No One Spoils You Like an Aunt

Continuing on with the catching-up theme...

Just a couple of weeks after my parents headed home, my sister-in-law came out to visit. (We've really been getting spoiled by having so many visitors lately... I love having people here!)

We had another storm move through the area while she was here, so we were able to treat her to some great wildlife-spotting as well! In fact, as you'll see from the pictures, it was snowing for much of the time we were out on our drive.

We saw some elk and mule deer hanging out in a field pretty near town. As we continued to drive, we came around a corner and saw... this:

Silly sheep. Laying in the road for the warmth I guess. We snapped a couple of pictures before slowly moving the car forward. Closer... Closer... I kept thinking that surely they would soon get up, but they didn't. Finally I had to stop. I saw another car coming up behind us. It was no use. Those sheep would have to be moved. I tapped on the horn once and that's all it took. They all hopped up and began moving off the road to the left, until a single dissenter went right. (Look! There she is!)

And they all followed her. Back across the road they went where they were confronted with a guardrail in their way. So, we sat and waited while each sheep walked in front of us, stepped up to the the guardrail and jumped over it from a standstill. 

They were fun to watch. After we left them behind, we came across many more groups of bighorns, several that were quite large. The scenery was great, too. Aspens are always beautiful, even when they don't have leaves on (they're my favorite tree).

We also saw a lot of elk.

Photo session OVER. :)

Heed the warning sign!!!

Here's my little mountain girl.

Aunt J. really wanted to see a buffalo. We didn't see any on the way up, but after we turned around and headed back towards town we spotted these big bruisers. (Heavy merge area – ha ha.)

And to finish our trip – some pictures of the snow.

The kids had a great time with Aunt J (after all, no one spoils you like an aunt, right?). They went to the park with her every day it was nice out. She also attended a friend's birthday party with us and accompanied us to the library. She dumped french fries all over the bottom of the oven while making lunch (hee hee, sorry J., just had to put that in). We had fun!

While she was here, I happened to see a recipe someone pinned or posted for single-serving cake that you make in the microwave. The only ingredients are cake mix and water, so we decided to try it out one night after the kids had gone to bed. It was supposed to be on the healthier side, low-calorie or low-fat or something. And it tasted like it. Bleh. However, feeling rather adept in the kitchen after the french fry incident (lol), we decided that we could certainly improve upon the original and proceeded to spend an undisclosed amount of time microwaving (and laughing hysterically) before we achieved... SUCCESS! (At the expense of some added calories and fat – but chocolate chips will do that, won't they?)

The hubby and I even got spoiled a little bit too. Aunt J offered to watch the kids while we went out on a date (for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long), and she even blessed us with some cash to pay for dinner! We enjoyed our dinner then decided to go for a drive. Ended up doing a little bit of four-wheelin'... We drove 20 some miles on a dirt road up through a mountainous area just outside of town. One hour of driving and we had only mule deer and antelope for our company. I was hoping to spot some wild horses as well (there is a large herd in the area), but no luck there. It was our first time driving this road and although I spent some of the time biting my nails (it was STEEP in spots!), I have to say that it was pretty awesome and we'll probably do it again some time. We ended up at the top of the mountain just before sunset. I was a wonderfully clear evening, and you could see FOREVER. We spotted a mountain peak that is over 90 miles away (driving distance – I don't know how far it would be “as the crow flies”)! I could hardly believe that I was actually seeing it, but it is a pretty distinctive peak and very easy to identify. I really wish I had brought my camera along, but it was a spur of the moment decision to take that drive. (And I don't typically bring my camera along for a dinner date...) After we got back into town, we decided to try out a frozen yogurt bar for dessert, which ended up being really fun.

Yup, we had quite the week. Thanks for everything, sis!