In a cavern in a canyon...

We made the trek to the cabin in Island park this year. On our way we were unfortunate enough to be caught in traffic of a propane truck rollover. We were sitting on the freeway for an hour. We let the boys out to walk around and made friends with some people with an RV. Jayben was in heaven and even used their potty.

Once we finally arrived at the cabin and started setting things up we were delighted with a surprise from Grandpa Jay! All the boys love him. I think Ben was as excited as Jayben that his dad was there with us.

Grandpa and Harm took the boys on a hike while Ben and Josh went to find out about renting some 4 wheelers. I was left behind with Lucky. But was quickly able to track down the hikers due to Jaybens animal calls.

Now I aint sayin he's a gold digger...But Josh did find some old used bullets and a bottle top.

We even took the opportunity to take some family pics and try to recreate some old ones!

Sadly, Lincoln is not quite as excited as Jayben was to take a picture on a wooden bridge.

The first night was great. We ate some ginormous marshmallows and made smores! Yummy! Lincoln slept like a champ. Jayben apparently grinds his teeth which was not so soothing for sleeping. It was rough. I think we got about 3 hours of sleep.

So we got up early. Ben and Jay went for runs. I made multiple trips to deliver water, sunscreen and bandaids.

At this point we decided to plan our day. We started out at Big Springs. Which was a little of a disappointment. Only saw a few fish.

We did get to visit a 4'11" German mans cabin. That was a little exciting. Ok not really.

Then it was off to go river rafting down the Snake River at Henry's fork. The term river rafting is used loosely. We (Ben and Josh actually) had to paddle most of the way to even keep us moving. But it was good for the kids.

The kids were supposed to wear life jackets but they didn't have one for Lincoln and he did not want to wear it. He had a major freak out on the boat until we would let him out in the water.

So here is the funny part. We were floating down the river and we saw this guy. As we got closer we realized he wasn't even wearing a tank top. But he was having a good time and that is important!

It got kind of dangerous here. We were almost to the end of our ride and we saw a moose in the river. As smart as we are, we all decided to get a closer look. We changed our minds last second but it was too late and we had to go right by this mama moose and her 2 babies. Luckily she must have known we were harmless but it was a little scary.

We then went to West Yellowstone to enjoy the sites. We told Jayben that Old Faithful was closed so that we didn't have to go in the park.

At some point in our journey Ben got low. He just kept telling me he was hungry. (and in my defense, he wasn't being silly so I didn' think he was low).  We stopped at this cute restaurant and ordered Ben some lemonade. But it was taking too long so we ended up eating at Dairy queen, where these Asian tourists asked to take a picture with our white kids. So funny.

We headed back to the cabin. We made some delish peach cobbler and  headed in for the night. Jayben was going to go snipe hunting but decided he should wait until he is 7. Our night of sleep was not much better than the first. Jayben woke up hitting his night light because the batteries died. Funny now, not so much in the night.

Sunday was good. We made our tinfoil dinners and cleaned up the cabin before heading out.

On our way home we stopped at Mesa Falls. It was so beautiful!

Thanks to the people who took our picture and forgot to mention that we were blocking the waterfall.

Finally we got on the road!

We were cruising along and decided to stop at a rest stop. We all went to the bathroom and for a walk around a trail and jumped back in the car. No more than 10 minutes later, Jayben starts screaming that he has to pee. Not wanting to stop again we found the first thing we could that he could pee in...a water bottle. He filled it so fast that Ben had to guzzle another one so he could finish in that.

All in all it was a successful trip. Our boys were good travelers. We might even do it again.

And we even got this gem while we were there.