Yellowstone Bus Ride

The next two days we went on a tour bus around Yellowstone Park. The freshly laid snow was beautiful. We enjoyed having a driver and they provided lunch for us as well.

The buses had monster tires that Eli loved!

It snowed quite a bit while we were there.

The only wildlife we saw was this wolf, which was amazing. I haven’t seen a wolf in the wild.

Oh yeah, we saw some elk. But we see Elk a lot so this doesn’t count.

Lunch. He was entertaining us.

He has the cutest smile.

This could be a Christmas card!

Dog Sledding

Today we went dog sledding.

When we arrived, the dogs were excited. They were jumping around and couldn’t get hooked up to the sled fast enough.

We quickly loaded onto the sled and a few seconds later, the owner gave the command to go. We were off. In silence. The dogs immediately quieted down and were happy to pull the sled.

Saw some more beautiful country along the way.

We took turns driving the sled.

The runners on the sled.

Eli and my feet 🙂

Eli’s turn to drive!

That was a fun venture. Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to go dog sledding sometime soon.

Yellowstone

Paul had a fun idea that turned into one of our best get aways.

We jumped into the truck, and a nap later we were in Yellowstone.

This boy didn’t nap! He stayed awake and enjoyed his movies.

We arrived that evening.

The roads were snow packed which made for a fun drive around town.

The temperature was a little nippy. -4! Being that cold, it was a bit miserable at times, and it felt like wherever we went, the heaters couldn’t keep up.

We at dinner at the hotel and requested seating next to the fireplace. The warmth was delightful!

We went swimming every night. Every. Night. 🙂

That’s my boy!

We stayed in Yellowstone for four days, so we ate out a lot. Our favorite restaurant was the Slippery Otter. Okay, it was my favorite restaurant. The vegetarian burger was excellent. We I had to go back for another one.

I’m not sure what is happening here. I guess we need to get out more. Ha!

Christmas Eve

This year, we went to Bryan and Shayna’s house for Christmas Eve. Her house is always beautifully decorated.

After dinner, we opened Christmas crackers.

Always need an uncle to roughhouse with. 🙂

We wanted something different than decorating gingerbread houses, so we decorated trees.

They all looked great!

Eli took this photo. Not bad!

On our way home we stopped, I mean… drove through, ha! a place with many lights.

We went home and opened our pajamas. This is one tired boy 🙂

Left cookies and Jarritos? Yep. That’s what he wanted to give Santa this year. Jarritos.

Eli fell asleep almost immediately, which was good because we had stockings to stuff.

We quickly covered the bare tree with a bunch of presents and jumped in bed. Can’t wait till tomorrow! 🙂

Spelling and writing skills

Eli is improving on his writing skills and today he surprised me on his spelling.  He told me he wanted to write CAT.  So he did!  He sounded out the word sound by sound and wrote each letter.

So we continued on with other words.

Eli missed the cut off date to get him into kindergarten so he will have to wait two more years. I’m going to have to work harder to find a school that will let him in early. He is doing so well academically, I don’t want to slow him down. I’m going to have to bake a turkey for the school admission people. Hmm… I need to start learning how to bake a turkey… Or bake any type of meat…

Santa

Eli was pretty excited to see Santa this year.

Last year was…

This year he was…so excited!

 

Saying good bye to Santa.

He repeated over and over what he asked Santa for Christmas.  A ride on his sleigh, A nerf gun, excavator, and backhoe.  I think Santa can deliver one of those 🙂