Kanosh and Zion's National Park

We had to make a stop in Kanosh to visit Brian's home town.

Kolt and Klay took us on a tour in the pony cart.

You can see how excited the pony is about pulling all these people.

 We also took a trip to Zion's National Park.

 At first I took Merry and Grace to hike the Virgin River narrows.

 Grace and Merry loved swimming in the river.

 The water falls were awesome too.

 The hiking girls.

Merry crossing the river.

It was so awesome, we went again with cousins after soccer camp was over.

 Eliza was not impressed with the cold water.

It was a great end to summer vacation.

We headed back to Las Vegas to fly home, sunburned and happy.

Even more cousins and soccer camp

We went to a family dinner at Brett and Debbi's house to catch up with more Stott cousins.

Grandma Stott and 4 out of 6 of her kids. 

The pretty cousins with a K, Kylie, Keely and Kieran.

 

Grandma Stott and Eliza.

Grandma Stott and Kylie.

I am surprise Brett let her in the door as she was wearing a Utah shirt.

 Grace loves having cousins her age, Kate is only a couple of months younger.

The next morning we dropped Brett and Jacob off at soccer camp at BYU.

These were the only pictures we got of the two of them for the whole week.

They said they had a great time.  Unfortunately the coaches would not believe they were cousins so they did not get to play on the same team.  They did get to perform land based synchronized swimming routine for the talent show.  I was sad to have missed the performance.

Bear World

On the way back from Yellowstone we stopped at Bear World.
The kids were not at all impressed by the bears.

     

They were instead fascinated by the deer,

the goats,

and most of all the fawn.

I am sure the fawn are sick of being mauled all day by small children.

They also enjoyed the rides.

Doesn't Jacob look thrilled to be here?

 Merry too.

I didn't realize there were so many bear themed rides.

This ride was not pleasant at all, it spun around while it went on the track.

Eliza was not a fan of it either.

We also stopped at Temple Square to go to the visitor center

 and to look at the beautiful flower gardens.

Happy kiddios.

Yellowstone

We took a day trip to visit Yellowstone.

 First we visit the Norris Basin and hiked around the loop.

This was my favorite part of the Yellowstone, I loved the vivid, blue pools.

It is a little freaky to be walking next to boiling water.

 More specifically to be walking next to Adam next to boiling pools of water.

Luckily he only fell on the trail, as you can see by his shirt and not off of the board walk.

Jacob and Brian kept Eliza in check so she would not go over the edge.

We had some lunch at on of the lodges and then headed to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

 Unfortunately I could not talk anyone into hiking down to the overlook so we only got to view the waterfall from high.   It was probably safer for Adam that way.

So instead we decided on something much flatter like watching the elk come down to the river in Hayden Valley. 

We then headed to Old Faithful to watch it erupt.  

Or more correctly watch the chipmunks that were busy collecting food from under the boardwalk.

Jacob told me the chipmunks were the most interesting things in Yellowstone.

 Ice cream in the lodge was next.

 Eliza fell in love with this bear.

We took a short walk to see all of the other geysers in the basin and ran into some buffalo crossing the road, luckily they seemed more interested in eating.

The geysers were very cool and stinky, each one had a different name. 

This one they said looked like toasted marshmallows.

 

This is Old Faithful from the backside.

Pretty soon the running on the boardwalk got pretty tiring and Brian had to carry Eliza back.

Unfortunately for Brian we had to looked every geyser and pool on the way back to the car.

Who let these crazies in the park.

 I love the steam at the edge of a cool river.

I guess Jacob is singing an ode of joy to the beautiful sunset.
Happy day at Yellowstone.