Family trip to Island Park!

This past week we went on a family trip to Island Park, Idaho. It was a lot of fun and reminded me of the trips that my dad would take us on when we were younger. Our first stop was to Bear World. It was exciting to be able to drive up so close to so many bears. I was afraid that one would jump up on our car but they seemed to be really tame. They would just walk around the cars and sniff a little bit. We couldn't see it but Elizabeth said a bear came up and bit one of our handles. That was about as exciting as it got.

Noah really enjoyed the petting zoo that they had at Bear World. He would let all the animals, even the ugly grey pig eat food out of his hands. Peyton would just throw the food from a couple yards away. He wasn't going to let the animals lick his hands.

They had little baby cubs to look at. They were so cute!! It made me wish for a second that you could have baby bear cubs for pets.

Phil and the boys had fun fishing down at the lake. Too bad they were not able to catch any fish. They had fun anyway. Phil hadn't really been fishing much before in his life. But he found it very relaxing and I wouldn't be suprised if he picks it up as a hobby in the future.

We also took the canoes out on the lake. The last time I rode in a canoe was at girls camp over 12 years ago. Notice that my mom has one of the kids' life jackets on. She cannot swim and got mad at me when I would rock the canoe.

We were planning on going white water rafting, but because we had so many younger kids that were not old enough to go we had to settle for floating down the snake river. And I literally mean that we floated down the river. There was absolutely no current to push us down the river. It took five minutes for the bus to drop us off at the starting point and 3 hours to float back down to where we returned the boats. It was fun to lay back and enjoy the beautiful scenery. 3 hours was more than enough time to coast down the river.

We also went to Yellowstone on of the days. I hadn't been back since I was a little kid so it was fun to see all the famous landmarks again. We had to wait about 45 minutes before "Old Faithful" went off. The kids did not enjoy sitting in the sun while we waited for the geyser. (I couldn't blame them though because I remember feeling the exact same when my parents took me so many years ago.)

We saw a lot of elk roaming around Yellowstone. This one go pretty close. Phil only dared role the window down a crack to take a picture of this Buffalo that was only feet from our car. We never saw any bears though.

This is a picture of us in front of Yellowstone Lake. It was so pretty!

I still get freaked out when I look at this picture, because just over those rocks, is a cliff that goes straight down to this huge waterfall. I was so scared that one of the kids would trip and fall right over the edge into the raging water below. I fell so much safer down below where there was a fence to keep the kids safe.

All the cousins climbing a huge rock at the lower falls of the river.

Our last day we spent down at the lake jet skiing and playing in the water. Peyton and Zach survived getting pulled around on the tube by Unlce Devin. They loved it.

It was so much fun riding the jet ski's. Peyton was so excited when I let him drive us around on the water for a little while. Noah just enjoyed the ride.

Phil is so great at enteraining all of the kids. He would let them all jump and play in the water while the adults all took turns on the Sea Doo's. We had such a great trip and hope to plan another fun one next summer.