Another Family Yellowstone Trip!

 We made it back to Yellowstone,  this was Sophia's first visit to Yellowstone.  She was only a few months old last summer, so we decided against going to Yellowstone.  This year we were so excited to go!!  The entire Thatcher clan came along this trip, except for Grandma and Grandpa Thatcher.  The first evening we spent the night at Matt and Jen Thompson's cabin in Star Valley, with Reese and stefani's family!  It's a relief to have a break in the drive to Yellowstone, and the kids had so much fun!  We stopped at Jenny Lake before heading into Yellowstone and took the boat ride across the lake to hike inspiration point.  Before we made it to Yellowstone we almost lost the back tire off the truck, it was a little scary.  We'd sheered off all but 2 lug nuts and their pins, we were wobbling like crazy!  Luckily we made it to a service station and called Dan's older brother Jay who was still in Jackson.  He was able to find the parts we needed and got to us pretty quickly.  Sophie slept almost the entire wait and we were up and going in no time!  We stayed at Grant's village this trip for two nights, and had an elk come right into our campsite and stay awhile, it was really fun!  The kids thought it was pretty neat!  We tried to go on a 3 mile hike to Yellowstone's petrified trees.  We were in the right area but not on the right trail.  Though it was a beautiful hike we did not find the petrified trees, which was really disappointing after a long hike.  The kids even came along and Brodyn walked the entire way and was so sad he didn't get to see any left over antlers, that we would have apparently seen if we had been on the right trail!  Emmy got a piggy back for the most of it and chatted the entire way.  Sophie took a nap in the back pack carrier!  Firehole was still closed for swimming because of the high spring water flow, so that was a bummer.  Next year we'll have to go in August to enjoy swimming at firehole!  We had such a fun and relaxing time, our campsite at Grant's was right on the edge of Yellowstone lake and the kids had so much fun riding their bikes on trails down to the lake!  We look forward to Yellowstone every year, it never get's old and we find something new to do every trip!!