Girls Trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons

I've just gotten back from a girls trip spent in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons!  One might think that our National Parks might be a strange place to take a girls trip (and indeed it did feel a little odd to be there without my family!) but it was chosen because Candace followed her dream to work there this summer!  She was able to take the time off to be with us and was a wonderful tour guide!  I've lost track of how long I've been friends with these girls of "baby club" but I believe it's 26 or 27.  There is no topic we will not, or have not, broached and I'm endlessly thankful for them.  

Between the four of us, I have a shocking amount of photos, and approximately half of those are selfies of all of us!  In order to keep this trip somewhat manageable to document, I'm going to include a selfie from the day and one or two three or four pictures of what we did!  

We started off walking around the area of Mammoth Springs.  This area is otherworldly!  It was also here that we saw a Bull Elk, I still can't believe he is able to hold his head up with those antlers!

We spent one day mostly in the car, traveling around the park and driving the Beartooth Highway.  On this day we made frequent stops where we spotted coyotes, mama bears and her cub, a grizzly, prong horns, elk and bison!  It was a great wildlife spotting day!

The waterfalls of Yellowstone are spectacular and we spent some time hiking to be a little closer to them!  I actually think fall might be the ideal time to visit because the color was spectacular!

We soon headed to the Grand Tetons, staying at Jackson Lake Lodge.  It was a treat for me to stay in the National Park Lodges as we always are camping in the Airstream!  The Tetons are stunning and look like a movie set to me, the way they go from flat land to jagged  mountains is wild! Here we did a hike around Jenny Lake to the Hidden Falls and Candace and I made our way up to Inspiration Point!

That evening we made our way to Jackson where we had a drink at the Cowboy Bar.

The next day, before heading back to Yellowstone, Jenn, Candace and I went on a horseback ride where we got spectacular views of Oxbow Bend.  This was super fun and a highlight of our time in the Tetons!  As a side note, it was on this venture where I managed to take the vast majority of my photos as screenshots of the photos I was intending to take.  No one has figured out how I managed to do this time and again!

Our final days were spent in Old Faithful Inn (a dream!) exploring geysers, mud pots, prismatic pools, hot springs  and fumaroles.  If you ever get a chance to stay in the Inn, be sure to pick an old room (called Old House rooms) because the charm and history is well worth using the communal bathrooms!

Crabapples

At our last home we had a magnificent crabapple that we absolutely loved and were pretty disappointed when we moved here and didn't immediately see any crabapple trees.  Once we started taking out the overgrown, tangled mess in what is now the orchard we were delighted to discover a few crabapples that had been completely covered by the vines and invasives.  Most of them are not particularly fine specimens as they had been pulled over and grew rather awkwardly because of the vines.

However, we've been happy to have them (they are great pollinators for apple trees!) and this year they have put on an unbelievable show with their fruit.  I'm assuming these are wild, self seeded crabapples but I find it so interesting that their crabapples are all different colors!  We have red, yellow, and orange!  

We've been working in the orchard the past few days and have trimmed all the crabapples so naturally I brought some in and stuck them in a vase!  They look like fall!

Working Girl

I have a quick life update on Grace... she got a job!  She's working for an indie publisher, on the lowest rung on the ladder.  She sees this as a good thing as she will get to see all aspects of the publishing process, the good, the bad and the boring!  For the time being, she will live at home while she saves some money and figures out where she can afford to move to be closer to the office.  The commute is a bit brutal so it's not really sustainable for too long.  

As a side note, as much as I know it is time for her to enter the big girl working world, I felt a little mournful.  Up until now, it's all been exciting, new and a bit of an adventure, whereas now it just feels so... permanent and restricting (for a girl who loves to travel the vacation time is minimal)!  I realize that's how jobs work but it's a new chapter that I have to get used too, which seems to be the way parenting works because every time we get somewhat comfortable in a chapter, we have to adjust to a new one!  

*yes, I made her take a "back to school work" photo on her way out the door her first day.

Pretty Food

 

Is it odd to take photos of your food?  I think maybe it is but I find I often take photos of food I've made that I think is pretty, especially when it's food coming from the garden!  The photos are almost always taken as the food is whisked to the table, in bad lighting and with my phone so as Emma, Grace's good friend, says, "phone eats first."  

I especially will take photos of food where I've used edible flowers.  The babka above was full of flowers, even though you can't really see them, and the strawberries were sprinkled with rose petals!

I loved how pink the radish butter turned out and I always love using our sourdough bread!

Unique combinations are always appreciated, such as this farro, beet and blackberry salad.  One of our favorite combos is tomato, mozzarella and peach!  Our peaches were so delicious this year. 

I usually work pretty hard to grow varieties of vegetables that I can't get at the grocery store.  These purple and pink potatoes and different colored green beans are a good example of that as are the different types of radishes!

Needless to say, I'm very grateful we don't have any picky eaters in the house!

A Visit to Wine Country

Last week, Bryce and I returned from a trip to California!  Friends of ours (Bryce's old boss) had a party to celebrate their 25th anniversary and we extended the trip to go with other dear friends on a little wine tour of Napa and Sonoma counties!  I had never been to that part of California and I loved it.  Something about the lines of the vines on the rolling landscape, the topography and the beautiful light completely sucked me in.  It was my first time visiting this area of California but I hope it won't be my last!

We flew into San Francisco and met our friends, Mark and Lori, to celebrate Mark's birthday that evening.  We managed to squeeze in a little sight seeing before dinner at Waterbar.  Seeing Alcatraz from afar definitely made me want to tour the inside but alas, there was not time.  

The next morning, as we left San Francisco, we stopped by a great viewpoint in order to get a better view of the Golden Gate Bridge.  

From here we headed to our first winery tours!  Folks, I drank more wine in three days than I probably have over the past 6 months!  Ha!  We went to some high end wineries (Mark is a big buyer of wine so he got us in a few we might have otherwise not had access too) and some very casual wineries but they were all great in different ways!  

One of the wineries I really wanted to visit was Frogs Leap (for obvious reasons).  It's dear to my heart because many, many years ago Bryce and I went out to eat and splurged on a half bottle (we could not afford the full bottle) and felt like we were super fancy! Their grounds were really beautiful and it was the only place we actually ordered any wine!  While it's still too expensive to be our go-to house wine, it's perfect for special occasions!  Plus, their club was called "The Fellowship of the Frog" and literally Bryce couldn't resist- two of his favorites coming together!

After our few days of winery tours, it was time to celebrate our friends anniversary!  Their renewing of vows took place on their incredible property and was two evenings of fun gatherings and celebrations!  I actually took very few photos but suffice it to say it was a great time!