Yellowstone Recap + Friday Favorites!

Day #1… done and done!

When we were leaving the Airbnb at 5 a.m. yesterday morning Brooke said, “This feels like that St. George Marathon thing that we do.”   We wanted to get to Yellowstone bright and early so we could see a lot of things before the crowds came.  Luckily, we were able to avoid crowds and traffic everywhere besides Old Faithful but we could social distance/wear masks there easily.

As we were driving to Yellowstone, Andrew said, “I need to get up early more often for things other than work” because the sunrise was stunning.

The first stop we made was to Beryl Spring.  The kids could not believe all of the steam coming off of them and turns out the early wakeup call was not a problem for Brooke and Knox as you can see below.

We planned on going on a long hike and assumed it was going to be very hot but decided to wear sweatshirts too last second and I’m so glad we did because it was COLD until about 9:30.  I love sweatshirt weather.

Then we drove to go see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  This area was UNREAL.  We got there early enough that there were just two other cars parked there too!  PS thanks for the advice to go early, it made our time there so enjoyable.

Our kids loved seeing the big things like the scene above but they also found so much joy in just the simplest things along the way too.

As we drove along the way to the big places we wanted to visit we made about 20 random small stops to get out and look.  We also stopped to see elk, bison and Andrew saw a mama bear and baby bear far away from where we were at one point.

Old Faithful was incredible.  This was Knox’s absolute favorite part of the day!

Our next stop was for a hike that Andrew found which was awesome.  It was about 5.5 miles roundtrip and pretty flat the whole way!

We stopped and ate donuts at Fairy Falls once we got there and played there for a while.

We also hiked up to the overlook point for Grand Prismatic Spring.  We couldn’t even believe how gorgeous the colors were.  I feel like the entire day Andrew and I looked at each other wondering how in the world a place could be so beautiful.   Between all of the stops and driving around we were ready to head back to where we were staying to take showers and get in pjs by 5:30 pm:)   Can’t wait for what we see today and I don’t know how I waited 34 years to come to this place when it is so close to where we live!

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I have a few Friday favorites today!

*$14 SUNGLASSES!!!  They are polarized and have so many color combos to choose from.  With the amount of times I lose/sit on sunglasses, this price tag is very needed.

*A few of you recommended that we get and download the GyPSy app before we went to Yellowstone (because there isn’t reception while in Yellowstone) and you guys are just the best.  This app tracked where you were the entire time and would let you know where to turn to get to different attractions along with the history/explanations of everything along the way.  It felt like we had the best tour guide with us. This app works for so many different National Parks and we will keep using it for each one that we go to.

*Baking refrigerated cinnamon rolls on a waffle iron.  Grease up the iron with a little butter, cook the cinnamon roll for a minute or two and boom… heaven.

*This Maxi Dress!  I love finding stuff that I can wear now but that I can also wear again next summer when I am not pregnant.    With almost 15k 4.5 star reviews on Amazon, I decided to go for it.  It feels like you aren’t even wearing anything because it is so soft.  They have a ton of colors to choose from but I of course went for black once again.

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Have any fun weekend plans?!

Those of you that have been to Yellowstone, what was your favorite thing that you saw there?

What app do you use more than any other app?

What is your current favorite baked good?