. Once it went off we walked around and looked at all the "hot pots" which were pretty cool, but stinky. Then we just drove around and stopped at a few other hot pots before going back to camp. We had yummy tin foil dinners and then went to sleep.

Friday:

We had big, yummy breakfast with sausage, bacon, eggs, and pancakes and then it was off to see more sites. I was moving a little slower with blisters, a sunburned neck, and heat rash on one of my calfs, but I survived. We did a lot of driving which was nice on my feet, and we were able to see more animals. We got to this small town called "Mamoth" and were able to see a bunch of elk laying in the shade of some houses. We also saw some buffalo throughout the day. Towards the end of the day we went and saw a pretty waterfall and then drove back to camp. We all just hung out for awhile and then had some yummy chicken Jason's aunt Debbie cooked in her dutch oven. Then we all had some smores and headed to bed.

Saturday:

After waking up to thunder and cloudy skies, we all woke up early and got camp picked up at lightening speed. It started raining for a bit, but not bad enough to keep us from getting out of there. We all said our goodbye's and drove home to Rexburg. Jason's family dropped us off and we all went out to lunch at Craigo's, which was heaven after being in the wilderness for a week! Then they headed off for one more night of camping at the Lava Hot Springs, and I hit the showers and took a nice long nap. =)

Even though I'm not a big fan of long camping trips, I had a lot of fun! It was great getting to know my new family and getting to spend time enjoying Heavenly Father's beautiful creations.