Yellowstone

This past Sunday, we set up a private tour of Yellowstone with Big Sky Shuttle. Our tour guide, Bruce, was very knowledgeable and we were glad we could all be spectators (versus one of us having to drive).

Even the scenery on the drive from our house in Big Sky to Yellowstone was amazing. I tried taking pics from the car – you can imagine how those turned out.

Louise fell asleep on the hour drive. Saving energy for the park I guess!

We stopped at the visitor’s center to get our passes for the park. The National Park Service is amazing – one $10 senior citizen pass granted our entire van access – and access to all other parks for a lifetime!

We headed in to the park and, lo and behold, the first thing we saw was a bison lumbering along the side of the road. We were pretty psyched about that.

Our first stop was Gibbon Falls, a waterfall that drops over a remnant of the Yellowstone caldera rim.

Celine wasn’t jazzed at this moment of the trip because I asked her not to sprint down a hill (crushing spirits, that’s me). We tried to get her to give Juliette a high five.

She was also complaining because her sunglasses were in the van. So I gave her mine…and she complained that they were too big. #toddlerproblems

We packed back in the car and headed to Artist Point – the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It was majestic…for real. Look at it:

Obviously we took six thousand photos in front of it.

Notice Celine acquired her sunglasses.

Some photo attempts were less successful.

After that, we headed over to the Lake Hotel for a picnic lunch. We had the option of eating our lunch inside, but we wanted to sit on a picnic table by the lake and take it all in. Which is what we did…

…until it started hailing on us!

We packed up our lunches and headed to the car, finishing up lunch and playing around while we waited for the hail to stop.

After lunch (and a brief rest at the Lake Hotel), Bruce drove us the 1.5 hours to Old Faithful. Juliette wasn’t interested in napping but Celine took some time to herself.

We got to Old Faithful about 15 minutes before it went off, so it was good timing (it erupts approximately every 90 minutes). We looked inside the Old Faithful Inn while we waited – it’s a pretty impressive place!

Mike stayed in the car with Celine as she was still sleeping, but she woke up just in time to see the geyser erupt. She was calling all geysers and hot spots “fireworks” all day.

The next stop was the Grand Prismatic Spring. It was probably the fan favorite of our van – SO interesting. Celine in particular couldn’t get enough.

The water dribbled down to the adjacent river.

We saw some other hot springs, geysers, fumaroles, and paint pots.

Many of them smelled of sulfur which delighted the girls. Lots of shrieking about things smelling like toots!

We were all pretty beat at this point, and the kiddos had done their best at being good kids but were tired as well.

All in all, Yellowstone was almost exactly as I imagined – amazing, beautiful, awe-inspiring, and vast. It was really cool to get out in true nature and remember what’s out there. I was slightly bummed we didn’t spot a grizzly…but it gives us a reason to go back! 🙂

Montana

Whew…where to begin!

Earlier this year, we planned a week in Montana with Michael’s side of the family. Mike’s mom heard of a place called Moonlight Basin in the southern part of Montana (Big Sky), so that’s where we booked. We headed out last Wednesday for a week of excitement!

We weren’t exactly sure what we were going to do when we got there since the three girls are too young to do any of the outdoor sports stuff (whitewater rafting, mountain biking, etc), but we ended up filling our days quite nicely.

DAY ONE:
Grammy, Grumps, and the Chauvins had an early morning flight to Dallas, and we were all on the same plane up to Bozeman. The plane had screens and was only about 3/4 full, so it was an easy flight and the kids did great. We shuffled around quite a bit to visit each other and before we knew it, we were in Montana!

The Bozeman airport is really small which made for an easy exit. Getting our rental cars took about 10 minutes – really wish Boston could learn a thing or two from the Hertz counter in Montana!

The ladies piled in one car to take the kiddos to the house while the men took the other car to Costco. It took about 45 minutes to drive to the house which included multiple animal spottings (elk, mountain goats, and deer). We spent the rest of the evening unpacking and frolicking around in the gorgeous weather. The views weren’t crystal clear because of the forest fires but it was still a beautiful place!

Sweater weather! I kept calling the girls’ fleeces “sweaters” which really irritated Louise. “They’re jackets, mom!!”

As I tend to do, I decided last minute to get matching mountain pj’s for the girls (we can all agree that matching clothes is VERY important). Look at these cuties! “The mountains are calling and I must go.” (John Muir)

DAY TWO
We started out strong with a hike to a waterfall. We rented hiking backpacks with the house which worked out perfectly. Louise and Celine both were a little cranky on the hike back, but in general it was a great way to spend the first morning in Montana.

We took it easy for the rest of the day, acclimating to the altitude. We headed into the base camp area to check it out and get some ice cream in the afternoon.

Juliette had a toy that was plastic cake slices in different colors. She and Celine immediately clashed over the pink cake slice. Louise tried to mediate, hiding the slice in different places in the house. Celine would wait until Juliette was distracted and swoop in to snag it. Here she is hoarding all of the slices under her legs. We all learned lessons about sharing on this trip. *sigh*

DAY THREE
We took it pretty easy the next day (Friday), too. Lots of hanging out around the house, hot tub time, and matching pj’s. (Notice the cake slices next to Celine)

Mike and I decided to take a jog while the girls were resting…turns out we weren’t super prepared for a hilly run at such a high altitude. We completed two miles but it wasn’t easy!

We headed back to base camp for some playground time. Celine found an enclave of candy and launched into a five minute rationalization of why she should have some.

A little puzzle time!

DAY FOUR
We stuffed quite a bit into Saturday – another hike, boating, and an evening concert in the town square of Big Sky.

We started with a hike on the ski mountain.

Celine was not into it until we started picking flowers.

Booger Queen.

Trying to get a picture with three small children…

Oh well. Let’s head down!

We hung out for a bit at the base of the mountain, soaking up the good weather.

After nap/rest time, we gave Grammy a bit of alone time and took the girls to the lake for paddle-boating and canoeing.

We headed back to the house to pick up Grammy and motored to the town center for an outdoor concert. It was easily one of the most enjoyable parts of the trip – the girls were free to frolic, we had pizza and drinks, and the weather was absolutely perfect. Also, I learned that a can of wine is two glasses…good to know.

Grammy tried out a huckleberry smoothie which immediately gained interest from the grandgirls. So they each got their own to devour.

In between bursts of energy, all three gathered grass in cups – followed shortly by dumping the grass clippings all over everyone. Rinse, repeat.

Celine and Juliette decided we were stationed too far back, and ventured to the pit for some dancing.

Mambo Kings’ biggest fans!

DAY FIVE
Sunday was our all-day tour of Yellowstone. I’m doing a separate post on that. It was amazing!

DAY SIX
We had scheduled an expedition to the peak of the mountain at 8:45 in the morning, but we awoke to rain and cold weather. We moved it to 11:30 which worked out much better. The morning was spent lounging around and watching Mary Poppins.

Then we headed out! We waited around for a few minutes before the trip began, and the girls played some putt-putt and Celine found a walking stick.

To get to the peak we had to take the chair lift to a covered truck to a gondola/tram. The truck and tram really tested Dominique and my height anxiety, but Louise and Celine LOVED the chair lift. Might have been their favorite part of the whole trip. Celine couldn’t stop exclaiming “this is so FUN!” the whole ride up and down.

Celine absolutely loved being above the clouds. I had an iron grip on that klutz!

Visibility was not great, but there were breaks in the clouds so we could see the surrounding mountains.

The excursion took about 2.5 hours, and after getting back, we relaxed at the house and the boys cooked one final, delicious dinner. We started getting everything together for our trip back the next day.

DAY SEVEN
We were out of the house around 10am and drove back to Bozeman. We took a quick detour to check out the downtown area and then headed to the airport. We were so sad to leave the beautiful house and perfect weather, but we were happy to be back home!

Toledo Bend

Just like last year, Louise is spending a week in New Orleans with her grandparents. We headed to the border of Texas and Louisiana to make the hand-off with Mike’s parents over the weekend. There’s a reservoir called Toledo Bend, and we met up at Cypress Bend resort for the night. Dom, Ross, and sweet Juliette came as well so it was a fun 24 hours with cousins!

The resort was lovely and had beautiful views of the reservoir.

We were there for less than 24 hours, so our primary activities were swimming, coloring, and eating – and taking copious photos of the cousins giggling around town.

Good times. 🙂

Colorado vacation

The Fausaks planned a trip to Colorado Springs this year, and Mike and I tacked on a Denver trip for a couple of days prior to see some of our friends and explore the city. It was a fun trip and I’m already missing the weather!

We flew in on Thursday afternoon and settled in our hotel for a few before heading out to dinner with our friends, who moved to Denver for a job about a year ago. Louise and her friend Amelie picked right up where they left off last year, as did we! It was bittersweet seeing them because it reminded us how much we like their company.

A little screen time so the parents could chitchat in peace. 🙂

Friday morning we went to breakfast at Syrup around the corner from our hotel. We were not impressed – very slow service and the food was bland. We should have just eaten the free breakfast at our hotel!

After breakfast we grabbed the stroller and walked to the Children’s Museum. It was about a two mile walk across LoDo and down a trail along a river. The Children’s Museum was great, and we could have spent hours there…except for one thing – we lost Celine. She walked out of a play area without us noticing and ended up going downstairs and outside. After a frantic 15 minutes of searching, I found her holding hands with a staff member (who looked just about as worried as I did). Both Celine and I had a good cry…and then she promptly revised history and informed me that we walked outside and left her. Oh Celine.

We headed back to the hotel to rest, and then found a park around the corner from our hotel that had live music, mini golf and other games, and a beer garden. We had planned on spending a short while there before heading to dinner, but ended up getting brats at the beer garden and calling it a night due to Celine’s crabbiness.

Saturday rolled around and my parents drove up from Colorado Springs to pick us up. Before heading down, we hit up the Aquarium. Celine was pretty ambivalent about it (except for the otters and tiger) but Louise was super interested.

Louise and Papa spent 10+ minutes watching all of the stingrays swim around, picking up pebbles on the ground and dumping them as they swam along.

The tiger rolled out right as we walked by. Louise casually took three big steps back, but Celine was entranced. #kitty

After a (surprisingly delicious) lunch at the Aquarium restaurant, we packed up and headed to Colorado Springs.

The original house my mom rented was further north, but between booking and our stay, they sold the house and cancelled our reservation. We were scrambling a little bit until my mom found this house – it had just been renovated and was recently added as an option. It turned out to be perfect! There was an amazing view of Pikes Peak right out the front door (and Mike and my bedroom), and it was a half mile from Garden of the Gods and super close to all the things we wanted to do (the zoo, Cave of the Winds, etc). There was an enormous park directly across the street with a playground, tennis courts, and a baseball diamond, which was great to help the kids work out some energy or when the boys wanted to throw the Frisbee. It was great!

We didn’t do much the first evening there beyond go to the grocery store and cook dinner. I managed to take a little jog around Garden of the Gods and took about 200 selfies…so pretty!!

Sunday we woke up and headed to Garden of the Gods for a nature hike. We were wondering how the girls would do on a hike. Celine was carried on various shoulders for the majority of the trip, but Louise happily hoofed it the whole time – over two miles!

Celine was all about climbing, even when she would slip down on the gravel.

I thought I was taking a picture of my two cuties strolling along together, but instead caught Louise red-handed, hitting Celine with her water bottle.

We were pretty pooped after the walk, so we took it easy the rest of the day. Mike cooked dinner again because that’s what he does, and then we utilized the fire pit in the front yard for s’more making. Celine’s first s’more!

Our big outing on Monday was to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. We mobilized early in anticipation of the zoo crowds, which proved smart – it was a madhouse when we left and parking was completely full! Since it was the day before Independence Day, the girls wore spangled leggings.

We’ve decided that Louise is an aquarium girl and Celine is a zoo girl. Celine was super into the animals and kept saying she wanted to “meet” them. Sorry girlfriend, you only get to meet the giraffe and a couple of reptiles!

“It’s so SOFT!”

Because the zoo is on a mountain, it made for some pretty epic views. Not that I was very good at capturing them…

After we were done (translation: when Celine’s body language told us she was done), we headed down the mountain a bit for lunch at the Golden Bee at the Broadmoor. The food was ok and the ambiance was nice, but we were all grouchy because it took over an hour for our food to arrive. Boo!

Once again, we ate at the house and cooked s’mores afterward.

Tuesday was INDEPENDENCE DAY! We (well…the girls) donned our red, white, and blue, and headed out early to check out the Cave of the Winds. Celine: not impressed.

The organization of the place was not great: we were told our tour started at 8:40am but it ended up being the 9:40am tour. In any case, it was an interesting tour of the caves and both girls did a good job. There was one section where they turned off all the lights and had Louise blow out a candle to show how pitch dark it is down there. Naturally, Celine immediately shrieked out “it’s too dark! I don’t like this!” and everyone in our tour group giggled. Celine was fine once the lights came back on and enjoyed reminding everyone for the rest of the day how “her face was dark and she got scared.”

We headed home and the girls played in some water while my parents and Rusty headed to the Manitou Incline.

My grandma and her sister came over for dinner in the evening.  Louise wrote my grandma a note on the sidewalk since her birthday was the next day.

We hung out in the front yard waiting for fireworks, chatting and playing Outburst.

The next morning we packed up and headed out! My parents dropped us (and Taylor and Hillary) at the Denver airport and then started their drive back to Dallas, so we had a few hours to kill waiting for our flight. We were all pretty tired.

Louise was part of the backpack crew. 🙂

All in all, it was one of the more relaxing vacations we’ve been on in recent history – considering we travel with two young kids. It was nice to have activities every day, but no day was too jam-packed. Here’s hoping we can do it again next year (this time with the entire Fausak clan)!

Mother’s Day

I had to leave to London for work on Mother’s Day, so early on I wanted to plan something with the girls and my mom to get some QT before I headed out. I decided on brunch at the Arboretum, and it was a hit! I dressed the girls up in smocked dresses and we headed out.

All the ladies!

It was a lovely brunch and it was nice to get the grandmas together for some quality time!

Rusty and Jess’ wedding: the flower girls

Rusty and Jess got their professional photos back from their wedding, and other than the photos doing a great job of highlighting how beautiful and perfect their wedding was, I finally have pictures of Louise and Celine in their flower girl duties!

Notice Mike in the background, miming throwing petals on the ground for Celine 🙂

There are also a couple of photos of me doing my reading.

Love these people!

Rusty and Jess’ wedding!

This past weekend, the Haydels headed down to Austin for the Rusty and Jessica wedding extravaganza!

We picked up the girls from school on Thursday and headed down. We stopped in Hillsboro at the Wendy’s and it was deserted, which gave the girls an opportunity to run out some energy.

My parents rented a house in south Austin and it was pretty amazing. We enjoyed the large patio and backyard for a bit before heading to bed.

The girls had their own room, which was good except they were giggling together until after 11pm. Come on ladies…your parents are tired!

Friday was full of running errands. My mom and I picked up the flowers – we were in LOVE! They were so pretty!!

My brother made the wooden flower boxes. They were enormous – four of them plus the arrangement for the arbor barely fit in our Tahoe.

We also ordered flower crowns for my little flower girls. I had to try them on, of course.

We all got ready for the evening and headed out to the rehearsal! (Notice the awesome Austin traffic all around us)

Both girls fell asleep in the car…

…which meant that they were at the rehearsal like this:

When Celine is grumpy, she tucks in her bottom lip and peeks at everyone through her eyelashes.

They perked up a bit for the rehearsal dinner…and then promptly got bored. Luckily we live in the digital age and can provide easy entertainment via our phones.

The rehearsal dinner was at Max’s Wine Dive, and my mom did super cute Lord of the Rings centerpieces with Lego LotR ensembles. They were so cute and SO Rusty.

The food was delicious and of course the wine!

My parents gave a little welcome speech and my mom thanked everyone for coming…and promptly started crying when talking to Rusty and Jess. Only the second time she cried that day – the first was when she picked up the flowers. At least now I know where I get it from!

Mike and I left with the girls around 8pm and headed back to the house for the girls’ bedtime. Both girls weren’t in the best moods (see: 11:30pm bedtime the night before), and Celine had one of her epic meltdowns. At one point she clawed me in the face, leaving a gash on my right cheek and a couple of other marks. I was pretty bummed about it considering the wedding (aka lots of pics) was the next day, but the silver lining was that it shocked Celine so much, she stopped her fit.

The next morning was wedding day!! The boys and Katie hung with the kiddos while the rest of the ladies went for blowouts in the morning.

After a morning filled mainly with driving to multiple hamburger joints, we headed over to Rusty and Jess’ to see what we could help with. The girls were surprisingly good while we set the tables, made corsages, and other things.

The flower boxes didn’t fit on the slim tables, but my mom found a great place for them and everything worked out beautifully. The flowers on the arbor also turned out amazing – I think they really set the tone for the ceremony!

I headed back to the rental house with the girls to get ready, along with my parents, Katie, and Hillary. Mike and Taylor stayed with the groomsmen and Liz stayed to make sure everything was set up and ready to go, both for her officiating duties and all of the sound.

My parents left for the wedding with Hillary a little before 4, and Katie hopped in her car to drive Elliot and herself over. At 4pm our babysitter arrived, so Louise, Celine, the babysitter, and I got in the car and headed to the wedding! I loved our babysitter (Laura). She is a sophomore at UT in Texas Spirits and the girls took to her almost immediately…mainly because she had long blond hair LIKE ELSA.

We arrived at Rusty and Jess’ around 4:40, and Laura hovered around the girls while we got ready for game time. Katie was stressing out about keeping Elliot clean and not getting into anything, but finally just let him run around pre-ceremony, shrugging and saying “what’s the worst that could happen?” Finally it was time to go!

Everyone did their thing, and it was time for the ring bearer and flower girls to make their trek down the aisle before Jess. Elliot enthusiastically started trotting down the aisle, but tripped, causing the rings to fly out of their box and into the grass. There was a frantic three minute search for the rings while Louise and Celine anxiously waited for their turn to walk. Someone found Rusty’s ring but Jess’ was still missing. Everyone decided to wait until after the ceremony – Liz gave Rusty her ring to use in the interim – and it was time for the girls to walk.

I ushered Louise and Celine to the start of the aisle and told them to walk to Papa, then went around the side and met them at the end of the aisle. I was surprised and pleased that both girls walked down the aisle and actually dropped their petals! Celine had an overhand throw technique and was only throwing one at a time, but overall they did a great job. I wish someone took a video of their walk, but I’m sure there are a couple of pretty good professional photos. Looking forward to seeing those.

Liz did an amazing job with the ceremony, and I managed to get through my reading without choking up. It was special seeing the two of them commit to each other. Neither of them are typically weepy/emotional people, but they made an exception for their wedding.

The kids did an exceptional job being good children during the ceremony!

I tried to get as many pics as I could, but I didn’t get one of the Haydels, of me and Jessica, or of the entire Fausak family. Oh well!

But I DID get one with the groom!

There was some dancing…

…a couple late-night pics…

…and that’s all she wrote! It was a wonderful wedding and it seemed like everyone had a great time, bride and groom included! Congrats again, Rusty and Jess!