Yosemite!!!

Oh no, I missed a week of posting...I have a good excuse though. We were off camping in Yosemite last weekend with some friends and had a great time. It was shorter than we had planned due to Cordell's work schedule, but a fun outing. Ethan got a fever the day before coming home which made it a little more stressful for traveling and we were worn out after just a couple of days, but we made some good memories...and pictures.

Sunning ourselves after playing in Mirror Lake. Keep in mind, this is glacier water the kids were playing in. The adults were too wimpy to join them in the wet, cold fun.
Results of lake jumping...

Trouble is brewing with this bunch. Preston started whacking the water and getting everyone wet, and Sylvia kept walking further, and further in. So much for dry clothes!
This is the view of Half Dome...a very popular place to hike in Yosemite.
Who's in the bear box? We had to make sure ALL food was in this locked metal box...even kids car seats had to be free of crumbs. One night after just closing up the box and zipping up our tent, we heard our box rattling, then people yelling "bear, bear." We poked our heads out of the tent, and sure enough there was a bear. A group of people were chasing it and the poor thing ended up climbing a tree with people surrounding it down below...did they not realize this was a wild animal?! Leave the bear alone or you may be it's lunch.

My hubby the pyro. The fire is never big enough for this guy!

Our sick little camper...so sad. Luckily he slept at night, and in the day he just wanted to keep moving to put him back to sleep.
Our little intellectual enjoying his morning cup of hot chocolate. A must when camping.
Coming down the steep granite stairs...our legs were a little wobbly after the hard hike up.
This is the top of Vernal Falls. Very beautiful!!
Sylvia hanging over the falls! Too scary...we got her away from their after the picture. Good thing the railing held her. She was mad when we took her away and up onto the rocks.

This is us looking towards our final goal. The kids got so cold with the falls soaking us. Luckily Ethan was pretty well protected, other than his chubby little legs. This is the day he started feeling sick, so he slept most of the hike as long as we kept moving.
Yeah for a drinking fountain (a fancy one at that) in the middle of our hike to Vernal Falls. I was in such a hurry to get going on the hike, I forgot our water. We were very grateful to our friends for being so kind as to give us one of their water bottles...talk about law of consecration.



Three camping buddies...Preston, Olivia and Sylvia. They had a lot of fun playing with the sticks, in the cars and climbing on the rocks together.
We came at a perfect time to see all the beautiful falls in Yosemite. The weather was perfect! Too bad we didn't have enough time to hike to all of these...I don't think the kids would have made it. Maybe not the adults either.
We did have a great time hiking up to Vernal Falls which is about 2.5 miles hiking up steep granite steps and getting soaked by the falls. Good thing the sun was shining to dry us out once we reached our destination. Cordell and I got a good workout carrying the kids up and down. We thought for sure we would lose Sylvia over the edge. She is so reckless and if we put her down (which she wanted) she would run to the edge and then stop right before we thought she would go over! Thankfully she never tripped!!
Sylvia had great fun running to the edge of this bridge and hanging over the fence looking at the rapid flowing water. I let dad be in charge of this crazy girl.