On the road again...imagine that!

So, I calculated it up. Of the 60 days of summer vacation so far the boys and I have been out of town for approximately 28 of those days!! Nate has joined us for about 5 of those days but WHOA. No wonder my garden produced nothing but weeds and my ward thinks I am pretty much inactive. I've probably got the neighbors wondering if our marriage is on the rocks. I told Nate....maybe I'm supposed to be a trucker or something. Hehe.....no way.

2 days after Starnespalooza my travel buddy, best friend, and wonderful GRANDMA EE came up and we jumped in the car and headed up for our yearly vacation up at Yellowstone!  It was a quick trip and we didn't see too many animals this time since we were headed the wrong way and we were there at the wrong time of day. It's still a magical place and unlike anywhere else on earth.

After Yellowstone we headed north and then over to Bozeman Montana to see Nate's Aunt Suzan. She used to volunteer at the AMAZING museum up in Bozeman and she told us to come up and see the FROG exhibit going on. It really was awesome! Suzan was our own personal tour guide and the boys loved learning about all of the different frogs from all over the world. There is also a huge exhibit on dinosaurs and on Yellowstone and even on pioneers!  It was SUCH a fun place to visit!

Grandma couldn't get enough of the SWEET PEAS all over the gardens! They were all so big and beautiful and smelled DIVINE!

Later that afternoon we headed back home. We were only gone for 2 days but it felt like a week! My 75 year old Grandma is the absolute BEST. I'm so grateful I have a buddy who loves to see the world with me from my passenger seat. There aren't many Grandmas out there who are as active, adventurous, and as fun as she is. We're already planning next years trip.....GLACIER NATIONAL PARK!

Starnespalooza 2011

You know you've been having a ROCKIN' time when you accumulate ALL of these passes/papers on your dashboard over the course of just a few days!

Last year Nate's family came up to visit us and we made some pretty awesome memories together. We decided that we needed to make that happen again this summer so "Starnespalooza" the 2nd was created!
I'll let all of our pictures tell the story of  an extremely BUSY yet WONDERFUL 5 days!

Evening of Day 1 and Day 2: Camping and Playing at LAVA HOT SPRINGS!

Day 3 was spent enjoying the sun and fun up at the lake!

Day 4: We stopped in the middle of NOWHERE at the world's first nuclear power plant on our way to Crater's of the Moon! Why did we stop there??.....well, some of us are still asking ourselves that question! Nate (on the other hand) loved it so much he wants to go back to learn more. I felt like each second I was in that place I was just getting dumber and dumber. ☺

 Crater's was AWESOME! We climbed a volcano and then everyone else except for me strapped on their head lamps on and headed for the caves. I (being the graceful one that I am) slipped and fell off the sidewalk right by where we parked and strained my ankle. I could hardly walk to I stayed in the car and read and napped while everyone had a good time.

Then we packed up and headed back to Idaho Falls. We had dinner, said goodbye to Kelsey and Lee and headed over to the drive in movie to see Cars 2!

Day 5: We headed to church! Afterwords, the Pitchers headed up to Yellowstone.

Told you it was BUSY! Was I right or was I right? I've said it before and I'll say it again....we are pretty blessed to have such amazing family. Our boys just ADORE time spent with their cousins. Starnespalooza 2....a great success!