June 16-24 ( A long time..I know!!!)

Sorry everyone that it took me so long to finally write another blog! I've been crazy busy since the last one. I took the week off of work because my family began arriving on the 16th, so I've been staying with them.

My dad was the first to arrive on the night of the 16th and I met up with him the morning of the 17th at Madison Campground (on the west side of the park) where I camped with him for a couple days. We did a lot of fishing (pretty much sucked) and we did an overnight backpacking trip into Grebe Lake (near Canyon area) where we fished and cause some nice rainbow trout and arctic grayling (1st time I've ever caught any of these!).... Grebe Lake is this blog's picture! Hope you like it! I'm trying to get more pictures up on other sites, but it's slow internet everywhere!!!

I "worked" Wednesday night, although I hurried it up so I could get to West Yellowstone b/c my dad had gone to Bozeman, MT to pick up my mom and sister. I surprised them b/c they didn't know I was going to be there! They thought they weren't going to see me until the next morning. (I got there early so I could sit in the hotel room and watch tv, my first tv in 6 weeks!)

Pretty much since then we've done tourist things. We spent Thursday in Jackson and came up through Targhee National Forest and through Idaho and stuff...which was really nice. We ate at this little restaurant in Ashton, Idaho, but it ended up being one of the best meals I've had in sooo long. I got new cowboy boots in Jackson b/c I had outgrown my old ones.

The next day we did tourist things in the park and went swimming at the Firehole River. Sandra, Andrea, Julio, and Susan were there, so I spent time with them and introduced them to my family and stuff. haha.

After Firehole, we drove back and got ready b/c we met Matt and Spencer in town and ate dinner at Bullwinkles (a restaurant/bar/liquor store in West Yellowstone). After dinner, we went to the W. Yellowstone Rodeo, which was really good. The rodeo clown made some dumb jokes and it was a smaller crowd but the riders definitely put their heart and soul into what they were doing.

Saturday we hiked the DeLacy Creek trail down to Shoshone Lake and spent the afternoon on the lake shore. I just read and relaxed and ate some food...spent some good quality time with the family. Megan and I hiked back in our bare feet (3 miles..which makes a 6 mile round trip for the day) just b/c we wanted to prove we could do it!

We then visited Firehole Lake Drive and saw some sweet geothermal stuff.

Today my dad, sister, and myself drove through the Gallatin National Forest near Big Sky, MT and went whitewater rafting on the Gallatin River with Montana Whitewater, Inc. We rafter about 10-11 miles through some Class II-III. It was a good time. Luckily I didn't fall out but def. got to see some good scenery and meet some good people.

Well, the summer is halfway over and I still have a huge list of things to do, so hopefully the blogs will be getting a little more interested as we progress towards the last few days (I'm done August 10th).

Keep me in your prayers and ya'll shall be in mine!