Stampindipity By Deidre: July 2010

It has been a fast and furious month since I last posted…one of these days I will start posting more often, but for now, I do it when I can.

Life has been good for the Mooney’s lately. The day after the girls dance recital we headed off to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming for our vacation with our friends, the Fico’s. We stayed in a cabin outside of Bozeman, MT about 30 minutes north of the Gardiner entrance. Every which way you looked you saw magnificent mountains…check it out:

Yellowstone is just spectacular when it comes to seeing wildlife, we saw lots of bears, mountain goats, big horn sheep, bison, elk, mule deer, a coyote, trumpet swans and two bull nosed snakes. The only animal we didn’t see was a moose. They had a big fire in Yellowstone which burned up the trees that moose like to eat, so they have moved further south into the grand tetons. As the trees grow back, they expect the moose to return. Our friends from Alabama got up super early one morning to go see the wildlife (getting up super early on vacation doesn’t sounds like vacation to me, so we passed!) They left the house at 4 am and were rewarded with seeing wolf pups, a grizzly with a kill, grizzly cubs and lots of black bear cubs. So for them, the wild animal lovers, it was totally worth it. I was happy with just seeing them as we drove out of the park each night, there was plenty!! Here are some pics of the wildlife:

Here’s a pic of the whole family enjoying a little hike near Yellowstone lake:

and last but not least some amazing shots of Yellowstone, my favorite was the grand canyon of Yellowstone:

here's lake yellowstone:

and you have to see ol faithful while you are there:

Lastly, Yellowstone is known for its thermal activity, bubbling mud, fumaroles and geysers which make it truly unique. Here’s a few pics of that:

Now I just have to share a funny story! We finally took a nice hike away from lots of people and we were really enjoying ourselves. We met a family coming down the trail who said they had to leave their picnic, as they had seen a black bear and decided to get out of there. We were like, COOL! Let’s get up there! They happened to mention some sheep they had seen too. So, we come around a bend and see about 5 sheep that looked like this, pretty tame huh?

They were eating grass, looking at us, we were looking at them and wondering more about the bear. We didn’t take into account one thing:

8 year old Ben was last in line and decided to start bleating at the sheep..BAA BAA BAA…well the sheep didn’t like that at all and after a few seconds they started running at us!! I scooped Matilda up and ran like the dickens…Randy, (Ben’s dad) was ahead of me but started running past me, taking off his backpack so he could use it as a weapon….Joel had Matty up ahead and he started yelling, “Run for the trees!”…but that made me think…what about the damn bear???

Luckily, we made it to the trees, the sheep stopped running, and there was no bear to be found. Joel and Ralph (Randy’s Dad) kept an eye on the sheep while we gave them very wide berth….Randy was with the women and children and declared himself to be the secondary line of defense, in case the sheep broke past the other guys! All in all, looking back it was pretty funny, but I have to say the adrenaline was pumping for a minute or two, and we decided to cut our hike short just in case there was any other wildlife (besides Ben!) out there!! I mean if we can't handle sheep, I think a bear is definitely out of the question!

But it truly was a fabulous vacation. I am loving all the national parks. Next year maybe Zion???

I made another diaper cake last month for a bunko baby shower. I went with a vintage theme…check it out: