Enjoying Today: Island Park- Part 2!

The last week of July, we had the opportunity to go up to Island Park again. This time it was for the Bird Family Reunion. It was definitely warmer the second time around! We stayed at the same place we did for the reunion 15 years ago. It was fun to think back on some of the memories from the past trip. For example, they still have the penny candies that we bought there 15 years ago.

Each family had their own little cabin to sleep in. This is a picture of ours.

We all hung out together at this big lodge. It was really nice!

We had so much fun together. I love how all the cousins are such good friends. I didn't realize, before this trip, how many girl babies there are around Ashlyn's age. Here are a few of them playing together.

Mickell loves playing with Claire. They both just happened to have the same shirt (and wear it the same day!) We had to get a picture of the twins!

Aunt Rebecca had some really fun crafts for the kids to work on.

Hailey had a lot of fun building domino houses with Uncle David.

Tanner spent lots of time riding bikes with the boys. For some reason I didn't get a picture of this.

On Tuesday, we took several rafts and tubes and floated down the river. Hailey was really nervous at first but started enjoying it a little more towards the end. Tanner and Mickell loved squirting water from water guns at the other rafts and tubers. We didn't dare take cameras down the river with us, but took a few pictures before we left.

Several of us floated down the river a second time. This time ended up being more of a rescue mission. As we were floating down, we noticed this really old lady in the water holding onto a branch. Everyone in our raft thought that she had been out in the water fishing. However, a few minutes later we ran into another lady that asked if we could paddle down stream and rescue their canoe. We went as fast as we could (while some of the other cousins rescued the ladies). We found their canoe right as it was going under water. Long story short- we took these ladies, as well as their granddaughters, all the way to the end of the trip. I'm really glad that we did decide to take that second trip so that we could help them.

On Wednesday, we went into West Yellowstone and out to Big Springs while everyone else went into Yellowstone. West Yellowstone was a lot of fun until we realized that Hailey wasn't with us. There were so many of us walking in and out of the stores together, that I guess I assumed she was holding someone else's hand. I don't think there are many feelings out there that are worse than not knowing where your child is. I ran up the main street, not even knowing where to start looking. Of course, all those worse case scenerios were running through my head. I was finally able to find her because I heard her in a store screaming. I knew that scream would be useful one of these days!!! She was really shaken up at the moment. But, she hasn't said anything about it since then. I'm hoping that's a good sign that she's not scarred for life because of this experience.

Here are a few pictures from Big Springs.