West Yellowstone, Montana... Let it snow!

People typically flock to warm places like San Diego, Mexico, or Arizona for Spring Break. Well, not us! We left the beautiful 70 degree weather we were enjoying in Tempe and headed up north to the snow. We vacationed with Jared's family for their Spring Break and when we chose West Yellowstone as our destination we had no idea that we would be vacationing in 8-10 feet of snow. When reading the Yellowstone website prior to planning this trip we found out that there are a few weeks the end of March and beginning of April where the park is not open to motorized vehicles, but that you can ride your bike through the park at this time. We thought it would be a great Spring Break spent bike riding through the National Park. Well, a few days before departure, after the time share had been booked and travel plans arranged, we were back on the website only to find out that the Park road from West Yellowstone was closed due to construction - there would be no bike riding. We were disappointed and left the bikes at home as we headed to Montana. As we drove into West Yellowstone I think we were all laughing out loud at the thought of even bringing our bikes as we looked around at the 10 foot snow drifts that lined the streets. It was more snow than I have ever seen in my life! Although our efforts to ride our bikes through Yellowstone were thwarted we still enjoyed a great vacation. There were several firsts for me as we spent time snowmobiling and went snowshoeing into the Park. Carter enjoyed snowshoeing for the first mile or so but I think we wore him out. Gage felt pretty comfortable in the backpack as he drifted off to sleep as we waded through the snow. They both enjoyed the snowmobiles; Gage was so disappointed that he had to get off that he cried himself to sleep in Grandma's arms. We saw a wolf, a bald eagle and even a buffalo while we were there in addition to the bears and wolves that we saw at the Bear and Wolf Discovery Center. The boys really enjoyed watching the bears wrestle and play with one another.

We're just glad that we didn't get snowed in and we were able to get back to the beautiful Spring in Arizona! Check out how deep that snow is!

Icicle sword fighting, it's a new sport in Montana.

Gagers totally zonked while we were snowshoeing, all that riding in the backpack must have really worn him out too!


Snowshoe racing, it's a lot harder than it looks :) Definitely a good work out!

What an awesome view, we couldn't have picked a prettier place to go snowshoeing.
Yellowstone is amazing in the winter too!


The gang!


Rex and Paige taking a photo pit stop (Jared nicknamed me the
photo Nazi because I always had the camera snapping)


Look at him go! He was such a trooper, it really was tiring for all of us and his
legs are about 1/2 the length of mine. He's such a good sport!


Watch out for that bear! Is he going for the fish or go for Gage?!?

Snowmobiling was a blast (and no we didn't ride 3 to a machine - I think I would have fallen off the back - just another photo op!)

Check out how pretty it was, I love snow dusted pines. (I don't know about pines but I am sure there will be a lot of snow dusted everything in Wisconsin!)

The little guy LOVED the snowmobiles and couldn't get enough!

We saw a buffalo while we were out on our snowboarding excursion, sorry no pics it was pretty far away.