"Little Women" Family: Day 3 & 4- Yellowstone

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Day 3 & 4- Yellowstone

Day 3- July 2nd

Today, we spent the entire day in Yellowstone. When we woke up, there was frost on everything. No wonder we froze our buns off all night!! It must've been 30 degrees! It was so cold that I didn't want to get out of my sleeping bag, however, as soon as the sun came up, the temperature quickly rose. For breakfast, we had bagels, string cheese, and red/white/blue pop tarts. First, we headed to Old Faithful. We were quite the site to see with our 10 daughters! They had a blast together! And so did we! Grant and Jesse were companions on their mission and Jen and I both homeschool our daughters. (I am amazed at how well we all get along and how much we have in common.) Old Faithful took a bit to get going and had us all a bit worried. But it didn't fail to amaze us, once it finally blew! Once it was over, we let the girls each pick out a souvenior from the gift shop and then we left to drive around the Yellowstone loops. We saw lots of snow on our drive and Grant even built a mini snowman (pictured above.) At lunch time, we stopped at a cute little shaded picnic area and had some sandwiches. After lunch, we kept driving. We saw lots of beautiful waterfalls but I really wanted to see the one that I remembered as a child. (Jesse and Jennifer were so sweet to help me find it.) We saw lots of wildlife on the drive, including a small black bear (pictured above in the field- sadly I thought I had my farther lense on and I quickly changed it to my closer lense, only to realize that I had done the opposite, so the picture isn't that great.) But the coolest thing we saw, was when we drove over this hill and saw a huge herd of buffalo crossing the street in front of us. (I noticed that as the sun was going down, the animals were coming out.) Everyone slowed way down so we were able to take lots of pictures. There were adult buffalo and several little babies. There were two fighting and one that decided it needed to cross right in front of our car. It was a pretty incredible sight to see all of those buffalo. We had a great day at Yellowstone. (Interesting things that happened- 1) People standing too close to the buffalo with their children, can you say crazy?? 2) Aurora burnt her finger pretty bad, on the hotdog stick. Ouch! Poor baby!)

Day 4- July 3rd

We left our campsite and said goodbye to our friends (Jesse, Jennifer, EmmaLynn, Adrienne, Paige, and Lizzie.) Then we headed to the waterfall I wanted to see, or rather the view I wanted to see, of Lower Falls. It was called "Artist's Point" and we soon learned why. It was absolutely breathtaking! Gorgeous! I was so glad we found it! It made me happy! :) We also saw a few more animals on the way out, including another herd of buffalo. Seeing people stopped on the side of the road for one buffalo off in distance, became humorous to us, because that was what we did our first day there. Once you've seen a whole herd, one just doesn't seem so exciting anymore. We also saw a lot of flooding in Yellowstone- pretty much every river was overflowing. It was crazy! The drive from Yellowstone to Cody, Wyoming was pretty incredible! The rock formations were amazing! In fact, all of the scenery we saw on our drive across Wyoming was quite beautiful. Also, we had the girls watch Living Scripture videos all day. That night, we stopped at Hardee's aka Carl's Jr. Then we headed to our hotel.

My Favorite Part of The Book of Mormon

3 Nephi 17:21-24

"21 And when (Jesus) had said these words, he wept, and the multitude bare record of it, and he took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them.

22 And when he had done this he wept again;

23 And he spake unto the multitude, and said unto them: Behold your little ones.

24 And as they looked to behold they cast their eyes towards heaven, and they saw the heavens open, and they saw angels descending out of heaven as it were in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled those little ones about, and they were encircled about with fire; and the angels did minister unto them."

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/3_ne/17

To learn more about The Book of Mormon or to get a free copy: http://www.mormon.org/book-of-mormon/

Our homeschool program!!

My style of homeschooling is "public school at home." We began homeschooling on our own, the 1st year. Then we were enrolled in the Washington Virtual Academy (WAVA) for 3 years. Now we are enrolled in ORLA. Our girls are taking several classes at an Elementary School that is no longer used for a typical Elementary School. Instead 450 homeschooling students (K-12) take classes there with certified teachers (you choose which ones and how many) but you do have to be at the school with them until they are 12 (in another room with toys for the younger kids) or sign them out to a friend. Then you fill in the rest at home. For example, my girls take Music, Art, P.E., and Science at the school 2 days a week and then I teach them Math, Language, and History at home, on the other 3 days. The school also pays for an additional $300 a year of curriculum (like the Math, Lang, Hist.) We do have to keep up with a certain number of hours per week. We also have a "home room teacher" that helps us with everything, like deciding what extra things to do at home and making sure we don't miss anything. We are really enjoying this program-- it truly is the best of both worlds! If you have any questions, email me. :)