Foto Story Friday # 61-- the end of our 1900+ trip

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

(A lot of pictures this time, cause I wanted to finish up our trip.) Monday morning we packed up the truck and headed to Provo. We were supposed to be headed straight home, but decided to make a change of plans. Heather really need to see a chiropractor and family recommended one south, so once again we took the long way around! We made a stop at IKEA, interesting place. We picked up birthday gifts for the twins and had lunch. Guess what, you can see the
Oquirrh Mountain temple from there. I know you're probably thinking I'm crazy, but look closely .... there in the center far off in the distance, it's there. (need a better zoom-- if you enlarge it, you can see it! ) Then we headed over towards the Draper Temple to see all the houses that were never finished.
An abandoned castle at the top of the hill. I like the looks of it in black and white ... gives it a creepy quality..... like an old black n white horror film. I would have loved to taken a peek around, but I didn't think my driving companions would have gone for it..... something about laws, whatever! The house across the street also not finished was just recently reduced to 3 million! A steal, I'll take two!
Just down the hill from the castle is this beautiful temple in Draper UT. Too bad this truck was parked in the way.
We HAD to stop at Cabela's for the experience, ya know! It was mine and Heather's first time in a one, there is a lot to experience. The lamp posts in the parking lot.
I was doing my best to capture every temple I could from the freeway! Here is the Bountiful Utah Temple.
Idaho Falls Temple.
We spent the night in Rexburg with David's sister. After dinner we drove up to the Rexburg Idaho Temple and I got out to snap a few shots. I chose this one because I like how the flag is flying off to the side. It was very windy, as you can tell.
We went for a walk after returning from dinner/picture taking and saw this view from behind... set on a hill ......
Next morning we planned on a long day of driving with a few sights in between. First stop was Jackson Hole, WY.
The entrance to the park in the center of town. It is a tourist town for sure. We decided to have lunch in the park.
This cute little guy was running along the boardwalk.
You can rent a ride in the stagecoach for a bit of Old West feel.
I'm pretty sure it is required to take a picture in front of the antlers when visiting Jackson Hole, WY! (taken by Troy)
Jackson Hole Airport.... in the middle of nowhere a huge jet was taking off! I had no idea that big planes landed here!
The Grand Tetons of Wyoming are truly amazing! I took tons of pictures of these majestic mountains. We headed north to Yellowstone. Troy had never been there so we made a "quick" trip through and saw a few highlights. Only there was construction and it took forever to get through.... several stops along the roadside.
Fast moving rivers flow through Yellowstone National Park. They are quite difficult to capture while driving, though!
Old Faithful is the absolute must see when in Yellowstone. We went in and got and ice cream/frozen yogurt, sat on the porch in the rocking chairs and waited for the show. I love to stand back and watch the people and that is the reason I chose this photos to share.
This shot is not clear, but I just had to take it, it seemed SO perfect. He looked so content just him, the pole and the river.
Raging waters. We did see a couple of buffalo and some big game animals. But we didn't stop like the others who were holding up traffic, errr, I mean, enjoying the park and it's many beauties. Really some people don't think, we saw a woman walking up to a buffalo lying in the grass just off the road..... ummm, yeah that is a huge bison and it is wild!
Mammoth is a cool feature and must also be seen. course we didn't stop, we were trying to get home. It was still quite the drive to the edge of Eastern MT from Gardiner. Once we got out of the park, the traffic was backed up for blocks in that little town..... like we spent an hour stopped-- creeping forward. Finally we got up to the pilot car and the notice of construction for the next 25 miles..... yup had to follow the car the whole way at a whopping top speed of 25 mph! yeah so we ended up staying in Billings and getting home on Wednesday!
Thanks for enduring our couples vacation, next week we take the kids on a camping trip!

Foto Story Friday #60 --Take a little 1900+ mile trip day 4

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Well day 4 was Sunday. After church and dinner and lazing around for awhile we decided to take a short drive up to This is the Place monument. It was a place my sister had never taken me in all the summers I spent with her in Salt Lake.
I was amazed by all the statues and monuments. Since it was a Sunday we could just wander around reading the inscriptions.
There is a huge handcart. I'm pretty sure it's not to scale but it did make for some neat pictures.
I even got a shot of myself! I was standing there reading and being teased about reading SO slowly when I saw myself and could not resist capturing the moment.
This is the huge central monument. I did take shots all around it, but chose to just give you the frontal view. It's quite amazing.
From there we drove to Ensign peak. We were not feeling ambitious enough to hike up to the top. We did park in a no parking, no standing zone (sorry if you happen to have a house right at the end...)Ensign Peak is where Brigham Young and others went to look over the valley and plan it's layout.
You can get some great views of the Wasatch Front from here.
And the Sunset was to die for....
completely stunning.

The view of the city is fabulous. With a pair of binoculars, we could see 4 temples from here. Temples are dotting the earth!
(still working on the pictures... these I remembered I had posted on facebook!)

52 Weeks of Blessings- week 49-- Forever Families

Oops, I was out of town on Sunday and Monday so I didn't get my blessings post up!

Week 49 -- forever families

We were in Spokane for the sealing of my sisters two children.  It was a long road for them.  Javin is almost 3 and Orissa is almost 1.  

It was an awesome experience and made me reflect back to when we had Robby sealed to us.

Foto-story Friday #16 -- weekend get a ways

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

So, last week, Troy was at training across the state about 7-8 hours away.  We had planned a weekend get-away with some great friends.  It was to be a trip to Denver {a place neither of us have been} that included a pro baseball game.  But just days before he left for training, our friends could not get the time off due to some changes at work.  We were all seriously bummed.  It was looking like Troy would just be coming home and we would carry on as usual.  I was less than thrilled with this plan!  By Thursday, I was way ready for that little get-away!  Troy's nightly calls were not encouraging, he just wanted to be home and sleep in his own bed.  Finally, I either got through to him that I NEEDED this or his parents convinced him -- either way he decided that we would meet in Billings and the other guy could just go on home alone. A major thank you goes out to my in-laws for taking care of our kids and giving us this weekend and the use of their car!  You guys are awesome!
I loaded a few things in the car and headed the 3 hours to meet him.  These black eyed susans were nearly lining the whole freeway throughout the drive.  It is pretty hard to get a good shot of them when you're driving 78 mph and hoping you're actually catching the intended target {I know, I know one should NOT drive and take photos at the same time ...}  Also while driving I saw a huge flag waving in the wind it was a beautiful sight, but I couldn't quite capture it:It was somewhere below this beautiful blue sky!  We ate a late dinner at IHOP after visiting with some friends until most of the eateries were closed up.

On Friday, we got up and went sight seeing.  I mentioned in my blessing post, that we went to my favorite toy store, here's a peek:



This is just a small sampling of the tractors and farm toys that the store holds and sells.  It is not a very large building, but it has quite an extensive collection.  This last shot is taken into one of those round mirrors strategicley placed so that the shoppers can be observed. I kinda felt funny taking pictures in there, but I'm like a kid in a candy shop when I go here!  I get all giddy and I want to touch and hold and test out all of the tractors!  Of course there are signs that say "look with your eyes".

We also stopped by the Harley shop.  That was a first time for me, I'd never been inside a Harley shop before.   There were signs like this:What do ya think?

Is it me?  This one is not a Harley, I like the chopper style.  
This one is a Harley, but I couldn't get Troy to sit on it {he thinks I'm a little crazy!}  Should we get one?!  Well, they are WAY out of our price range, but I kept hearing, "one day ... one day we'll have one."  We bought T-shirts.
We also saw some big boy toys with signs like this:Intended to prevent people from messing with them.  I would have been tempted to go climbing .......  control, must show self control!

Friday evening we had a good home-cooked meal at our friend's home. {Sorry, no pictures, I just never felt it was the right time to click off a few shots!  I had the camera hanging there around my neck.... I was maybe intimidated by there big wa-zooie camera! :)}

We had to try out the water slide at the hotel.  We went Friday afternoon, but failed to bring the camera.  SO Saturday morning we took a quick dip and a slide or two:

We packed it up Saturday and headed to the temple.  What a great ending to our get-away!

I never tire of capturing this beautiful building.  I try to get a different angle each time I visit.