Day 11-13: 3,363

Well all good things must come to an end like this vacation.  We woke up, packed up and started our 2 day journey home.  We broke up the 18 hours into 2 stops, 1 just outside of Cheyanne and the other by Lincoln Nebraska and then finally home.

Josie and I twinning on the way home!

In Nebraska, we had a pretty sweet patio site but I did not get any pictures of it.  

And the lightning bugs were out in full force so we all got to catching.  This is also another time I realized I need glasses.  I could see them then go up to catch them and I could NOT see them anywhere.  It's rough getting old....

After 3,363.9 miles on the road, we were home.  

This vacation was awesome!  I am so thankful that everything went smoothly, every got along great and we arrived home safe!  We were truly blessed with an amazing time, weather and experience.  The kids have still said that this was the best vacation ever!  I hope they remember this for the rest of their lives! I love making these memories with them!

We had one day home and turned around on Friday to go for our 4th of July camping for another 4 days.  For a total of 2.5 weeks away and camping. Whew!  I am certainly glad to be in my own bed but I def didn't want to get back to reality.

Day 10 Grand Tetons-Hike Jenny lake, Cascade falls, inspiration point and Mormon Row

We pushed the kids a bit on this day and decided to try a 7 mile hike with them at Jenny Lake

Jenny Lake

They all again carried their own hiking bags

And some of the trail was a bit sketchy.

We made it to Cascade falls!

We took a long break here and lunch on a rock while enjoying the views and the waterfall.  

My little Nature girl!

After lunch we continued on up to inspiration point.  And here is where the trail gets a little tougher!

The main kid we worried about here was crazy Eli, him acting goofy and then slipping and falling off the cliff. LOL

Inspiration Point!

Then we hiked back down.  The kids did really good and made the entire hike!  All were tired but glad they did it. 

Mormon Row--It is literally like a picture out of a book!

This is the only place I wished I had my big girl camera and wished I had taken family photos here.  Joey, Josie and Eli were too tired from the hike to get out.  I wished I woulda forced them...

Can you imagine living here and having the Tetons as your daily backdrop? 

I did get Ella to pose :)

Seriously this is AMAZING!  I recommend everyone to go here, in nice clothes and get family pictures done here!

Then we tried to get everyone's step count from the day but in the dark it was hard to do.  But we all had over 25,000 steps this day.  We were pretty tired by the end of the day. 

But not to tired for some more chalk art!

NPT Day 9 White Water rafting

Joey and I have been white water rafting a few times and we thought the kids would really enjoy it so we agreed to do it.  Eli was "5/10 excited because he was kinda scared too"

I think Eli had that smile on his face the entire time!!

Josie behind me paddling

Here is Eli "riding the bull" through some rapids.  He totally wanted to try this all on his own.  I think he was surprised by how cold that water was when it hit him.  My little adventurer!

Dad and Ella wanted to see how cold the water was then too! 

Family pic on the boat

Josies turn to jump in the cold water!

I tried to just take in the views while we were between rapids.  So pretty.

Soaking wet when thru

Here is the professional picture going thru the rapids.  I wished we were all closer together on the boat.

This was an easy favorite of all the kids.  They want to do it again when we get home! HAHA..Joey and I laughed at that for FLAT Iowa!

And Joey had a great eye when he spotted this moose on the side of the parking lot.  We were again about 4 feet away, in our vehcle, of this moose.

Our view from our campground is quite amazing.  I was getting spoiled with all these views and makes camping in Iowa LAME!

Bear country is no joke here.  They give us a bear box at our campsite and we have to put all food, toiletrees that have scents and trash in this bear box.  All can attract bear and that can be super dangerous, obviously!

With no electricity the kids were forced to be outside more.  When we bought the comforter I had also bought sidewalk chalk for the kids.  They did yellowstone chalk art on the road.  They did so good, but was so funny is SO MANY people stopped to comment on their art.  Everyone thought it was so good and enjoyed it and another person came with a brand new container of chalk so they would keep going!!!  

Eli was allowed to bring a pocket knife that uncle Randy had given him and here is being crazy with it. 

NPT Day 8-Grand Tetons-Jackson overlook and Signal mountain.

We packed up the camper and headed to the Grand Tetons.  We saw a TON of wildlife this day.

Here we are passing a buffalo walking on the road.  We are literally 3 feet away in our vehicle

Yellowstone lake

The water temp was still very cold, like low 40's

We saw a herd of buffalo, more bears and bear cubs, elk.  We saw so much MORE wildlife when were leaving.  It was so amazing.  Wishing we could have seen some wolves but we weren't around at the right time of day.

We finally made it to Tetons and Jackson Lake.  These mountains and lake are gorgeous.

Then we hiked to Signal Mountain and totally took advantage of this backdrop for a family picture!

Picture perfect!

More views and a sneaky sneak ;)

See the mountains behind the sign :)

Driving to our campsite. 

This is what I would say was the ONLY bad thing that had happened on the trip.  When we booked our site at Tetons we somehow didn't catch that it was non-electric. Joey left the battery for the camper at home because we thought we had all electric spots so we had no heat because it is an electric start and no water because of the water pump needing electricity.  The lows were in the 40's at night and we felt all of the coldness in our pop-up.  We were layered and used every blanket we had and we were still cold.  We ended up going to target and getting a comforter for us because Joey and I were SO cold.  It was game changer and made the next 2 nights bearable.  We made it all 3 nights "roughing" it.