I feel so delinquent. I kept meaning to post about what a good time we had at Yosemite, but ended up cramming to get everything done before we left for Indiana. I do have pictures… about 3500 of them if you combine the pictures Maya, Teri, my mom and I all took. Problem is.. at least for my pictures, they still don’t look “good” to me. I go through this when I’ve taken a ton. Nothing seems good enough. Only later as I come down from that photo burnout do I start to appreciate them. Heh. I will post some soon though. For now, there are a few on my face book for those of you who haven’t seen the kiddos in a while.
While I’m waiting to get those photos up, I’ll fill you in on our vacation. Thankfully, nothing happened to cancel it or cause any significant glitches. I was praying for that. When you have so many pieces to the puzzle that have to come together, the worrier that I am also expects one of those pieces to disappear forcing an alternate plan to take effect. This time, everyone made it, everyone stayed healthy and we had a wonderful vacation.
We started off picked up mom and Teri in San Diego and heading up to Yosemite and made the 9 hour drive to the beat of “John Denver.” Thank you, Stephanie. Violet was so thrilled to meet her cousins for the first time really (she was 6 months old last time). We had a little excitement setting up camp in that a thunderstorm rolled in just as we’re frantically trying to place our tents and find the missing pieces, blow up air mattresses and such. We got everything set up fine though and ended up loving our site. We were close to the Smiths and the Hacks, so got plenty of visits and paid an equal amount. Justin, Tim, Teri and some of the others hiked up Yosemite Falls. They got hit by a pretty bad storm and witnessed a kid have to get rescued by helicopter. We learned what to do for someone with hypothermia.
Then, we pretty much just partied hardy or crammed our 5 days with everything we possible could. Jude didn’t cooperate much with all our plans. He was busy sprouting new teeth. (He has 6 teeth now, by the way) We also got hit by rain pretty much every day, but the miracle is the rainstorms usually hit right at the kids’ nap times, so we’d all head for the tents and take a nice rainy nap — the best in the world. The most amazing thing to me was that Georgia (5) made it all the way to the top of Vernal Falls. She complained up a storm during the easy part. She cried, wailed, begge to be carried, ride in the wagon, etc. but then… when the going got tough, she definitely got going and got the rest of us going too. She got a second wind when we hit the stairs part of the hike which is really tough. I almost turned back a few times, but she kept telling us…. “You can make it!” “Com’on. Don’t give up.” So… we made it, just to make her happy.
We all loved Yosemite and visiting with Tim, Maya, the girls and my mom and Teri. It was over way too soon though. We could have spent weeks there and not gotten tired. Ah, well… Heaven had better be one long vacation.
We finished up by visiting my maternal grandparents in Yuba City. I love visiting them — always have. There’s just something peaceful about that one acre plot of land with their gardens, flowers, vegetable garden, fruit trees and… best of all a hammock. It was fun to introduce the kids to them too. They hadn’t met either Jude or Violet. Jude flipped out over grandpa’s tractor and Violet… well, I think the cherry trees had to be the highlight for her.
So, all in all, we had a wonderful vacation and made it home without any problems. Phew! We were tired, but you know… making memories has to be hard work! Thank you, Tim and Maya, Mom and Teri for coming out with us this year. It was so special for all of us. I hope it wasn’t too stressful for you. We miss you!
July 9th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Thanks for the pics. It was so much fun.
July 19th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Looks like so much fun