This last week Adam and I were fortunate to be able to take off for a week of “couples time” thanks to an arrangement we made with my brother Luke and his wife Shannon to trade off kids once a year. Although going to West Yellowstone in the middle of November wasn’t exactly my ideal place to take a trip (I usually prefer warm and tropical) Yellowstone ended up being the perfect place for us to relax and reconnect.
We had to laugh when true to our vacation history we ran into a few “adventures” as we like to call them when we hit the biggest snow storm ever recorded in Idaho history traveling up to Yellowstone. Yes, thats right. We just happen to plan our get-away on pretty much the worse day, (weather-wise) that Idaho has ever seen in the month of November. Nice! It really is starting to get comical how many crazy things happen to us on our trips but after a lifetime of these kind of things happening we have learned just to laugh at them and make the best of them.
And make the best of it we did. In fact, our bit of “bad luck” ended up being one of my very favorite parts of our trip. Just as we were heading out of Payson (in the rain) Adam mentioned that we would be going through Sugar City which just so happens to be where one of my favorite senior couples The Wildings live, as well as my amazing mission president and his darling wife. So we both checked our cell phones and luckily found the Wildings number on it and called. They were delighted to hear we were coming and invited us to come and sup with them for dinner. So that was the plan.
We dropped the kids off at Luke and Shannon’s and then began our trip up North listening to CD’s like Les Miserables, The Origin, and some 50’s music I had purchased at Wal-mart. It rained and or snowed pretty much the ENTIRE 5 hour drive, but really started getting slick and icy about our last hour to Sugar City. We called to let the Wildings know about what time we should be arriving and they had checked the weather for us and saw that the storm was getting worse and invited us to stay with them. The more I thought about it, the more I REALLY liked the idea. Not only because we would avoid driving in treacherous conditions, but because we would get to spend even more time with the Wildings and Strongs since we couldn’t check into our condo until 4:00 the next day! (This ended up being such a tender mercy because they actually ended up closing the pass we would have been traveling on to get to our condo that night requiring us to come back anyway). So we called our condo and they were nice enough to let us cancel one night (and get our money back) since the storm was getting so bad. Sa-weet.
When we arrived at the Wildings we were greeted with their warm hugs and the smell of a wonderful meal cooking in the kitchen. Brother and Sister Wilding had made us Swiss steak with a tomato gravy, mashed potatoes, homemade coleslaw (the best I’ve ever had), and then Sister Wilding made us one of her incredible apple pies with ice cream for dessert. Holy Yum! We spent the night talking, and reminiscing of old mission days, and then finished the night off by playing several rounds of Sequence. It was such a fun night!
My favorite Brother Wilding!
Then we were all off to bed early since the Wildings had to get up to work at the temple at 3:30 am and we were planning to go to one of the sessions they were officiating in and needed to be up by 6:30 am. Our temple trip the next morning was INCREDIBLE. Adam and I were able to be the witness couple, which was awesome, but then afterwards the Wildings took us on a personalized tour of the Rexburg Temple.
My goodness was it beautiful and my very favorite part of the tour was getting to see the “youth room” where they put the little kids before they are sealed to their parents for time and all eternity. The room was so gorgeous, with a temple playhouse (handcrafted) with delicate furniture inside and dolls and a large wooden Noah’s Ark with all the animals, and cribs and changing tables and tiny little white dresses and suits. I don’t know why but that room really made an impression on me and warmed my heart to the point that my eyes started getting a little sparkly. It just made me so much more grateful for the amazing gift our Heavenly Father has given us of ETERNAL Families – when we partake of the ordinances in the temple. How very very blessed I am to know that my family is sealed together and will be with me throughout the eternities. Wow!
So beautiful!
From there we headed out for a visit to the Strongs! How I do love them. Sister Strong brought out all her picture albums from the mission and we had a blast remembering so many good times and faces. We even got to see pictures of President Strong as a youth when he had his “jet black” hair and sister Strong as a young mother and wife. Sister Strong fed us some of her yummy homemade bread and jam as we sipped apple juice and it was so awesome for us to be able to spend the morning with them and to hear of all the wonderful things they are doing.
Adam and I could have sat there forever listening to all their amazing golden nuggets of knowledge that they’ve gained over the years and learning from their example. I was even able to convince President and Sister Strong to sing “Mr. Peter Rabbit” (A song we sang at every zone conference in Slovenia) and Adam recorded it. Thank you so much for letting us come and see you President and Sister Strong! We love you so much and are so grateful to have you in our lives! 🙂
After our lovely visit we went back over to the Wildings where they had made us a yummy lunch of pepperoni, mushroom, and olive pizza, and then we sat around the table talking for another couple of hours. We totally lucked out too and convinced them to come and spend a day at our condo with us later that week after they took care of their prior obligations! It was so nice not to have to say goodbye!
We took off around 4:15 for the last leg of our trip and were pleasantly surprised when it only took us about an hour and 15 minutes to reach our condo. The drive up was BEAUTIFUL as all the trees were covered in snow. Below is a picture Adam took while we were driving up.
We were a little surprised when we arrived in West Yellowstone because the city was like a GHOST town. Almost everything was closed down. There were NO cars on the roads, and it was just as quiet as can be. When we pulled into our condo there were only 2 other cars in the entire parking lot (mind you there are probably hundreds of rooms in this condo). Adam went in to get our keys and we had to laugh when we found out that Yellowstone national park had closed the day before we arrived (or the day we were supposed to have arrived). Funny stuff I tell you. Funny stuff. So we missed it by a day, darn it all. Once again causing us to laugh at our luck! You gotta love it!
I immediately started warming up dinner while Adam unpacked our bags and then we sat down to a wonderful meal of Musman curry and cashew chicken, with pineapple strawberry coladas (made by Adam) and then we dipped strawberry and pineapple slices in white chocolate. YUM! Then we snuggled up on our bed to watch a few episodes of our new favorite sitcom “Psych” on Adams laptop (through his phone internet) before drifting off to sleep. We were bushed!
Chilaxin on the couch.
Our bedroom
Cute couple shot!
The next day we decided to go exploring and took a drive the Wildings had recommended to us where we got to see some of the effects of an earthquake that had happened in the late 1950’s. The earthquake that happened here is actually the 2nd largest to hit in the United States and was a whopping 7.5 on the rictor scale. Wowsars. Oh and just for your information the biggest earthquake in U.S. history happened in Alaska measuring in at a 9.3 on the rictor scale. I don’t think they come much bigger than that. My goodness.
Anyway the drive was absolutely breathtaking and it was interesting to read some of the stories about how the water came up really high, and how a huge landslide happened forming a new lake (named Quake Lake), or about how a picnic table ended up being 20 feet higher than the fire pit next to it after the earthquake. Crazy what the quake did. Below are some of the pictures from the day.
Adam and I all bundled up
Stopping to take pictures
For lunch Adam thought it might be fun to drive to a little town called Ennis. I was a bit skeptical though seeing as it was an 80 mile drive round trip and ALMOST settled for going back to the condo for lunch, but since we didn’t have anything else to really do, I thought, “why not?” So we went. I am SO glad we did, and think this will be a required stop EVERY TIME we use our Yellowstone condo. Not only was gas about .10 cents cheaper than in West Yellowstone but we were able to ask a local girl if there were any good restaurants and she recommended the Sports grill a few doors down from where we were. We were a bit skeptical when we walked in and saw that it was kind of a dive (with pennies stuck in the wall in what appeared to be yellow goo) BUT….it had AMAZING food. Adam ordered a Ruben (which he said was one of the best he’d ever had) and I ordered a BBQ Bacon burger. I think it may have been the best burger I have ever eaten. The BBQ sauce alone was some of the best we’d eaten. I thought Ad would have a hard time keeping me from eating his Ruben, (I LOVE corn beef) but in the end I had a hard time keeping him from eating my burger. We were both very impressed and will for sure be visiting that place again. So good!
Here is a picture of the landslide that happened and the lake it formed as a result. Notice the dead trees still in the water of “Quake Lake” next to the road. They were all throughout the lake
It started snowing just as we were about home to the condo and continued to snow most of the afternoon and evening so we just decided to stay in the rest of the day. I took a long nap while Adam watched sports and then later that evening we went swimming in the pool and soaked in the hot tub. We were the ONLY guests we saw the whole week (with the exception of one other couple) and had the place to ourselves. We had fun doing lifts and flips, and other fun things in the pool (wink wink) and then headed back to our room for a light dinner.
The pool area at the condo (large pool, kiddie pool, and two 10 man hot tubs)
I unfortunately don’t have many pictures from the rest of our West Yellowstone adventures because our camera stopped working temporarily but we truly had a great time. Thursday the Wildings came up for the day and we again did the loop taking us by Henry’s and Quake lake. Then back to the condo for potato soup and homemade Quizno’s subs with bacon and avocado, and then over to the Imax to see the movie “Yellowstone.” We finished off the afternoon with the Wildings by playing Blokus, and Taboo, and working on a Noah’s Ark puzzle Adam and I had brought up. We sure had a great time and loved spending more time with the Wildings. Thanks again for coming up you two cuties. We sure love you to pieces and are so blessed to have you in our lives! And Thank you brother Wilding for sharing your testimony with us in Slovene! 🙂 You guys are amazing!
We had a few hours of down time after that and so we continued working on our puzzle and then we had beef stew that I’d been cooking all day in the crock pot for dinner. Then later that night (around 8:00) my wonderful in-laws Mum and Smurf arrived to spend a few nights with us. We were so glad to have more company. We spent most of that first night talking about the possible origins of the Book of Mormon (Adam and I had watched a new video the Wildings shared with us that showed DNA evidence that the Book of Mormon stories could have taken place in the United States – instead of in central America) and had fun discussing some of the exciting things we learned from the movie. Adam was able to find some of the clips on the internet and shared those as well. It was so fun to learn and ponder new ideas and possibilities and I loved being able to talk to Mum and Smurf as well as the Wildings about the movie. It truly is a fascinating topic to me.
The next day we took things easy most of the morning, doing puzzles, and watching TV and then we headed to the pool for some hot tub action and to let the boys (Smurf and Adam) work out in the fitness room. Then we came back for lunch (sandwiches) and then headed over to the IMAX theater to watch a movie about Caves. It was a really fascinating movie. Afterwards we hung out at the IMAX and explored the gift shop from head to toe (it was quite large) and then we went and drove around town checking out all the shops and looking for a campground Smurf and Mum and gone to in their earlier years (we never did find it). Then we headed back to the IMAX for the 5:00 showing of “Everest.” I think that was my favorite of all the movies because the story was so intense and very emotional. Plus the footage was INCREDIBLE! So pretty.
We headed back to the condo afterwards for dinner where we cooked up a feast of NY steaks, green beans, flaky biscuits, and broccoli and then finished up our Noah’s Ark puzzle, played Sequence, and introduced Mum and Smurf to the game “Go Wacky.” Adam and I ended the night by snuggling on our bed watching an episode of “Psych” before drifting off to sleep.
For our final last full day in West Yellowstone we decided to go and see the only other “open” attraction in town. That of the Grizzly Bear Wolf Discovery Center. We had been told earlier that the best time to go was in the morning right as they opened because all the animals were being fed and were the most likely and since Mum and Smurf needed to head back that day going early worked perfectly for them. So we drove the 1/2 block (don’t laugh it was cold) over to the museum, paid our monies and headed in. It was really pretty neat.
The Grizzly Bear Wolf Center is an animal rescue center so they have about 6-7 bears that they’ve taken in who have would have either been killed because they’ve been corrupted by human food or because they were orphaned as cubs. The bears were so fun to watch and we actually got to see two sets of sibling bears stand up and wrestle (looked like they were dancing) and then take each other down on the mat for some ground wrestling. It was really a neat thing to see and experience. We also had a worker guy that followed us around most of the day and told us cool things about the bears and wolfs in the center. I loved learning so many interesting things about these beautiful animals. We also were able to watch a few movies about each species and about their eating habits, packs, and patterns. It was one of my favorite outings we did on our trip. Below are a few pictures from the day.
(you could see two different packs of Wolfs in here on each side of the building)
One of the Grizzly bears taking a little snooze in the sun
The She-wolf
The Alpha Male in the 2nd Wolf Pack – the biggest and meanest of the wolves(The two packs are kept separated because they usually fight)
We ended up spending about 3 hours at the discovery center (Mum and Smurf left us about 2 hours in) so around 11:00 we walked back to our condo across the street. We were both FREEZING (it was really windy and cold on the walk back) so we decided a dip in the hot tub was in order. Afterwards I made us up some BBQ Monterey chicken with cheese, bacon, and tomatoes on top and then made some sweet potatoes with cinnamon butter to go with it. So good. We watched a special on Tornado chasers on TV and then I took an hour nap.
The rest of the day we pretty much spent vegging and watching movies. It was a VERY relaxed afternoon. By 5:00 though I was DONE-ZO with watching TV so we broke out some games to play for awhile. We ended up playing skip-bo and then I made breakfast burritos for dinner. We couldn’t figure out anything else to do that night though (we’d exhausted all our games, and activities in the area) so Ad settled for watching more TV and I got on his phone and used the internet to catch up on email and blogs. Then we watched a few episodes of Psych before heading to bed.
Sunday was take off and head home day so we pretty much just woke up, showered, got ready for church, and packed up our stuff to take to the car. We were able to check out about 9:15 and then drove about 2 hours down to Idaho falls on icy roads for church where we hit a 11:00 ward. The ward we went to was right next to the Idaho Falls temple so on our way out we stopped by the visitors center to check out the Hubble Telescope display the Wildings had told us about earlier. Unfortunately though they had taken down the display several months before hand, but we weren’t disappointed. The rest of the visitors center was very impressive and we were able to feel a nice spirit there.
From there we headed over to one of Adam’s very best friends growing up -Jake Penroses- to visit him and his amazing wife Tiffany. They were kind enough to invite us to have dinner with them and their 5 beautiful children. Tiffany made us BBQ pork sandwiches with garlic mashed potatoes, carrots and jello and we had a great time catching up with them and learning of all the good things they are doing. As we left their home Adam commented on how impressed he was with both of them and what good people they were. I couldn’t have agreed more. Thank you Penroses for your warm hospitality and love.
Unfortunately the rest of our trip home was a LOOOOONG one for me. Within about 10 minutes of being back on the road the weather got bad and lasted until we arrived home at 8:00 that night. I had my wind shield wipers on full speed the ENTIRE drive home and white knuckled it most of the way. At one point I thought we’d go off the road when I either hydroplaned on water or slipped on ice (I’m not sure which), but the road conditions were horrible. Probably some of the worst I’ve driven in for that long of a time. The rain and snow just never let up for even a minute the entire way home.
All in all though the trip was absolutely wonderful and I feel so blessed to have been able to visit so many people who are near and dear to our hearts. That was by far both of our favorite parts. Thank you Wildings, Strongs, Penroses and Mum and Smurf for being apart of our little get-away. And thank you Luke and Shannon for taking such good care of our little niblets. We love you all so much.