October 2014: Mammoth

 On October 1-2, we drove to Mammoth Lakes, CA to camp.  The drive was long, steep and windy.  We set up camp a few miles before Mammoth, but got a pretty spot by June Lake.  It was a little colder than we were expecting, but we had a fun evening throwing rocks.

The rocks were very porous and the small ones floated.  The small lava rocks were very unique to walk on too.  It was a bit crunchy and soft at the same time.

Building towers.

 

For how much we take Kaitlyn camping, we had yet to have a bad experience.  This was that night.  The temperature kept dropping and was getting way colder than we expected.  It got to the low 20s which is really really cold for us California people.  Kaitlyn wasn't eating anything at dinner (she wouldn't even eat s'mores).  She also kept trying to take her coat off.  Then she went to sleep and kept waking up screaming because she wouldn't keep the blankets on and it was too cold.  We took her on a drive to calm down and warm up.  Then as she was almost asleep, we put her back in the tent and tried covering her tiny tent with a big blanket to keep the heat in, but it eventually got cold too.  She woke up a while later and we went on another drive in the middle of the night.  This time she fell asleep on me and I stayed in the car to sleep while Jeremy went back to the tent.  My body heat kept Kaitlyn warm enough to actually sleep, but it was pretty uncomfortable for me.  We ended up getting about 3 hours of actual sleep that night, and Kaitlyn slept in pretty late.  It was a rough night and we decided not to camp another night like we had originally planned.

When we got up and going, we drove the rest of the way to Mammoth and wished we had time to hike to the Minarets way out there.

Mammoth ski resort.

We hiked to Devils Postpile National Monument. These rocks were pretty bizarre.

Dum-dums are the way to keep this girl happy in the backpack.

Here are some of the few fall leaves we got to see.  

Rock climbing.

Rainbow Falls always has a rainbow.

Here's the top of the Devil's Postpile.  I thought it looked a lot like giant pavers.  Who knew we were copying nature?

Gathering as many pine cones as she can hold.

A new variation of rock throwing is pine cone throwing.  

Kaitlyn was terrified of the wooly mammoth. 

Kaitlyn loves jumping off things, so this was how we made her happy again even though we were still too near the mammoth.

We stopped at Lake Mary to play in the water for a while.  We timed it just right because they came to restock the lake while we were standing there.

This huge tank had so many rainbow trout.  They just kept coming and coming.  It was pretty funny to watch the confused fish try to swim on the land.  I think shooting out of a tank that fast disoriented them a lot.

After driving around Mammoth Lakes a little more, we headed out.  We wanted to see Mono Lake and it's Tufas.  Jeremy learned about this lake in Law school, so he knew a lot about it's legal history.

These are the Tufa rocks which are created from fresh underwater springs mixing with the salt water that create the limestone towers.

We drove home through Yosemite and timed it perfectly to see Half Dome at sunset.  It was beautiful!

 

 One last picture of Kaitlyn being silly.  She loves coloring with crayons and markers.

September 2014: St. Louis

We went to St. Louis, Missouri September 18-23 to visit Nicole, Stan, Mykelle, Hailey, and Alena Taylor.  It was so much fun and they made it one of our best trips ever!  Kaitlyn had so much fun with Mykelle and Hailey and she has a special bond with Uncle Stan (and Aunt Nikki for that matter).  Here come the pictures.  We didn't take many of them playing inside together, but they were to cute.  Kaitlyn got pretty good at jumping with 2 other girls, but still wanted me or Jeremy with her most of the time.

Kaitlyn loved playing with all the toys, even the baby toys.  But, then she got stuck and wasn't as happy anymore.

Thursday afternoon, we went to the City Museum.  It was probably one of the coolest places I have ever been.  It was a playground for adults and we made it work with the kids.  This picture is of Jeremy helping Kaitlyn go up two stories in a open metal staircase right above the slide beneath it.  Kaitlyn did really well on all this stuff.  So did Mykelle and Hailey, but especially Mykelle.  She was really brave.

Jeremy and Stan are taking Mykelle up the inside of the dome.

Looking down from the top of the dome.

Everything here is recycled and someone spent a lot of time building it and making it really amazing.

The giant ball pit was Kaitlyn's favorite part.  The girls just squealed with delight the whole time.  The only drawback was that it was cement at the bottom and no padding.

Everything was narrow and small.  It was nice to be here on a cool day with the breeze always there (at least on the outside stuff).

Going up another wormhole.  This was to get onto an airplane.

The girls were so excited to wear their matching Frozen shirts that Grandma got them.

Sitting on top of the airplane.

This tunnel was very high off the ground so only Stan, Jeremy and Mykelle did it.  It moved quite a bit too.

Getting eaten by the dragon slide.

The dragon slide was a hit with the girls.  It wasn't too long or fast, but the run out was a bit slow and hard to get out of for the adults.

 There was a kids room with another ball pit.  Kaitlyn needed this room to warm up (we went here before all the outside stuff).

We were there for 3 hours that flew by.  We played in some tunnels and slides inside, a skate park type area, a ten story slide, and many other things outside.  There was even a small aquarium.  We only saw part of 2 of the floors and there were 7.  I really want to go back and see the rest of it.  

After the City Museum closed, we went to the St. Louis Arch.  We ate a yummy dinner that Nicole made ahead of time and played around on this hill overlooking the river.

Mykelle was swinging from these branches and the other two couldn't quite do it the same.

We realized it is really hard to get in a picture with the arch because it is so tall so this is the best we have.

Playing on the stairs.

Shoulder rides almost work.

We got home and put all the girls to bed.  They were exhausted from all that we did.  On Friday while Mykelle was in school, we went to Grant's Farm (Anheuser Busch owns it).  It was Ulysses S Grant's farm and now it has a wild animal tour, a small zoo, a really cool elephant show, and lots of Clydesdale horses.  Kaitlyn was scared of the horses so we didn't get to look at those very long.  They are so big!  The elephants were great and did a lot of tricks including blowing up a giant balloon.  Sadly, this is the only picture.

We went home and the girls had a blast playing while we had a quick dinner.  Then we drove to see the Hot Air Balloon Glow and fireworks.  We went with all of St. Louis and the traffic was terrible so it was a long drive even though it wasn't that far.  We finally got there and they were too much for Kaitlyn.  We walked in the middle of them feeling the heat from their fires, but Kaitlyn lost it so we had to back out.

Once we made it to a safe distance, Kaitlyn was much happier and we got to watch fireworks on a hill.  It was a long walk back to the car and we were all exhausted again.

On Saturday, we started off the day with The Magic House Children's Museum.  Painting is always a big hit.

Jeremy is the top, I am left middle and Nicole is right middle.  

Playing music.

This got a little scary for Kaitlyn, but Mykelle went all the way up to the top.

This little house with a garden and food was Kaitlyn's favorite part of the Museum.  

Hailey was the only one who did this and she was too small to do it by herself.

After the Children's Museum, Stan came home from work and was able to come with us to the St. Louis Botanical Gardens.  They were beautiful and the girls had fun exploring.  This was the most humid day and it wasn't too bad so we really lucked out with weather.

The maze was the best.

These were in the tropical dome.  It was beautiful and super humid in there.

Finally a picture of Alena, the happiest little baby ever!  She was always smiling and happy even though we just dragged her around everywhere with us.

 These birthday cakes are all over the city for St. Louis being 250 years old.

On Sunday, we went to church in the morning and I had to take a quick picture of Kaitlyn with Uncle Stan.  She loves Uncle Stan and has a special bond with him.

We had to get some cousins pictures.  They were all a little silly.

After church we drove to Nauvoo, Illinois which was a few hours away.  The Nauvoo Temple is beautiful and we were happy to be there by sunset. 

Joseph and Hyrum Smith on their way to their deaths to seal their testimonies with their blood.

We camped in some cabins that I probably wouldn't choose again, but they were cheap.  We woke up and had breakfast in the cold.  We went to the visitor's center and got tickets for a covered wagon ride through Nauvoo.  The girls had fun, but they didn't quite last the whole ride.  We had some tired little girls at this point, but they did really well for how much we tried to make them do.

Here we are making rope like the pioneers did.  This building was fun, it had stations to learn how they used to make things like barrels, weaving rugs, spinning, and others.  We got to take our rope, and Kaitlyn was thrilled about it.

Eating lunch.

The blacksmith shop was really cool and we all got Prairie Diamond rings and each family got a tiny horseshoe that they made in front of us.  Here they are showing off their rings.

The brick shop gave us a brick made in Nauvoo.  This was the last place Kaitlyn made it to.

Playing in the wagons while everyone else went to the Gunsmith's house.  This was Jeremy's favorite stop.

This is the Mendenhall House that has been restored.  This is one of Jeremy and Nicole's ancestor's house.

We drove to Carthage Jail to see where the Prophet Joseph Smith was martyred.  It was a very solemn place to be even with crazy tired kids.

This is the room where Joseph Smith and his friends were shot.

The drive home went well considering how tired the girls were.  Our last day, Monday, we went to the Zoo.  We got there early for members and their guests and got to touch sea rays as they swim by.  We also got to ride the carousel for free. This was a slide through the river otters' tank.

Playing house is the best right now.

We had so much fun and made so many wonderful memories on this trip.  This is just one more picture from the month.  Kaitlyn was being a bird with "feathers" (leaves).