Bir-Cay-Ding, Part 2

'Kay, folks.  Here is the much-anticipated Part 2 of our awesome celebrations!  Aren't you SOOOO excited?

July 29-July 30: Grand Targhee adventures

We drove to Targhee on Friday, and checked into our room.  It was awesome!  I should have taken a picture.  There was a hide-a-bed in the upstairs/main level of our...I'm going to call it "suite".  There was also a mini fridge and a half bath.  Then downstairs there was a full bath and two rooms.  One of the rooms had a king bed, and the other room had two bunk beds.  The kids were way excited about that.  So we had Jake and Brock on the top two beds, and Troy and Ivy on the bottom two.

Lex and Chris had a kind of golf game near Grand Targhee, and then they were having a dinner afterwards with the wedding party and family members. So, we got just word-of-mouth directions to get to the golf course, which is at a place called Teton Springs, which is very, very beautiful-it's near Driggs (where you turn to get to Grand Targhee) and Victor. 

So, the people we talked to were all, "Just drive through Victor, and then it's just right there with a ton of signs-you can't miss it." We had also heard, "It's a little bit farther than you think.  Just keep going, and you'll see the sign-you can't miss it." The golf course is called Headwater, by the way. So we were looking for signs showing a golf course, or for Headwater. Shouldn't have been too hard.

Well...we drove, and got through Victor, and kept looking for signs.  And soon we were heading up a canyon. Both Pete and I were all, "Oh, it will show up any minute. I'm sure it's around this bend in the road." Um, no. We were heading to Jackson, which is about 20 miles from Victor. I think we were about halfway there when we decided to turn around. Neither Pete nor I had cell phone service because we tried calling for directions.

So we went back to a gas station we had seen earlier to ask directions. The guy was all, "Go left, then right, then left. You can't miss it. Oh, and the sign says 'Teton Springs'". Yeah, that would have been nice to know in the beginning. We had been right on top of it, and just didn't know what we were looking for. So once we got there, it was great. And we showed up right in time for the dinner.

It was SO yummy!  They had these chicken and/or steak fajita things, and a salad with a cilantro-lime dressing (I'm in love with cilantro).  And for dessert: peach cobbler, with blackberries in it!  YUM!  So, so good.

It was really nice to meet all of Chris' family.  Honestly, though, from that night, names-wise I remembered a guy named Chad, who was Chris' brother's buddy that drove with him.  Go, Chad, the Random Dude!

That night we went swimming at their pool.  The main pool was pretty cold, but the super deep hot tub was really nice.  Afterwards, we went back to the suite, and Pete and I watched TV, which reaffirmed the fact that we don't miss regular TV. (We don't have any form of television; we just watch stuff online.  You know, where you get to see exactly what you want, when you want, without commercials. It's luxurious.)

The next morning (July 30), Pete, Jakob, and I went horse-back riding.  I had gone a handful of times growing up, but Pete had never ridden a horse before.  We would have taken everyone, but the other kids were too young for it.  My awesome parents watched our other kids while we rode.  Jake's horse was named Cammanche, Pete's was Spirit, and mine was Butch, which was funny to me because I had a cat while in high school named Butch that loved me a lot.  The horse stuff was right on Targhee's grounds.

Pete told the rancher dude that I had ridden "a bunch of times", so I think the dude thought that I was super experienced.  Um, no. That would be my other sister, Brianna, that rode and trained horses for years and years.  So Butch was a little...strong-willed. And apparently, hungry. 

We went on a trail up the mountain, and it was very beautiful.  Butch kept trying to eat every two seconds, and he kept wandering off the trail. The rancher told me to pull up on the reins and kick him  a little and he would stop. Yeah, right! If I kicked him, he would just start running, and then he would stop and eat some more, and then wander around. After a while I put my reins behind the horn on the saddle so he couldn't reach down as far to eat the grass.

I definitely had fun riding, but it was like a wrestling match the whole time. And when I got off, my knees were hurting from the stirrups. I'm such a city slicker.

After our horse ride, we did another ride: the chair lift up the mountain.  I've ridden on this lift about a thousand times in the winter, but never in the summer.  The chair is lower in the winter, because you're standing on a bunch of snow to get on.  I also think they ran it slower than they do in the winter.  Here's my mom and dad with Brock and Jakob:

We went up Saturday morning and Sunday morning.  On Sunday it was cloudy, so the top was pretty cold.  But Saturday it was nice and warm and sunny.

Another thing: I've ridden up chair lifts a million times.  But to get back down you either had to bike, walk, or ride.  We opted for ride, but it's pretty trippy to see how far you've actually gone up.

So here's my family with the valley behind us.  At the top of the lift there's a little trail, and you walk to a platform to overlook everything, including the Grand Tetons a couple of ranges over.

Here are the boys with the Grand Teton behind them. I was a little nervous about my run-around kids.  Why, you may ask?  See the little rope under Brock's arm in the picture below?  That extends out, though you can't see it because of the snow (yes, snow) in the picture.  But on the other side of that rope is a very, very, very steep cliff.  So I told the kids they had to stay on the platform at all times.

So of course, Troy being the close listener that he is, started running around on the entrance of the platform.  I grabbed his arm, and tried to show him the IMMINENT DEATH that awaited him if he didn't stay on the platform.  Which, in 4-year-old translation, means I was just being a mean mom because I wouldn't let him play wherever he wanted to. That is why he's being a grumpy pants in the picture.

My dad took the boys down below the platform (where the ski hill is), to an area that still had snow on it.  They tried to make snow balls to throw at us.

And here's my family again, this time with the Tetons behind us.  Ivy had gotten a combination of sun lotion and bug spray in her eye, so she rubbed it and whined the whole time.  (You can see the rope behind us in this picture.  In front of the rope = nice happy beautiful pictures.  Behind the rope = IMMINENT DEATH!)

These next two pictures were taken on Sunday, after we rode the lift back down.  We were chatting with my parents and my two aunts and two uncles that had come for the wedding.  And my kids, being the self entertainers, decided to play with sticks and dirt.  Seriously, why do we even buy toys for our kids?

Alrighty.  I know I suck, because I should have started this train of posts with the most interesting event - the wedding. But instead, I decided to save the best for last.  And I'm going to stick it in its own part.  Soon to come: Part 3 (the final part) of the Bir-Cay-Ding extravaganza!