A Peek at the Poulsens

When I lived in Cheyenne 20 years ago, I met Kalie Luddington and we were fast friends. We have kept in touch off and on since I moved away, and her parents still live in Cheyenne. Kalie lives in Kansas and she's visiting her parents, so she invited us over for a hot tub party. Every second of it was a total blast from the past: driving up the gravel road to her house on the hill overlooking the prairie, drinking Coke and lounging in the hot tub, trashing the house with our wet footprints and leaving damp towels everywhere, looking at Andrea's rocks and Indian artifacts, feeding crickets to the frogs, and just the overall carefree and chaotic feel of the house was exactly as I remember it. I have such fond memories of growing up there with Kalie and it was so fun to get our kids together doing the same things that I did when I was a kid! Look at those prairie views!!! we found some GEMS in Andrea's carefully kept scrapbooks It was deja vu being in this awesome house again. ...

We enjoyed our sunrise spectacular so much that we planned on going again the next morning. We decided to leave earlier and go on the Fairy Falls hike to watch the sunrise from a different angle. This time, Alissa wanted to sleep in and my dad wanted to come. Unfortunately, Max and Sam didn't set alarms right or slept through them or something so they didn't make it, but that meant that I got to have unusual alone time with my dad which was awesome.  It was so cool to see all the undisturbed hot pots and geysers. The steam was billowing straight up instead of twisting all around with the wind from cars and people all around like it does during the day.  This is the parking lot at the Fairy Falls hike. It was so cool! But there were four new big "watch out for bears" "high bear activity" "don't travel in groups smaller than 4 people" signs so my dad and I didn't feel good about doing that hike alone. There was absolutely nobody else in sight...

Max, Alissa, Sam, and I left at 5 in the morning to go find a spot to watch the sunrise in Yellowstone. It was a mix of reverence for the awe-inspiring beauty around us and laughter at our ridiculous antics. I am so glad we got up to do this together! We set up chairs on the hillside but then wanted to actively enjoy the sunrise so we hiked around this foggy river valley and up on the bridge.  Max and Alissa down by the river around 20 minutes before sunrise Elk were having a little drink on the other side of the road. We saw them slink off into the woods across the river.  It was pretty chilly and Sam and I found blankets in the back of my mom's van (which we were driving). We were wrapped in them the entire time and it was extremely cozy despite looking ridiculous.  Alissa found a picnic blanket haha The mist was so cool coming off the river! You could see it all around coming up in the mountains and along the valleys.  We have laughed so hard about these pictures ...