IDAHO || YELLOWSTONE

***disclaimer: ok so i wrote this post in full like a week ago, but for whatever reason blogger decided not to save it and also wouldn't post it so it all got erased. so in protest i have put off writing and posting it again...***

so about two weeks ago, my parents flew me out to salt lake to spend time with them and for my mom's birthday but mainly so i could drive with them up to idaho for my sister briana's reception with her inlaws. unfortunately i wasn't thinking (probably due to hunger from missing dinner due to getting the bride ready or from missing robbie)and i didn't take any pictures from the reception. FAIL. but it really was so lovely!--and much less stressful! reilly's family did such an amazing job with the decorations and the weather was absolutely perfect! briana and reilly both seemed so happy and it was fun to meet all of reilly's family and friends (as you can guess, not many people were there from texas and we don't have any family in idaho... haha) reilly's dad also took us out shooting on their family ranch nearby and so we had a ton of fun shooting their different guns, especially dad and frank.

with the AR 15. it was a BIG gun haha

with the russian one i think? reilly is probably shaking his head as he's reading this... haha

i hadn't really been shooting before (yes i promise i really did grow up in texas... haha) and i never hit the orange things (can't remember what they called em) but i did get pretty close! a few more shots and that tree was a goner!

also on our trip we got to go see yellowstone national park! it was incredible and would highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't been (it's not a very far drive from provo!) we went on a tour bus that drove us all around the southern part of yellowstone. we saw so much but i already want to go back for more because there is seriously so much to see and i would love to spend some more time at each of the places. did i mention our tour was 8 hours long? yeah. thats how big this place is.

one of my most favorite parts of the trip was seeing all of the wildlife! we saw a few elk and LOTS of bison! it was kinda crazy how close they were too. 

i especially loved seeing the babies!!

they were s o huuuuge

right by our van!

all those little specs are bison! also i didn't believe my mom when she said it would be cold... shorts probably weren't my best idea.

here is a video of some bison running up the road. i didn't realize at the time but it was actually pretty dangerous. but don't take my word for it. just listen to our tour guides voice... haha

holding a bison vertebrae. so crazy.

classic. 

selfie! frank not as excited after he found out it was 8 hours long. my parents didn't really want him to know otherwise he would've thrown a fit and not gone even after my parents had spent a lot of money for us to go so it was 
p r i c e l e s s to see his face when he asked our tour guide how long it was after about an hour and half into the tour. another highlight of the trip. 

obsidian mixed with granite

pure obsidian from volcanoes. native americans used this to make their arrow heads and other sharp knives. a cool thing i learned is that obsidian can be so sharp because you can cut it down to a single atom! so cray.

i took a million pictures in the gift shops at the old faithful inn. partly because i was obsessed with everything in there and also because i wanted to show rob when i got home.

for lunch, i had none other than bison meatloaf! it was actually pretty good.

in case you were wondering if frank went hungry on the trip, he has a whole meatball sub under his pasta and sauce...

i had to. 

geothermal activity type 1: hot springs

the bacteria that is able to grow from the hot water. kinda gross. 

one crazy thing i learned about hot springs is that they can change temperature and pH very quickly. scott (our tour guide) said that they tested one hot spring that was at a pH of 7 (which is neutral) and then they tested the same hot spring the next day and in under 24 hours it was at a 1 (which is like acid that will burn your skin off...) yeeeeah. definitely thinking twice before i jump into another hot spring. 

geothermal activity type #2: fountain paint pots. 

its hard to see from the picture but its basically just a big pit of bubbling white goo. also kinda gross. 

geothermal activity type #3: steam vents

don't worry. he really does love me.

aaaaand geothermal activity type #4: geysers

this one was always exploding. deff got water from that thing on me. not gonna lie it really freaked me out (although it was cold by the time it reached me haha)

and that's pretty much all the pictures i took. it was a really fun experience! i always love seeing nature and continually am amazed at its beauty. it is so humbling. the only thing that would've made this trip the best is if my sweet husband was there with me! i really missed rob a ton on this trip and was so excited to get back home to him--which he surprised me with a clean apartment and fresh flowers on the table. i am the luckiest girl to have him in my life. i love you rob! (:

xoxo ash

WE LOVE THE 101

oh boy. i have been dreading posting on here because i have so freakin much to write about! so if you want to just skip ahead and look at the pictures thats totes fine with me. (that's what i would probably do...). in my last post, we had just moved to wilsonville. i guess i should start with what happened next. so we drove all day to get to wilsonville from provo and then we slept in a hotel that night because we got in so late and then we checked in with our apartment, got our keys and began moving in the next day. we had a bunch of people from our ward come out that night and help us unload, although we really didn't have that much stuff left after rob and i had been unloading stuff all afternoon. i was just glad i didn't have to help move our mattress again! all in all it probably took us 20 minutes to unload the rest of the truck--probably the easiest move-in our ward has done. 

we wanted to take a vacation before rob started work so he didn't have to use any vacation days, but we were low on funds with the move and such so we decided that we wanted to drive down and visit robbies family in santa barbara. it would be about a 15 hour drive, but we planned to stop in the bay area to visit grandma and grandpa porter and to explore san francisco since i had never been. we wanted to take the 101 all the way down the coast for a more scenic drive with stops along the way to make it more exciting. it was totally a great idea except the fact that we had just driven 16 hours the day before... so if we were to do it again, i would screw the scenery and just get there asap. needless to say we were really sick of being in our car (sorry max...) besides our "car sickness", the drive really was beautiful! (much more to look at on the way down compared to the way up--which we just drove the shortest distance through desert california)

here are some pictures from our drive and our stop in the redwood national forest. i have never seen as many or as big of trees in my life! i thought cypress had a lot of trees!... 

i wish the front camera on iphones took better pictuers...

 an elk farm that we stumbled upon

usin old school maps and such

  

 

 just the most massive tree trunks 

love this guy!

 this completes leg 1 of the journey. seeing as it took two hours to load all these stinkin pictures, you'll have to stay tuned for san fran, santa barbara and lots of family! it's past my bedtime. 

xoxo ash