Lisa and John

Well, our closing date is pushed off until Tuesday.  They didn’t get the documents finished in time.  The good news is that it will go through and everything is looking good.  The bad news is that we don’t get to move tomorrow!

So, we close on Tuesday.  Who knows when we will actually move?  I am sitting in a pretty much packed up house.  We are eating frozen pizza off paper plates for a little while, I guess.  Ha!  Life moves on.

My friend, Aurora, described it as pretty anti-climatic.  I agree!  Here I’ve been stressing all week and now I have PLENTY of time to finish packing.  <sigh>

So, we wait…..

Avalon totally LOVES her toes!  Such a cute age!!  I just love watching her chow down.  Food, entertainment, teethers, you can’t beat a great set of toes.

Just an FYI:Things are looking great for our home purchase!  We should sign the papers and close on the home tomorrow (Thursday).  I am packing like a wild woman (Thanks to some help from a few loving neighbors) and we are planning on the Big Move for Saturday.  Yes, THIS Saturday!!  So, that means I will be a little busy.  Also, it may take a week or so to get our internet and phone set up so we might be unreachable for the next week.  So, if you need to get a hold of us, call by Friday or Saturday morning as I can’t guarantee after that.  We are soooooooo excited.  (And, of course still crossing our fingers and saying those prayers!)

Hopefully these few pics of Avalon will tide the grandparents over until we can post again.  Love you, Mom and Dad!

I just wanted to let everyone know that I packed my first box today (for this move).  I have been lingering somewhere between uncertainty and denial the past two weeks or so and I figured it was about time to get busy!  It has been a crazy month and I have been as busy as ever.  We have had a whole list of obstacles and miracles in trying to buy a home over the past several months.  We got word yesterday that we are probably going to close on the house next week.  (Only a few days earlier we were told we did not qualify for the loan.)  Roller coaster?  YES!!!  And, as we all know….It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.  Or, until you have closed and there are no pending lawsuits. 

So, your prayers are appreciated.  We are very excited and I am looking forward to a home of my OWN!!!  Time to start packing.  For real.

Miracles can and do happen.  I will keep you posted!

(Oh, and I re-posted the Yellowstone blogs, so you can gloss over those because you have already read them!)

Avalon had her first swimming adventure this morning.  We all went to the rec center and met some friends for some water time.  Avalon was very laid back about the water.  She just chilled and enjoyed the wetness.  My camera batteries died and so my friend, Stephanie, took this picture with her phone.  Check out her flashy glitter suit!

This piece of paper is given to everyone who enters Yellowstone National Park.

Yup.  You read that right!  We had quite the Yellowstone experience!  But, more on that later.  We are home safe from our exciting summer vacation.  Whew!

We left Wednesday morning and went to Alpine, WY for Family 4-H camp.  We took the six of us.  Grandma and Grandpa Pratt and a foreign exchange student, Jerry, went as well.  Wyoming was beautiful and we had a good time at camp.  The boys had a great time with all the activities.  There was volleyball, ping pong, bb guns, archery, a service project, cafeteria style food, bunk beds, sleeping bags, dirt, flowers, bugs, the whole shebang! 

Water Balloon Volleyball

We also visited The Grand Tetons.  They were pretty cool with the big ol’ mountain coming out of practically nowhere.  We went on a short hike around String Lake which is right by Jenny Lake.  We decided that next time we would like to rent a boat and go out on the water.  It was very beautiful.

Then, on Friday we left 4-H Camp and went to Yellowstone National Park.  We were only there for maybe 24 hours and my life will be forever changed.  I LOVED this park.  It has the most breathtaking scenery and the most bizarre stuff I have ever seen.  I believe my favorite part was happening to be there to witness “Fountain Geyser” erupt.  We were visiting Fountain Paint Pots and going around their little walk way looking at all the geysers and pools and such.  Fountain Geyser was very calm and we got to see the pretty blue inside of it.  I sat down on a bench to nurse and we were all taking a little break when it just started to go off.  I have never seen anything so beautiful in all my life.  Spontaneous water shooting so high in the air.  Lots of rolling steam.  Mist falling on me.  We sat and watched it for a good twenty or thirty minutes.  It kept going and going and going.  It must not erupt very often because there were no signs telling about it or anything.  We finally left with it still spewing water and steam.  I am totally in awe at nature’s beauty.  It is like Heavenly Father took a little time and said, “Let’s have some fun with this earth of mine….”  Wow!!!

Fountain Geyser (It shot really high at times!)

Lower falls at the end of Uncle Tom’s Trail

I loved all of the pine trees, beautiful vistas, bubbling mud pots, amazing geysers (not just Old Faithful), steamy hot pools, and tons of wildlife.  Perhaps a little too wild….

Which leads me to our buffalo story.  Saturday morning we were working our way around the east loop of the park.  We were almost to the Mud Volcano entrance when traffic was getting slow and we saw people getting out of their vehicles.  Off to our right we saw some buffalo in the distance.  I, being the good mother I am, would not let my children out of the van.  I had read the warning that was included with each map and information and did not want to take ANY chances.  So, we slowly made our way through this buffalo herd.  It was incredible.  The animals were huge and they were walking along side our car, crossing the street in front of us, and so forth.  Apparently they were migrating and needed to get across the road.

So, we were taking pictures, a little video footage, and moving very slowly in the van.  All of a sudden we heard a loud BOOM and our car lurched forward.  It felt like we were rear-ended.  At first we thought, “Were we just hit by a buffalo?”  Then, one of the boys yelled, “Our back window is gone!”  We looked back and sure enough it was shattered.  Gone.  John noticed that the SUV behind us had some damage on the front of their vehicle, too.  So, we thought perhaps that they had rear-ended us.

After inching further, we found a safe place to pull over.  The car behind us did as well.  We got out and assessed the damage.  Our window was shattered, there were dents and the lights were all busted on the rear right side of the door.  The folks behind us told us it was a buffalo that hit both our cars.  The car behind them told us what had happened.  I wondered if we were going too slowly and we ticked the buffalo off or what?  Well, it turns out that there were two male buffaloes fighting behind our car.  One charged the other, but he moved out of the way just in time for the buffalo to hit OUR minivan.  Go figure!  We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The park ranger who helped us file a report for our insurance said to us, “Well, I’ve seen a LOT of cars hit buffaloes, but I’ve NEVER seen a buffalo hit a car!”  So, we are a first.  How about that?  We’re special!

Fortunately, no one was hurt.  The boys were out of their seat-belts and standing towards the front of the van, so they didn’t get any glass or anything in their hair.  Avalon slept through the whole thing.  I must say that we were a little shaken up after we learned what had happened.  The worst part was having to go through TWO more buffalo herds after that.  It truly was incredible watching them come down the mountain, swim across the river and travel up the valley.  Not so fun to watch them cross the road inches in front of our car after that.  But, we made it through.  What a day!

Needless to say, we were so glad to arrive home that evening.  Safe and sound.  To take a real shower and to sleep in my own bed was a dream come true.  We have car insurance and everything will be taken care of, thank goodness.  What a story we will be able to tell from now on.  Great family lore, as my mom put it. 

I have a ton of wonderful pictures.  I will put them up eventually.  Give me a month or two.  Hopefully these will do for now.

Here are some highlights/funny sayings, etc. from our trip:

• “This is very bad news.”  Reed kept saying this after our accident.
• “I need to take a bath. RIGHT NOW!  I’m very dirty!”  Reed said this in the car when we were three hours away from home.
• Fountain Geyser
• Seeing a bald eagle (In Hayden Valley near the buffalo.)
• Seeing a squirrel inside the Old Faithful Lodge.  (Ivan tried to catch it.)
• Seeing a chipmunk w/ Reed on the Uncle Tom trail to see lower falls
• Bull buffalo rams van
• We were the only family to prepare a skit at 4-H camp.  They did it last year and so grandma had us get one ready for this year.  It wasn’t on the agenda, but we shared it anyway.  It was the song “Hey Mr. Moose.”  Very fun.
• We were up close and personal with the buffalo and could hear them snort and such.  After going through three herds of buffalo, we knew that sound well.  We were getting ready to leave Yellowstone and we pulled over on the side of the road to change Avalon’s diaper.  I got out of the car and began to take her out of the car seat.  I hear this very distinct snort close to me.  Then, it came again.  My eyes got real wide and I looked around me trying to figure out where the buffalo was.  We had a good laugh realizing it was the cars driving over some “rumble strips” next to where we parked.  (Deep grooves in the pavement to help drivers know there is a stop ahead.)  Whew!!!
• Reed doing very well on Uncle Tom’s hike down to Lower Falls.  (I think about 500+ steep steps down and back up.  He did great for a 3 year old.  Better than Mom!  (I survived!!)
• Jerry -erupting geysers.  (Jerry was a magic token.  Everywhere he went geysers would begin to erupt.  They would stop when he left.)
• Calvin was car sick practically the whole trip.  We had many stops to let him toss cookies and such.  Fun, fun!
• 40 minute road construction delay on way to the Tetons. 
• At the Teton Visitors Center they had samples of fur/hair of local animals.  We learned that bobcat fur is the softest.  Sooooo soft!
• Grandpas’ magic fire rocks
• Boys slippery sleeping bags (They were so restless and the slip-slip all night long kept us awake the first night.  The next night we swapped so they could have the cloth sleeping bags….)
• We saw a young deer w/fuzzy antlers on the side of the road near our campsite in Yellowstone.
• Navajo blanket for a back window (Grandma’s quick thinking helped us get home without all of our stuff getting too wet.)
• Ping pong w/friends & Gpa
• Ivan captured a pretty moth at 4-H camp and set it free near Old faithful
• “wader wadders”  (Reed wanted to stay longer at string lake so that he could catch “water walkers”.)
• Avalon crying herself hoarse.  She did NOT like being in the car.  By the end of our trip she was so sad and sounded terrible.