Elise's birthday and a mini-vacation

My birthday was on a Thursday and was a pretty normal day, but we made it a little special.  After we got Emmett off to school, Elliott, Ezra and I wet to a french bakery.  I got a good cup of coffee and we split a croissant breakfast sandwich and a cream puff.  We normally grocery shop on Thursday, but we didn't have very much to get so it was an extra small trip to Fred Meyers.  It was really pretty out so I spent some time weeding in the front while the boys played.  Then we had lunch and Elliott went down for his nap.  I prepped some of dinner and made a flourless chocolate cake.  Ezra and I relaxed a bit (I tried to put off all chores) and then Elliott got up and Emmett got home.  We played outside more, got Emmett's homework done and finished making dinner.  We were pretty much ready to eat when Jim got home so we could get to Emmett's soccer game.  For my birthday meal I BBQ'd steak, made garlic mashed cauliflower and a tomato and avocado salad.  I opened a gift and then we left for soccer.  Jim reffed and Emmett played great, he had 3 goals.  We got home and had cake while I opened the rest of my gifts.  

 Friday morning we got Emmett off to school and Jim went on a bike ride and I finished packing for a short getaway and then took the boys to the park to meet some friends.  We picked Emmett up from school at 11, right when his class heads to lunch.  We ate lunch at home and then took off for West Yellowstone, MT.  We had been on the waiting list for a condo up there and found out on Thursday that we got Friday night.  Elliott slept the whole way there and we went straight to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center.  Our zoo membership gets us in for half price and the admission is good for two days.  Their largest bear, Sam, was out in the habitat when we got there.  We listened to a talk about the wolves there and watched them do a wolf "enrichment" program.  We walked around a bit more and went to another talk called "Do not feed the bears."

Our wolf pack

I had just told Emmett that the polar bear was Knut.
(we have a book about a real baby polar bear from the Berlin zoo named Knut).
He really believed it!

 One of the things the center does is product testing.  Companies send them garbage cans, coolers, etc. to see if the bears can break into them.  They bait them with treats to entice the bears.  This bear was excited to go for the cooler...we heard it was baited with sardines.

 Bears also apparently LOVE birdseed and this bear was able to swat this one down after quite a while of trying.

Watching them "rough house" was impressive

 After a couple hours we went across the street to check in.  Our room wasn't quite ready so we went to check out the pool and by the time we did that they were ready for us.  We unpacked and made dinner and after dinner we went swimming.  After swimming Elliott went to bed and then Jim went into Yellowstone to do some photography while Emmett, Ezra and I watched a movie.

 In the morning we went swimming after breakfast and then packed up and checked out.  We went back to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center for a little while and then got in line for Yellowstone.  The traffic going into the park was backed up quite a ways, luckily I had lunch made and we ate while we people/license plate watched.  Once we got into the park the traffic really dissipated and we had pretty clear roads except for a couple of buffalo jams that got traffic backed up.  

 We walked around at some of the thermal features at the fountain paint pot.  Then we went down to the Old Faithful area and went to the new visitor center and watched Old Faithful erupt.  We did some more walking and then drove back up and did the Firehole Lake drive.  We saw lots of buffalo and there were more babies than I can ever remember seeing.  We saw some elk too, but that was about it for wildlife.

Ezra was SO excited about walking through the clouds of steam.

We went back into West Yellowstone for dinner and then headed home.  It is such an incredible blessing to live so close to one of our nation's treasures!