Yellowstone 2014

Another year of Yellowstone is in the books!  We weren't able to go up with all of the extended family this year, but all of my siblings were able to be there at the same time and we had a great time.  We drove up Wednesday afternoon last week and pulled into the Canyon campground around 8.  We got our tent all set up and enjoyed our first campfire before turning in for the night.  We were blessed with a pretty warm night that night and Leila slept a whole lot better than I was expecting her to.

On Thursday we got up and going and set off along the Lower Loop.  Our first stop was Dragon's Mouth/Mud Volcano and Sour Lake.  Leila liked being a big girl walking along the boardwalk and always made sure she was holding on to two people's hands (usually Jori and Annie).  She made "scary dragon" noises at Dragon's Mouth (everything is scary to her lately, or at least she says it is even when she isn't scared).  She was a trooper and even made it all the way up to Sour Lake on her own!

Our other big stop for the day was at West Thumb for lunch and the boardwalk.

Leila fell asleep in the car after this so our car just made our way back to camp, taking a few scenic drives along the way.  No bears though!  That night was quite a bit cooler and Leila woke up in the middle of the night and I could tell she just wasn't comfortable.  She doesn't sleep well in bed with anyone though either so it took a while to get her to calm back down.

Friday was time for the Upper Loop.  We stopped for a quick hike to Tower Falls and then decided to drive out into Lamar Valley to see if that's where all of the buffalo were hiding.  It was!  We found big herds of buffalo with lots of babies.  Taylor also talked us into taking a "short" hike up to Trout Lake and since he graciously volunteered to pack Leila, I agreed.  It may have been a short hike, but it was straight up a hill!  Well worth it once we got to the top though.  Such a beautiful little lake, surrounded by rolling green hills dotted with wildflowers.  We walked all the way around the lake before heading back to the cars.

We stopped in Mammoth for "lunch" (at nearly 4pm") before driving the rest of the loop and going back to camp.  It was a quick stop at camp to drop Jason and Leila off while the rest of us set off for an evening hike up Elephant Back.  On our way to the trailhead, we got stopped in a traffic jam for probably half an hour while we waiting for a bunch of bison to cross the road.  This delayed our already late start time even more, but we still managed to make it to the top just as the sun was setting.  

Of course, this meant hiking down in the dark with our phones as flashlights, but thankfully no bears crossed our path and we all made it back to camp safe and sound.  Leila was already sound asleep by the time we made it back to camp so she got to sleep over at Grandma's cabin and slept soundly until almost 9am the next morning!

After a late start the next morning (that's what happens when you eat dinner at 11pm the night before), we decided to drive the Lower Loop again.  We drove out to the Lake Overlook (towards the East Entrance) and were surprised to see the Lake so calm.

The other main stop for the day was at Old Faithful.  Of course we arrived just after it had erupted, so we opted to do our picnic lunch while we waited for the next eruption.  It went off without a hitch and Leila loved watching the water shoot up out of the ground.

 Leila had a hard time patiently waiting, so she kept running off and various people had to go fetch her back...

After the main event, we decided to walk around the boardwalks behind Old Faithful for a bit.  Unfortunately Jason's eyes suddenly became extremely irritated by something.  So I left Leila in the care of my family, and guided Jason back to the car and loaded him up with allergy medication and eye drops.  His eyes cleared up fairly quickly after that but the allergy meds pretty much knocked him out the rest of the night  He fell asleep in the car and once we made it back to camp, he settled down in the tent for the night.

Once the rest of the group made it back to the cars (after watching Beehive Geyser go off), we made our way to Norris where we walked down to Steamboat on the off chance that it would go off just for us.  It didn't.  But we saw a rabbit right off the boardwalk and Leila kept pointing to it and saying "bunny rabbit" at least 50 times before it hopped off.  Of course, then she decided that she too wanted to hop like a rabbit and eventually Taylor had to carry her back to the car.

Sunday morning, we broke up camp and all sort of went our separate ways.  Our car decided to drive the Upper Loop on our way out in hopes of finding at least one bear.  But after JUST missing not one, not two, but THREE bears, we determined a bear sighting wasn't in the cards for us this year and made our way back home.

Yellowstone is truly one of my favorite places and I feel so rejuvenated every time I go there.  Yes, we do a lot of the same things every year, but new memories are made and old ones are re-visited.  And after going there nearly every year of my life, there are plenty of memories to choose from.  I know that getting the WHOLE Larsen clan up there at the same time each year is becoming impossible, but I hope that the tradition lives on for many years to come, even if it does have to be modified/down-sized a bit.

A few other random things/events about this trip:

*Every time Leila saw the campfire she would flap her arms and shout, "Fire!  Fire!" in a British accent.  We blame Peppa Pig.

*Leila now makes a grunting noise when asked what a buffalo says.  She would grunt every time she saw a buffalo and then ask "More buffalo?"

*Leila was still a little shy of Jori's boyfriend Ben at the beginning of the trip.  She would hold everyone's hand but his.  One time, Annie stealthily switched her hand for Ben's and it took Leila a couple minutes to notice, but when she did she dropped his hand immediately.  She warmed up to him by the end of the trip though and when he had to leave early, she kept asking "Where's Ben?"

*Leila decided she liked to "sneak up" on people.  She would do sort of a funny shuffle/skip and say "very, very quiet" in a whisper until she ran up to someone and shouted, "QUIET!"

My Pregnancy: Week 21

Baby's now the size of a banana!

Baby gulps down several ounces of amniotic fluid every day, both for hydration and nutrition and to practice swallowing and digesting.  And, these days, those taste buds actually work!  Studies show that after birth, babies are most interested in tastes they've already experienced through amniotic fluid.  Meaning, think about what you want your future child to eat as you prepare your own lunch!

Well, as much as I have been feeling relatively small lately, that all changed this week.  All week long this little girl finally decided she needed to stretch out and my skin has been feeling the consequences!  Growing so much all at once is not fun!

Other than feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, this was a pretty good week.  We were up in Yellowstone for a good chunk of time and everything went pretty smoothly.  I even managed to waddle my way through our hike up Elephant Back.  Crazy to think that by the time we go up next year, I'll have a 7 month baby!

My Pregnancy: 20 Week Ultrasound

This afternoon I went to the doctor for my 20 week ultrasound.  Since Jason was able to go to the gender reveal a couple of weeks ago, I invited my mom to join me and Leila for this one.  She was curled up in such a tight ball with her head between her legs and her toes up over her head pretty much the entire time.  Guess she was feeling a little shy!  Also explains why my stomach looks so small most of the time, she's taking up as little room as she can. On a side note, I even had a couple people a church yesterday ask me if I was still pregnant and/or react with surprise when they found out I was pregnant!

Feet

Legs

Still a Girl!

Curled up Tight

While we may not have gotten more than quick glimpses of her face, the ultrasound tech and the doctor both agreed that everything looks great.  I am measuring right on schedule and the baby's measuring within a day of her due date.  Best news of all!

My Pregnancy: Week 20

Baby's now the size of a cantaloupe!

Baby's digestive system is busy creating meconium (a tarry black substance made of swallowed amniotic fluid, digestive secretion and dead cells), which will fill the first diaper after birth.  And, speaking of the diaper situation...baby's genitals are now fully formed!

I can hardly believe I'm already halfway through this pregnancy.  December is going to be here before I know it!  This was a pretty good week for me.  I feel moving and kicking a lot stronger and that is a great reassurance to me.  Jason is even able to feel it now, which has helped things feel a little more real to him too.

We've added two more name possibilities to our list: Ellie and Alana.  Someday we'll have to start narrowing our list down instead of adding more to it!

The size of my belly seems to fluctuate dramatically day to day and even hour to hour.  Most of the time, this little girl must hang out in some secret hiding place because I don't feel that big.  But every now and then she stretches out or something and I suddenly feel like I'm going to burst.  And I've noticed that this tends to happen more frequently during the late evenings.  This picture was taken during one of my small belly times.

My Pregnancy: Week 19

Baby's now the size of a mango!

Vernix caseosa, a greasy white substance made of lanugo, oil and dead skin cells (yum) now coats baby's skin, shielding it from the amniotic fluid.  (Picture yourself after a nine-month bath, and the need for protection makes sense.)  You might actually get to see the vernix at birth, especially if baby is premature.

This week brought around another doctor's appointment.  Everything still looks great.  My blood pressure was normal, my stomach is measuring right on target, I've been gaining weight, and the baby's heartbeat was right where it should be.  I never get over how happy hearing that little heartbeat makes me.  We go back in two weeks for the 20-week ultrasound, so I'll get to see this baby girl again. :)

Unfortunately I'm in the midst of another bout of heartburn today.  This is probably the biggest difference I've noticed between my two pregnancies.  With Leila, I only had a small amount of heartburn later in my pregnancy.  This time around, once I get heartburn, it is bad a sticks around for 3 or 4 days before it dissipates.  I can only hope it doesn't increase in frequency too!

California!

Since my family wasn't going to be going up to Yellowstone over the 4th of July this year, we decided it was about time to go spend the holiday in California with Jason's family.  We loaded up Tuesday afternoon and drove as far as Vegas after Jason got off work.  Leila did fabulous in the car, but not so well in the hotel room.  She would not calm down and go to sleep!  We tried her in her portacrib (bad idea since she's in a bed at home), in bed with us, leaving her alone, nothing worked until two hours later I was able to rock her, while I was standing, and sing her to sleep.  And after all of that, she was wide awake, ready to go at 5:30 the next morning.  Not my favorite way to start vacation.  But it did mean we got an early start on the road and about an hour later Leila was zonked and took a decent nap in the car.

We made it to Oceanside and almost immediately loaded up with Jason's parents and Darlene to go to Sea World.  Darlene had received some free tickets and really wanted to take Leila and we weren't going to complain!  Leila absolutely LOVED it, especially the dolphins.  They have a section of the park that is Sesame Street themed, and Leila knew every single character.  Grandpa was even nice enough to buy her an Abby Cadabby stuffed toy, which became her sleeping buddy the rest of the trip.

Leila was mesmerized by the dolphins

The next day (Thursday), we spent a relaxing morning at home and let Leila take her nap before heading down to the San Diego County Fair in Del Mar.  Once again, Darlene was able to score us some discount admission tickets.  Thanks Darlene!  Our first stop was taking Leila to see some of the livestock.  They had a little petting area and she was both thrilled and nervous to touch the goats.  She would reach in, touch them with one finger, and then squeal with excitement and back away.

Next, we made our way to Kiddie Land where Darlene and Jessica took turns taking Leila on different rides.  She got to ride a carousel, some race cars, a bus, and some flying bumblebees.  Her favorite would be a toss-up between the carousel and the bumblebees.

These cars were too loud for her so she spent the ride covering her ears

They also had a little butterfly exhibit that you could walk through and they had hundreds of butterflies that were flying around everywhere.  You could get little q-tips to dip in nectar and then pick up a butterfly on the stick.  You could transfer them onto you, we even saw one little boy put one on his nose!  Once again, Leila was a little skittish about being too close to the butterflies, but loved looking at them from a distance.

They also had a bunch of little old west type of activities that the kids could try out.  So, Leila got to make some music, milk a cow, and ride a tractor.

Then we all went and enjoyed us some yummy fair food before calling it a night!

Originally we didn't have much planned to do on Friday other than a BBQ and fireworks, but then Jessica won a raffle at work for free tickets to The Wave (a waterpark), so we set off Friday to go do that.  Jessica was nice enough to give us her tickets even though she had to work.  Leila fell asleep on the way over there (after asking to go swimming repeatedly for an hour), so I relaxed with her in the stroller until she woke up.  And then she was all about the pool and the lazy river.  She's not a huge fan of splash pads though.  She doesn't like getting splashed on her face at all.  But she certainly loved being in the water and playing with everyone.  When we took a break for lunch, she wouldn't believe that we'd get back in.  We spent several hours there before heading home to get cleaned up and ready for the BBQ that evening.

Unfortunately Leila had a bit of a rough afternoon after that and was practically inconsolable for almost an hour.  Thankfully, Daddy Z made a feast of corn, potato salad, and grilled steaks, burgers, and hot dogs with festive cupcakes for dessert that cheered Leila right up.  After dinner, we loaded up in the car to go catch the Legoland fireworks (from a distance).  Unfortunately our car got stuck in some traffic and missed the first 5 minutes, but we still managed to see enough to make everyone happy.

The only decent picture I managed to get of my Patriotic Princess

As if we hadn't fit enough in to our trip already, we decided to make a trip to Huntington Beach on Saturday.  We made it up there just after 2pm and it took us forever to find a parking spot.  Obviously everyone else had the same idea.  Once we finally found a spot and hauled all of our junk over to the beach, we enjoyed some lunch (including strips and cheese) and Jack's before spending some time on the sand and in the water.  Leila is such a beach baby and absolutely loved every minute of it.  Darlene was nice enough to play around with her even though it meant she got completely soaked.

Once we were done at the beach, we made our way to Great American Yogurt (Mama Z's favorite yogurt shop) where we enjoyed some yummy yogurt.  The plan then was to go to dinner at Northwoods Inn.  Leila fell asleep on the way there, so we drove around for a bit so that we'd have a happier toddler as a dining companion.  Eventually we met up with Jason's friend Jimmy and his girlfriend Brook and enjoyed a tasty dinner before heading back home.

Good to the last drop

We drove all the way home Sunday, wishing that we didn't have to go back to reality so soon.  What a great vacation!