Yellowstone National Park - Old Faithful

A visit to Yellowstone is not complete unless you visit Old Faithful Geyser.

I was shocked to see how large the crowd was the day we went.  We were always told to go after Labor Day to avoid the crowds.  I would hate to see how bad it is during their "busy time".

Yellowstone National Park - Grizzlies

Driving along on Day 2 of our park trek, we came across several cars on the side of the road with people out looking through binoculars and pointing.  We decided to stop and see what they were looking at.  They thought they were looking at big-horn sheep but they were so far away it was impossible to tell.  As we were standing there someone yells "grizzly.....RUN!!"  Next thing we know there is a momma grizzly coming down the hill on one side of the road straight towards us.  Then her 2 cubs come right along behind her.  The momma really didn't give a hoot that we were all there.  Justin swears he could have grabbed one of the cubs and gotten it in the back of the car before the mom would have noticed.  Haha.

Grand Teton National Park - Moose

I never got around to posting all the pictures from the Yellowstone trip so I am just going to post some of my favorites.  These are from a spot outside of Jackson where Justin and I have lots of luck finding moose.  I think there has been one at the pond every time we have driven by.

House #6 - Sheetrock

We have walls once again!  The house is looking tons better.  Here is the view from the entry into the family room.

Here is the view looking toward the front door.

Here is the kitchen.

The cabinets have been started in the kitchen and the tile is going down as I type.  I will post more soon.

Merry Christmas

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!  After a minor delay, they start sheetrock at House #6 today.  This is when the house starts to look like a house again instead of a war zone.  I will post pictures soon.

House #6 - Demo Has Started

The demo has started.  Goodbye small shower and linen cabinet.

Goodbye pedestal sink that reminds me of school bathroom.

Goodbye kitchen that will soon be much bigger. :-)

Goodbye paneling and brick floors from the 80s.

More pictures to come soon.

House #6 - It Begins Again

We are at it again.  We finally found our next house.  Here are the before pictures.

The entry.  The lovely brick tiles will be leaving shortly.

The current parlor/future dining room.  We will remove the wood-covered wall.

The current dining room/future parlor.

The kitchen.  This is the first kitchen we will be gutting completely.  We are replacing all the cabinets and making the kitchen significantly larger.

We will be removing the brick wall with the oven and putting in a gas range.

This wall will be removed as well.

We are taking in the breakfast area and including it in the kitchen.  We will create a bar area for a breakfast table.

The utility room.

The family room. 

The house has 3 bathrooms.  This is the first hall bath.

The house has 4 bedrooms.  They are nice sized bedrooms.  We are not used to having guest bedrooms this large.  Here is the first.  It was the girl's room and we will be losing the pink/purple color.

Bedroom #2.

The hall has these great shelves.

Hall Bath #2.  We will remove the shower and small linen closet and replace them with a larger shower.

The pedestal will be replaced with a new vanity.

 The master bedroom.  There is a wall of closet doors.  We will be removing this wall and expanding the closet so it can be walk-in and have only 1 door.

The master bath.  We will remove the tub and replace it with a shower.

This cabinet is in the bath.  It will come out to make the bathroom feel bigger.  We will put in a more efficient linen cabinet.

Yellowstone National Park - Petrified Tree

Here is a picture of the petrified tree we were headed to when we saw the black bear.

Yellowstone National Park - Black Bear

We enjoyed just "playing it by ear" for the trip through Yellowstone.  There was no real set time table we were following.  We would come across a side road and say "let's go!"  One such time we saw a sign for petrified tree and decided to head that way.  Well we came across a bunch of people standing on the side of the road with their cameras and binoculars.  We looked and looked and just could not see anything at first.  Zooming in with the camera I was finally able to see this:

A black bear that people said looked to be about 2 years old.  They said it was probably out on one its first solo food-finding missions.

Yellowstone National Park - Pronghorn

I have to admit this animal was not on the list of goals but that is probably because neither one of us had any idea what it was before we entered the park.  Pronghorns are fairly common so we saw quite a few of them.

 

Yellowstone National Park - Eagle

While we were watching the buffalo we spotted this golden eagle hunting its dinner.  It was nose diving the river in its quest for food.  Unfortunately this was the only clear picture I got of the bird.

Yellowstone National Park - Buffalo

Buffalo are also very common in the park.  For most of the day we were seeing buffalo in pairs or by themselves. 

 

If we happened across a pair we would joke that we had found the herd.  Then all of a sudden we found the herd...