the byron family: my favorite place on earth

Oh... I want to go back. I want to live here. SO bad. It really is just so unreal how gorgeous and vast this mountain range is. There can not be a doubt in any one's mind that our Creator made these! He sculpted, arranged and sprinkled snow on the tips of each peak.... totally took my breath away!

We camped near Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park Thursday. Ben was such a great helper putting up the tent :) He was watching Matt and Jamie knock the stakes in - so of course he had to grab a rock and start pounding too!

We all decided to go big or go home on our last day of hiking. We took the boat across Jenny Lake and headed for a 7 mile hike through Cascade Canyon. Jamie and Courtney bought a one way ticket and planned on hiking another 2 miles around the lake back to our campsite. The last boat back to our side of the lake left at 6pm, so we knew we had to be back before then or we would be trekking it back with Jamie and Courtney. This wouldn't have been the end of the world... but each mile is a little harder when you have a 25 lb baby in a backpack on your back :)

The hike was GORGEOUS. Of course our camera died an hour into the hike, but Jamie and Courtney got a few good ones of us at the half way mark. There was a waterfall about 1/2 a mile from the boat dock - about 75% of the boat riders stopped here and went back. Another mile past that was Inspiration point - about 98% of the hikers stopped here. We forged on and Ben was such a trooper! He waved to everyone we passed and sang the whole time :) Our favorite wildlife sighting was on this hike, too! We saw a mom and baby Moose and then saw another moose sun bathing! We were so pumped... we had been hoping the whole trip to see a moose - and on our last day in the parks we saw 3!

pantsless in the creek!

camera died after this....

Matt decided to sleep under the stars that night. Checking one thing off his 1-year bucket list. Matt and Jamie made 1-year bucket lists... 20 things to do in 1 year. Courtney and I were SICK of hearing about these lists by the end of the trip :) If you know Matt and Jamie, they are like the best girlfriends in the world... :) and they talk a LOT! haha

Anyways.... we all slept great that night and woke up to this:

I almost puked when I saw this :) hahaha. Not really... but I really couldn't kiss him. Every time he came near me all I could think of was that cop off of Super Troopers... or a child abductor - bleh!!

Matt kept his new look until we got to Denver where we were going to spend the last night of our trip. We stayed downtown at the Magnolia Hotel - another AWESOME place that was pure luxury. Let me tell you - we looked SO out of place walking into that place! Esp with Matt's 'stache! Thankfully he shaved before we met his highschool buddy Sarah Jane out for dinner.

It was such an awesome trip..... we are so blessed to get to do so many fun things and experience God's country!

We returned home - to our NEW home - and LOTS of boxes :) You'd think that we would stay put and try to organize our lives, wouldn't you? If you thought Yes, you are wrong. We made it through a week of work and headed north to Knoxville to go to Zach and Sandra's baby shower! That was literally probably the only event on earth that would have gotten us out of our house and on the road again. It was such a great weekend full of family time. We got to spend a lot of time with Zach and Sandra and Bill and Sue. We also arranged on Sunday to have my grandmother and Aunt meet us north of Knoxville for an afternoon visit. They live in Asheville, so it is hard to get together often. We grabbed lunch and ice cream and let Ben entertain the 4 us until it was time for a nap and then headed back home.