a mother-daughter outing

Two weeks ago, Miss T and I decided we needed to take ourselves out of the daily grind and treat ourselves to a retreat in the beautiful forrest-glades of Yellowstone and Island Park, Idaho. Our mother-daughter adventure turned into a good bonding experience, and provided plenty of opportunities for laughter, good food, entertainment, and relaxation.

To break up the five hour drive, we stopped at the beautiful new Rexburg temple, where we spent an hour or so doing some temple work. As neither of us had really planned on stopping at the temple, we had to pull a Superman costume change and change out of our grubby traveling clothes into our temple attire right there in the parking lot of the temple. Very stealth. 

When we reached the cabin in Island Park, we spent the evening engaged in a healthy movie marathon consisting of my personal favorite, "An American Tail" followed by "My Best Friends Wedding," all while eating popcorn, Rolos, and the Cracroft favorite chocolate covered cinnamon bears! Mmmm...! 

The next morning we went on a walk/run down the road, taking in the fresh mountain air and the beautiful view of Mount Targhee! Such a gorgeous peak!! We then (prematurely) took a venture into West Yellowstone where were saw an IMAX movie on the Lewis and Clark expedition. I have decided, thanks to that movie, that I will name my first-born male child Mariweather Lewis cause what little boy doesn't want to be named Mariweather? We then did a little shopping and had a very early dinner... we were hoping to pass some time before we went to see Hello Dolly that night, however like I said, we went into Yellowstone a little prematurely and had to make the twenty minute drive back to the cabin and take a nap before returning on time for the show.

We went to the Playmill and joined the nation's largest group of geriatrics in watching Hello Dolly. I'd never seen more white-haired people in one place at one time... except for maybe on the occasional visit to Chuck-a-Rama. The show was very well done... aside from the opening numbers. We were on the second row and so close to the actors that when they came out singing good old American folk songs they would wrap their arms around your shoulders encouraging you to sing along. That was about as much cheese as I could handle for one sitting. 

Afterwards we stopped at the best ice cream shop in the entire world!! Mooseberry's! I made the retarded mistake of asking for "Mooseberry in a cone," where the girl behind the counter replied, "Mooseberry isn't a flavor, it's just the name of the shop." Duh... I meant HUCKLEberry. Yet another Lindsey moment.

The next morning we packed up and drove home to meet Keither and Dave for the opening night of Wall-E! And may I just say that this single event gave me more joy and happiness than a lifetime of eating chocolate covered cinnamon bears could ever do. It quite possibly was one of the greatest moments of my life... I highly recommend!