Wheeler Reunion at Yellowstone Part 1

Wow!  What a busy, fun, exhausting, invigorating week we just had.  It started on the 4th of July when Steve, Matthew, Anna, and I packed up the car and headed out at 8am.  We spent the whole day driving through Washington, Idaho's panhandle, and western Montana to Butte.  It was a good trip.  The kids watched LOTS of movies, played with some new cheap-y toys from the dollar spot, and we all ate a lot of snacks.  We stopped for lunch at Subway and spent some time goofing off in the arcade.  Dinner was at the Cracker Barrel.  Have to say, it was filling but not super great.  We ended up in a hotel in Butte.  Anna slept on the floor in a sleeping bag, Matthew in the hotel's crib, and Steve and I were in the adjoining room on a king-size bed.  Aaahhhh!  Unfortunately, Matthew sleeps as well in a new bed as his mom.  He was up 3 times that night and Anna woke up twice!

We attended church at the local Butte ward and then headed the last 2.5 hours to Island Park, ID.  At 4:30 we ended up at the two cabins that would be the Wheeler clan's home for the next week.  People trickled in and we had everyone, minus Scott & Kim's family, there for dinner.

Monday was our first big day.  We headed to Yellowstone at around 9am with the intention of spending the morning there and then coming home for naps after lunch.  We almost came home early because Anna kept whining about how tired she was and how boring all the stuff was and "can't we go home and play by ourselves?"  Luckily, as soon as we got in the car, the kids both fell asleep immediately.  We decided to let them sleep while we drove to another destination.  They were much happier after the nap and meeting up with cousins at the last stop helped too.

The evening activity was Family Home Evening.  It was about family history/temple work.  A few of the teenage kids told about some of the things they were doing and then we let each family as a question of Mom and Dad while we recorded their answers.  Some of them included "What was your favorite toy when you were little?", "Who was your best friend?" and "What was your first kiss like?"  We all enjoyed hearing what they had to say.

By the time we all got to bed, we were exhausted.  Unfortunately, Matthew was still rebelling to sleeping in a pack-n-play and woke up 4 times that night.  Tuesday dawned with a very tired
Mommy.