Yellowstone 2014: A breif outline of how we "bear-ly" survived

"We Bear-ly Survived" was our motto this vacation. Not because we saw very many bears, but because we put those words on the backs of our shirts in hopes of seeing lots of bears. We only saw one, and only a select few of us at that.

Because I already posted my journal on The Massner Tales in extensive detail, I will refrain from repeating myself. Instead, I will give a brief outline of our trip and share some photos with you (most photos on this blog are repeats of what was on the Massner blog).

I am almost exactly one month behind on this post. We left a month ago today around this time for Big Sky, Montana.

YELLOWSTONE 2014 - COUSINS VACATION

Friday, July 25:
-Left around 4pm
-Stopped in Carroll, IA at Charlie's Steakhouse for supper to use up Matt's gift card. Yummy food!
-Drove through the night

All ready for vacation! 

Saturday, July 26:
-Took our time after arriving in Wyoming
-Went grocery shopping in Boseman, met the Schmidgalls and Aschemans there
-Arrived at our vacation house in time to make supper
-Walked on streets around our cabin and saw our first (and last) bear!

Dad entertained us over the speakers with Matt's handy microphone. 

Wyoming, at last! (following a twenty-hour trip!)

MOOSE!!

Some wildlife we saw on the side of the highway. 

Billy gets settled into the cabin.

The first Supper on Saturday evening.

Happy birthday, Aunt Penny!

There's our bear!

Sunday, July 27:
-Small church service held at our cabin
-Afternoon hike at Ousal Falls

Ousal Falls

Monday, July 28:
-Left at 6am for Yellowstone-spent an eleven hour day on the road!
-Wore our bright yellow vacation shirts!
-Saw Grand Canyon, Yellostone Falls, hiked Uncle Tom's Trail (very strenuous), and Old Faithful
-Drove through Hayden Valley and got stuck in a bison jam!
-Took Jesse and Gage on a Bear Hunt after supper. No luck finding bears, but saw some moose and deer as well as a double rainbow! 

Day one in Yellowstone. Our first Geyser! :)

All twenty-one of us. The Massners, Schmidgalls, and Aschemans (and two Schulzes)

Buddies! Jesse and Gage 

Yellowstone Falls 

At the bottom of Uncle Tom's Trail 

Bison traffic jam! 

The girl cousins!!

Elk in Mammoth Hot Springs

We're going on a bear hunt (rainbow in background)!

We saw a double rainbow if you look close! 

Tuesday, July 29:
-WHITE WATER RAFTING!! Everyone loved it! Our guide kept dumping us out of our raft in the calm parts. 
-Johnny purchased a fitting shirt that said "I enjoy a good dump."
-Parents went out to eat while the kids stayed home and had a pizza party.

This is the only picture we took on Tuesday because we didn't take them on the white water. Travis was enjoying his pizza crusts. 

Wednesday, July 30:
-Left again at 6am for Yellowstone and another long day of sightseeing!
-Drove through Dunraven Pass, ate lunch at the top of Chittenden Road, stopped at Inspiration Peak, hiked Tower Falls trail, drove through Mammoth Hot Springs where there were elk all over, saw several geysers at Norris Geyser Basin.
-Dad's football moment in the traffic jam.
-Stopped in West Yellowstone for shopping and souvenirs.

Lots of photos! 

The view from Inspiration Point?

Matt was trying to be a daredevil.

Beautiful mountains!!

Norris Geyser Basin

The only bears most of us saw were stuffed. 

Thursday, July 31:
-A few boys got up early and hiked a mountain.
-The rest of us slept in, had an early lunch, and hiked Lone Peak trail.
-Only six boys made it to the top while the rest of us rode the ski lift a few times.
-Jesse lost his wallet.
-Kids played games with Matt after supper while Moms packed to go home.

Lone Peak: the mountain we climbed. 

The hike was steep and rocky! 

Matt's view from the top. I think you can see our cabin down there somewhere.

Snowball fight at the top!

Those who made it to the top got to sign the guest book!

The brave crew of hikers that made it all the way! 

The boys got a free tram ride down when they made it to the top of Lone Peak. 

Everyone shows how far they made it up Lone Peak.

My view down the mountain.

Jesse and Gage

Ryan and Justin enjoying a relaxing and scenic ride on the ski lift. 

Friday, August 1:
-Said our goodbyes to the cabin.
-Drove through Yellowstone again and through the Grand Tetons.
-Rode a ferry across Jenny Lake and hiked to a waterfall.
-Drove to Jackson Hole for the Bar-T-5 Chuckwagon Supper (Abby and Bruce had their performance debuts!)
-Said our final goodbyes to our cousins and headed home through the night.

The boys loved the entertainment in the basement.

There was a theater in our house! 

The kitchen

The view off our back porch.

Getting ready to leave! The kids...

...and the parents.

The Grand Tetons

Riding the ferry across Jenny Lake

We rode a covered wagon out to supper!

The Indians attacked us!

The Chuckwagon Dinner- Uncle Bruce and Gage are on stage! 

Saturday, August 2: 
-Drove some more and arrived home around suppertime.

This was our charging station in the van. Everyone has a different color of cord for their device, and the cooler worked well as a table. 

For more details, please visit the vacation post at The Massner Tales blog.

Confessions of a Teenage Housewife

As I prepare to depart from my teenage years and enter into the true adulthood of age twenty, I cannot help but look back on the eight months I spent as a teenage housewife and remind myself of just how far I have come in learning the intricate workings of the world of housekeeping. And so it begins...the confessions of a teenage housewife.

1. Learn to love the walls of your kitchen. This is the room in which I spend the majority of my indoor time, so I am thankful for a cheerfully red kitchen wall (left by the home's previous inhabitants) and plenty of space to move around.

For six months after we got married, I did not make the same meal twice for my husband, with the exception of homemade pizza that we are required to have every Friday evening. Everyone knows a family tradition from both sides cannot be broken. My goal was to learn how to cook, so I scoured the recipe books and planned my menu diligently every week until the spring breezes swept away my culinary interest. It gave me some good experience, but these days my motivation has instead been focused on outdoor activities.

The scale also told me that although I have made great progress in the culinary arts (or that I am forced to eat all of my own flops), I am not even close to mastering any kind of healthy cooking. So, help would be appreciated. We have been eating a lot of eggs and garden lettuce lately. I am sure Matt will be glad when the garden lettuce is gone!

2. Wash the dishes. NOW. Food is well worth the mess created by the cook, but all of this kitchen time means an overabundance of dirty dishes. As a newlywed, the dishes pretty much got done every night. However, habits changed and developed to the point of not even clearing the table after supper. That got old very fast, so we have stayed on top of the dishes for a couple weeks now. REMINDER: All of the dirty dishes on the counters could be done in a half hour. If you are really good and only have to do the supper dishes, they could be done in ten minutes. Just get to work, girl.

3. Do laundry from start to finish. When you find wet clothes still in the washing machine the following week, this is terribly sad because then all of those clothes smell awful. They smell even worse when you try to dry and wear them anyway. The other sad laundry day is finding clean clothes in the dryer or laundry basket a week later because then they are terribly wrinkled. Therefore, a person absolutely must remain focused on the laundry task at hand and complete the process before the end of laundry day.

4. A clean house is the easiest to clean. So keep it clean! Right. In the ideal world where I was a clean person with a clean house who kept it clean, umm...well, that would just be ideal. But I am not a clean person with a clean house who keeps it clean. In fact, the house only gets clean when company is coming. I think that is the case with at least 75% of homes. If not, let me assume the validity of the statistic to keep me obliviously content.

5. The garden won't weed itself. As if nobody already knew that. Another tip is to take a picture of your garden for the blog right after spending four days removing two months' worth of accumulated weeds. And then keep up with it. Speaking of the garden- the lettuce, spinach, and peas are done and I am now getting green beans! Tomatoes and potatoes are forming too. Everything else is pretending to grow or stay green. I still don't know what I am going to do when all of this stuff is ready to harvest.

6. Never turn down a husband's help. Especially this gal's husband because he is a good helper. If he didn't have to be at work all day, this house would be very clean and organized. And it would not be because I work harder when he is around. He washes dishes, does laundry, makes beds, and all sorts of other good things! (But is NOT for sale or rent.)

7. Get beauty rest (...and I fail). A little sleep goes a long way...toward making you tired. Plenty of sleep goes a better way. We are two night owls stuck in a morning bird's world and hence never get enough sleep. And that's all I have to say about that because I am too tired to think of anything else.

8. Company is motivating. I decided we need to have company more often. As I said, these are the only times the house gets clean. The first several months of taking care of a household were intimidating as a hostess because I did not know what was going on. I still don't know what I am doing, but it is exciting to host people in our home on occasion. Now that I am resigning from teenage housekeeping, I hope to be a big girl and not care what my food tastes like for guests (as long as we have a good time!).

9. Keep clear of unproductive activities. My biggest weakness is extensive naps and going back to sleep for an hour after Matt leaves at six in the morning. I do best when I make sure I am always doing something that will improve the lives of Matt, myself, or someone else. Sometimes a short nap does make me happier, though. :)

10. I resign from this teenage housekeeping business. Effective tomorrow. Thank you for your support.