We left Twin Falls this morning but not without getting some pics of the bridge and what should be the falls (they are dry right now). It is beautiful out there. It’d be a nice place to live but it’s too cold for me.

After Twin we had a very full day. We stopped and had lunch at this place called Grumpy Goat which had Chicago style hot dogs (Vienna beef). Of course we had to stop there. Then we drove thru the Grand Tetons and stopped in Yellowstone. There were so many dead trees but still a lot of beautiful landscape. I was able to catch a pic of a bear. I wish I could have got a better one but the park ranger yelled at me to get back.

We ended up camping at Yellowstone. Patrick was beyond excited, running in circles and singing “We’re camping at Yellowstone” over and over. Little did he realize what we were getting into. You gotta love the ignorance of a child. The air compressor got fried so we couldn’t pump up the air mattresses. We got to sleep on the hard ground in our tent. Nolan should have realized he had it good sleeping in the Pack N Play but it was so darned cold, he would only sleep if I held him. Yeah, we could have stayed at the Inn but it would have cost us $240+ and we would have missed out on the adventure.

Some jerk yelled at Nolan to shut up when he woke up crying at the wee hours of the morning. Maybe if he hadn’t stayed up until 1am with his friends, he wouldn’t have been so grumpy. I have to admit I was running low on patience too though from a severe lack of sleep. The 4 of us ended up huddling together and going back to sleep for a couple of hours. We all felt much better afterwards.

We spent last night at Aunt Jeanne’s (Twin Falls) and got to spend today with her. She treated us to brunch and we treated her to dinner. We all enjoyed spending time with her, her dogs and her bird. We also took advantage of the opportunity to do some laundry and grocery shopping. Overall a relaxing time. Erin and I have really missed her and had been wanting to visit for quite some time. I am glad she got to see the boys, too.

Leaving Las Vegas. And not a moment too soon. Our hotel was blazing hot last night. They won’t run the a/c unless someone is in the room. And of course it was over 100 degrees, about 90 at night.

Poor Patrick lives to go in the pool. At the bug hotel the pool was green and even our 4 yr old knew it wasn’t supposed to be green and they need to put it back to blue (his words). The one in Tucson wasn’t so clean either. We finally get to a decent pool and it’s closed because they put chemicals in it. Oh, well.

We made our way to Jackpot, Nevada to meet up with our friend Tia (from Babyzone) and her family. We had dinner at the casino they were staying at. It was so nice to finally meet them. I’ve “known” Tia for probably 3 yrs now. She is such a generous person. I wish we lived closer together but then we’d probably go broke from having Starbuck’s all the time.

While we were talking outside to Tia and her family it rained ash on us from a big fire. You could really feel the smoke in your lungs. It was almost like being in the casino (just kidding). From Jackpot we made it to Twin Falls, Idaho to visit Aunt Jeanne.

Today we drove to Phoenix and stopped to have lunch with our friends Toby and Pamela. We lived with them for a couple of months when we were selling our house in San Diego. The visit ended up being 4 hours (oops) but we really enjoyed seeing them and the boys had a great time playing with their dogs, too.

We drove past the Joshua tree forest on the 93 and made our way into Boulder City, Nevada. We saw Hoover dam and it sure has changed since the last time Erin and I saw it, about 5 years ago. I think we got some really nice dam pictures.

Happy 4th of July! We had picked up some fireworks on our way to Tucson but have been warned against using them due to the draught. We spent the day at Betty’s and it was a full house. There was the 4 of us, Aunt Betty, Uncle Jack, cousin Paul, Grandma Fortenberry, Aunt Rosemary and Uncle Don, cousin Chris, Summer, Ryan and baby Avery, Jack (Erin’s dad) and Pam, plus all the dogs, birds, fish and bunny. Patrick really worked the room and we all had a great time. We were especially glad to spend time with Grandma.