joel and i went on an early anniversary trip to jackson hole, wyoming. yay! we had such a fun time. we really missed the kids. we said a zillion times "oh, the kids would love this!" and the like. or we would be at a restaurant and see a baby girl ellen's age. and say "aww, we miss the kids!" and then the girl would throw her lunch on the floor and i turned into that kid on the simpsons that points and laughs and says "ha ha." it is amazing to me the amount of time i spend in a normal day preparing food and getting people dressed/ready, etc. it was nice to have a break from that, it was nice to have just me and joel time, it was nice to not have to worry about my child wandering off into a geothermal pool. but i came back refreshed and ready to be the best mom i could be! (this feeling may have fizzled a little... but the point is the trip is exactly what i needed!)
our room was so nice and cozy and it had a fireplace, which in most areas of the good ol' us of a would be silly in the summer, but not in jackson, wy! it was 39 degrees when we landed and there were snow flakes flurrying around. hooray for a fireplace!!
i actually got to read a lot while we were there. i read
the shack on our trip. also a short book about this really cool artist that joel bought for me for mother's day (the book, not the artist!) it was really nice. and i finally did one of my new years resolutions. nice! it was just really fun spending uninterrupted time with joel. he is really a lot of fun to hang out with. i am really glad that i am married to him! :)
here is me sitting in jackson square talking to our kids. there is a webcam that shows live pictures. the kids got to see us wave to them on the computer. fun! let it be known that i was completely creeped out by all of the elk antlers in an arch. is it odd that i would rather see a whole elk head mounted with the horns than a cluster of horns in the form of an arch? after being there for several days, you kind of get used to them. antler chandeliers, antler salt shakers, antler candle holders, antler utensil handles, antler backscratchers (i kid.) (about the backscratchers.)
the mountains the first evening we were there. you couldn't see much because of the low clouds. it was like 39 degrees. and rainy. but beautiful!
here is the view from our parking lot. the pretty green grass is a ski run. from what i understand, there is some pretty intense skiing to be done on this mountain. let's just say i would never hurl myself down anything this steep- snow or no snow.
so, here are a couple of pictures of the place we stayed. snake river lodge and spa. it was bee-utiful. i didn't want to wait until the tomato truck drove away. i am sure that our restaurant had great tomatoes. we didn't eat there, mostly because the prices were silly.
from the front... our room was to the right in a crazy place that i never did figure out. everytime we were leaving the hotel, i got us lost in the maze of hallways. our poor bell hop? bellman? suitcase bringer-upper? got lost, too, and had to go find help. poor tanner from south carolina. more to come...
the view...
at the top. it started snowing! i started to regret my shoe choice! i opted for my cute, comfy, treadless (sockless) shoes for shopping around jackson. oh well! :)
the snake river ... and the valley...
thankfully, they had ski poles for sillies like me wearing cute shoes (with snow in them).
it was up joel's knees in places...
the other side of the mountain. i loved getting to do this! thanks, joel! :) 
we went to yellowstone on tuesday. it was our best weather day. we loved it! a couple of days before we went, they closed the south entrance to the park because there was so much snow! there was snow everywhere, it was really pretty!
lewis falls, i think. thanks lewis and clark for finding it for us! :)
waiting for old faithful. i really had no idea what to expect. it was very exciting. as steam started to really rise, there were lots of ooohs and ahhs.
it did this for a while. little bursts of water would shoot up. more ooohs and ahhs. notice the heighth of the water compared to the trees.
this was as high as it got. it was amazing! i just couldn't get over how neat our God is. to create something so crazy and so awesome knowing it would thrill and fascinate His people. almost everything we saw on this trip so obviously pointed to our amazing and creative God! He is so good!
near old faithful. this water was constantly boiling. so neat!
really pretty! different kinds of algae grow in the different temperatures. this kind made it look blue.
a little further up the road was sapphire pool. i think this was my favorite.
some of these were hard to take pictures of, because the cold weather made lots of steam.
then on to the 'grand canyon of yellowstone'. it was amazing. it was so loud even from really far away.
the other end of the canyon...
on our way back home. it was such a great day! i am excited to go back with the kids some day and spend a little more time. 
this was right after you entered the park. when we stepped out of the car to take a picture, it smelled so good! the entire field in front of us was sagebrush. it smells like sage. it was so pretty. there were miles and miles of fields of sagebrush all around the jackson area. i loved it!
this is jenny lake. we hiked around here later in the week.
joel thinks this picture is funny because it looks like i am doing the robot. i am not, however. it is the latest craze- getting your hair out of your face for a picture.
i like this one. this is the area where we saw the mamma bear and her cubs. (pictures in another post.)
okay, so this is our COMPACT rental car. we were thinking an accord or something. now the pothole comment earlier makes a little more sense. we thought it would be funny to take a picture of our car with the wheels turned in with mountains in the background as if it were a high performance vehicle. one small funny thing was in the visitor center they have all kinds of information about the number of wildife (bison, elk, deer, moose, etc.) killed by vehicles. all to make you be more aware! one of the posters has a picture of a bison and says "imagine hitting a volkswagon." stating that it is what it is like to hit a bison. i began to wonder... what happens when a volkswagon hits a volkswagon? it might not be the bison that loses on that one! the bonus was almost being able to drive under the legs of the elk that would not move out of the road. having this car really is a fun memory. i am thankful that our luggage fit in it. and we had no trouble parallel parking. 
the tetons in the evening...
joel was looking for a moose and a coyote just walked right by!
an elk at yellowstone.
another elk at yellowstone.
bison at yellowstone.
the only time we saw a moose. this was taken from the tram.
be bear aware!
elk. you get pretty used to seeing them. they are everywhere. even standing in the middle of the road after dark. they don't even move when you honk and slam on brakes. they just stand there and look at you (not a deer-in-the-headlights kind of way, but a i'm-not-moving-you-are kind of way) while you swerve to miss them. yikes!
this is an owl. lots of people had stopped to take pictures of it. we just stopped in the road and took pictures of it out of the window. it looked right at joel and then....
okay, so if you made it through all of these posts, a hearty congratulations. you need to go to wyoming. it was wonderful. if you want to bring joel and i along, we would make great tour guides! :) 
the mountains the first evening we were there. you couldn't see much because of the low clouds. it was like 39 degrees. and rainy. but beautiful!
here is the view from our parking lot. the pretty green grass is a ski run. from what i understand, there is some pretty intense skiing to be done on this mountain. let's just say i would never hurl myself down anything this steep- snow or no snow.
so, here are a couple of pictures of the place we stayed. snake river lodge and spa. it was bee-utiful. i didn't want to wait until the tomato truck drove away. i am sure that our restaurant had great tomatoes. we didn't eat there, mostly because the prices were silly.
