The Welcoming Commitee

The fun has officially begun! The Hays arrived here just before 7:00 tonight, just shortly before our Camp evangelist showed up. James picked him up at the airport and we felt it only right to form a welcoming committee and meet them as they came through the gate...

We are soooooooooo excited to have Brother Oscar here! I love having "new" people who've never been here before. I love the opportunity to really get to know the people you've only known from a distance before, you know? I hope he has a great time here and doesn't have too many bad things to say about us after he goes home. Ha! No, we are looking forward to having a wonderful time with him and to having a glorious Family Camp again this year. :-)

I fed my company dinner at about 8:00 tonight (is that terrible, or what?!) and we finally got the kids put down at about 9:30, I think. Right now Brother Dustin and James are out in the office printing some things out for Camp and Sister Jamey and I are sitting here with our computers. I thought I'd upload the video from tonight real quick and post it for Mom. :-) Camp ends on Monday, but the Hays will be here until Wednesday. Or Thursday. I'll blog after all that. :-) Brother Oscar has already bailed on us (can you imagine?! We thought we were bringing a YOUNG minister out here and he's already gone to bed! Ha!), but I'm sure we'll play a game or two once the guys come in from the office. So the fun has officially begun! Wa-Hoo!!!

Can't wait to get to Camp and find out all that God has for us there. And have lots and lots of fun. :-)

Still Nothing to Blog

Except that our kids are soooooo out of whack. They slept in WAY late today. I let them because I figured they must need it. That big California trip sort of messed up the way things usually gel around here. Like BEDTIME, in particular. We've been out really late (11:00 or after) visiting with our pastor's family both times we've seen them since being home (who knew we missed them so much?! Ha!), so that hasn't helped the routine around here. Still, when the kids finally did get up today they were still tired and cranky and just mean and gripey with each other. James and I decided early on that they were going to bed EARLY tonight. Then maybe they'd get some good rest and get up at a decent hour and all that stuff. Ha. Worked out okay with Katie, but the boys laid in bed for over two hours before finally falling asleep. I ought to blast them all out of bed at 6:00 tomorrow morning. If only I was going to be up at that time. Ha!

In other news, God has touched me! I finally feel SOOOOOOOOOOO much better! I really believe that the Lord heard our prayers and is bringing me to a full recovery. I don't think it's "just going away," I think God has heard and answered. He's so good to me! I still have a bit of a cough, but even that is soooooo much better (not that I'm coughing better... --you know what I mean!) and I'm so glad. I'm trusting Him to make me all the way better. Maybe by the time I wake up in the morning.

That would be nice because I suddenly have so much to do! Even as of this afternoon I was feeling pretty good about my progress. I've gotten lots of things done that I needed to get done and felt like I was right on track. But then evening came and I looked at the list again and suddenly there are several things I'm behind on! My biggest concern is finding what God wants for me to do with the kids at Camp the night that I'm in charge of children's church. I've had an idea in my mind (really just a word... yeah, it's really that pitiful! Ha!) and I did feel like maybe I got a little direction tonight on how I can expand it and turn it into something. I'm so not good with kids (as much as I get freaked out trying to teach adults, I'd so much rather do that than this!), but the need and the opportunity is so great. How many kids have been saved and lives forever changed at Camp?! I really want to find something they'll enjoy, that will speak to their hearts.

Anyway, it's way late now and I need to get some sleep. I'm hoping to get an early start in the morning. All I have to do is finish up the laundry, do the ironing, pack the family for Camp, change the sheets, finish getting children's church together, get my props and supplies lined up, cut and fold some invitations, vacuum the carpets and swiffer the wood floors, clean the bathrooms and otherwise prepare for company, make a Snack Shack ledger and a Snack Shack sign, call and finalize our arrangements with the campground... I did find out that I have a little more time to complete all of that stuff (and whatever I've forgotten) that I thought I had. Our camp evangelist, Brother Oscar (wa-hoo! I'm SO excited!), doesn't get here as early on Wednesday as we thought so that will lend me some more time to get some things done. The Hays will be coming sometime that day as well. I'm a happy girl. :-) Company, then Family Camp, then company again. Does it get any better than that?!

This will probably be my last post until after Camp. Sorry it's so pitiful. Ha! But just think of all the great Camp pictures that should be in the next one! :-) Those of you praying people out there, please be in prayer for our Family Camp this Thursday through Monday. We're wanting, needing, and expecting great things from God.

Nothing to Blog

Are you buyin' it??? I blogged myself to death while on vacation and now that I'm home I don't feel like there's really anything to talk about. But you know me. I can ramble anyway. ;-)

Uummm... we had Thanksgiving the other day. It was GREAT. When were on day 7 or 8 of our trip I read that Melissa Otterbacher's family had had Thanksgiving that day, turkey, stuffing, and all the fixin's. After eating out and picnicking for a week straight that just sounded soooooo good! I remembered that we had a turkey in the freezer at home, so I made up my mind right then and there that we'd have a nice turkey dinner, too, just as soon as we got home. I thawed the bird on Tuesday (we had tostada casserole that night--always a big hit around here) and we had a nice, big turkey dinner on Wednesday afternoon. It was great! I love having the left-overs, though I must confess that turkey sandwiches taste really strange in May. I even made a pumpkin pie because I had enough pumpkin in the freezer for one. Everything is really good... but honestly, it really does taste WEIRD in May! Ha! Weird or not, we're enjoying the left-overs.

In other news, I STILL have a sore throat and I have developed a cough that just sort of goes bazerk on me at night, then eases up a whole lot during the day. My throat only hurts when I swallow. Or cough. And sometimes breathe. Ha! No, it doesn't hurt when I breathe anymore, so that's nice. I had the sweaty chills off and on for days and have been wearing my heaviest sweatshirts and still shivering... then peeling them off and gasping for air, only to immediately get chilled and shiver my way back into the sweatshirt. Today I've actually been comfortable. Started with the sweatshirt, got hot, switched to a t-shirt, and have been comfortable ever since. ~aaaaahhhhhhh~ It's the little things we take for granted, you know? :-) I've been praying for God to heal me, but failed to actually get anointed and prayed for at church last night. That was dumb. I was feeling so much better at the time, you know?! I've spent the last three nights up coughing until two or three o'clock or better before I'm finally able to stop and go to sleep. Actually, I don't know if that's when I stop coughing and fall asleep, or if that's when I start coughing IN my sleep. ?! The weirdest thing is, I don't feel fatigued at all. We went on that mondo trip and came home and I never have crashed. I always crash after trips. This time I've got this weird "sickness" of some kind, but I STILL haven't crashed. I don't feel exhausted in the middle of the night when I can't sleep, I feel wide awake in the morning when I get up, and I usually feel great and energetic throughout the day. There has been a time or two when I've actually started to feel a little tired and I've tried to lay down and nap, but only because I think I probably ought to, not because I really have to. Weird. It's a good thing because I've been able to get so much done, but it really doesn't seem like the best thing since I have this throat thing and cough. Shouldn't I be needing a little sleep right now?! I finally got curious today about the sore throat, simply because it's been around for so long. Ten days, I think. That's VERY unusual for me. Maybe it's a coincidence, but I have ALL of the symptoms of tonsillitis. Plus the cough. I don't like the idea of taking capsules and stuff like that, but I don't mind eating more of the things that are supposed to be good for you. Garlic is, of course, good for just about everything. It works as an antibiotic, boosts your immune system, and fights off infections, particularly of the ears, mouth, and throat. More importantly, I love garlic. :-) So James brought a couple of bulbs home tonight. To be honest, I didn't really know what to do with them--I've never messed with REAL garlic before, only the powder or the stuff that's already all minced up! I made spaghetti and added two cloves to the pot, then another clove (not cooked--just minced up as small as I could) on top of my serving. WOW. Garlic is powerful stuff, let me tell you! I think I prefer it in powder form. Ha! No, it wasn't that bad, just has a bit of a burn and bite to it when it hasn't been cooked. And it lingers. It's been hours now, but I can still smell and taste it. Nice...

My goal tonight is the same as it was last night. And the night before. And the night before that. Yep... ironing. ~sigh~ I usually do fine once I get started, but it's sooooo hard to start. We'll see how it goes tonight. I have been able to get lots of other things accomplished this week. I worked for a long time yesterday and today printing math pages and sorting and grouping them for the kids, then punching holes in them and stapling them and blah, blah, blah. When do we get to go back to computer school?! I've gotten another donation (from Sam's Club this time) for Camp, been working with the Colorado campground on our Ladies' Retreat contract for this coming October, got the medical release forms taken care of and sent off for this Camp, got some birthday invitations formatted and ready to print, and other things that I can't think of right now. It's been a good week. Got Sunday School to prepare for this Sunday, then I've got three days (almost) to get children's church together for Camp (just one night)--and I've got a thought for it... I hope I can expound upon it! Ha!

I warned you, I had nothing to say. But Camp is coming up and I was hoping to blog a time or two before then. I really should have just skipped it! Ha! Oh well. It's too late now. For you, too, if you've made it this far. ;-)

Family Vacation, Part 10 - The End

Okay, so there really isn't a Part 10. It just seemed tacky to end on Part 9. :-) Now that it's all said and done I think we can say we've seen it all!!! When I look at the list of everything we saw and did in 10 days, not even counting Tayde's graduation and the church and family visit in Phoenix:

Joshua Tree National Park
San Francisco (Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf, trolley car, Golden Gate Bridge)
Highway 1 and 101 (the day at the beach and touring the lighthouse)
Redwoods National Park
Crescent City and the Aquarium, then our "shortcut" through Oregon to go south
Yosemite National Park
Sequoia National Park
Grand Canyon National Park

...THAT IS AMAZING!!! James said we put 3,800+ miles on the van on this trip. That seems like an unbelievable number to me. But then to think that we did it in 10 days... it means we averaged 380 miles a day!!! How in the world did we have time to stop and DO anything?! Ha! It was a wild and crazy trip, the biggest of our lifetime FOR SURE. But we really did have the time of our lives. Sooooooo much fun and I'm sooooo thankful that God provided for us to be able to do it. We'll all remember it always. :-)

Even with the Grand Canyon addition to the trip, we were still able to make it home by about 10:30 last night. Amazing. What's MORE amazing is that we got the van completely unloaded, I got everything unpacked, sorted the mountain of laundry and got the first load started and took a nice, hot shower (in my very own tub!) before going to bed last night.

This morning we got up and headed to the library. Everything we had was due back today and we all had things on hold that needed picked up. Since we just took a killer field trip (ha!) I told the kids they didn't have to do any school today. (Truth be known, I had too much to do to try to work the school thing in there, too!) I spent the day today working on laundry (all done!) and a little bit of ironing (a long way to go!) and proof reading the Evening Light. Then worked on some Camp stuff tonight. After all, Family Camp starts NEXT WEEK!!!! Wow! I'm so excited! Not necessarily to leave my home again so soon (ha!), but for FAMILY CAMP, the very best Church function of the whole year!!!! Right, James?! Anyway, it should be a really busy week and a day before Camp starts, then we'll have a glorious Camp, then I'm going to come home and CRASH. I can't wait for the Camp AND the crash. :-) Speaking of crashing...

My body has already begun. I'm still hanging on to that sore throat from several days ago. I had no voice for two days, though it's back now. I sound like a raspy old man, but it's back. Ha! I've also developed a pretty persistent cough. James told me a little while ago that I cough about every five seconds. I didn't know that, but I know it's beginning to hurt my throat all over again, but in a new way. (How pitiful is that?!) Today I've had the sweaty chills. I've gone back and forth from a sweatshirt to a t-shirt over and over and over again! Ha! It's crazy. I'm thankful that I'm not SICK (in the sense of being incapacitated), but I know it would be a lot easier to do all of the things that need done if I was totally well. So I'm throwing a prayer request out there for all of you pray-ers! Please mention me to the Lord, okay?! Thanks. :-)

Family Vacation, Part 9 - Grand Canyon

Okay, so it's like this. The Grand Canyon wasn't ACTUALLY on our to do list. It had always been on the maybe list, but really just as an afterthought. James and I just couldn't seem to remember whether we'd taken the kids there are not. We know that we've been there twice together (once on our only all-alone vacation when Katie & Joe were tiny) and... some other time, but we couldn't remember when or why--or if the kids were with us or not. None of them remember it at all and insisted they hadn't been there. We struggled over it for the longest time. To go, or not to go??? We were sooooo ready to be HOME. And everybody was sort of on vacation overload. After you've seen SOOOOOOO MANY amazing sights it gets sort of overwhelming and it's like you can't truly appreciate the next wowing thing as much as you would had you not already just seen so many spectacular things, you know?! Ha! BUT... what if the kids never, ever make it back to that area and never ever get to see the Grand Canyon??? I mean, it's the Grand Canyon!!! How can you be driving past, just an hour away, and not take your kids to see it?

Obviously, the latter reasoning won out against the wanna-be-home/trip-overload argument. Of course, as we were driving through the little town just before you enter the park we saw a motel and thought, "Hey, we stayed there. Were the kids with us there???" Then we saw a restaurant and thought, "I remember eating there. And the kids WERE with us--I remember telling 'em to sit down and be quiet, for goodness' sake!" Ha! Then I was a little irritated to think we'd gone an hour out of our way (adding 2-3 hours to the trip total) to take the kids someplace they'd already been before. Ha! Of course, we apparently don't have any pictures of their first trip there and they were all obviously way too young to remember it. So this is the one that COUNTS, right?!

So here we are again--with yet ANOTHER National Park sign! Once we passed the sign, I began to have serious second thoughts about this decision. It took FOREVER to get through the gate because there were soooooo many cars. On a Monday in May--what's up with that?! We finally got through and drive to the first look-out point, next to the visitor's center. I've been to the Grand Canyon three or four times, but I've NEVER seen it like this. The parking lot was absolutely PACKED. We were fortunate enough to nab a great parking space from someone who was just pulling out, so that was nice. Especially since you can no longer just walk over to the rim and look over. They are doing some sort of maniacal construction project there right now and they have absolutely torn up jack. It's a MESS. There are orange cones and tape and fences all over the place, weaving you on a mile long path just to get to the edge to look over--with heavy equipment humming all around you. That was nothing though compared to the number of PEOPLE around you! It was NUTS!!!
And I have just about decided that Americans really aren't interested in seeing any of the sights in America. The Asians are though. There were Chinese and Japanese and Korean people everywhere we went on this trip--tons of them. I think that's really cool. They obviously have a great appreciation for beauty. But I do think it's strange that the vast majority of people at these places are foreigners. Don't be fooled by what you see in the picture above. Even when you see people who you expect to be Americans, you have but to stand next to them for a moment before you hear them speaking in French or Italian or German or Polish. Crazy!

Anyway, we followed the mad mob down the little orange path until we finally arrived at the rim. Then we elbowed our way in to look out across the canyon. The kids looked out and said, "Wow." We stood there a few minutes and said it was time to go back to the van and Sam said, "What? That's IT?! We drove all the way out here just to look out at that hole and then LEAVE?!" Ha! We got back in the van and drove down the road a little bit, finding several other locations to pull over and look out across the canyon--prettier locations without the thousands of people. Nice. :-) And the kids did end up having a really great time (and James and me, too!) and now we've got good memories and PICTURES (for proof!) that we've all been there. Again. :-)

Sambo enjoyed checking things out with his binoculars.
It really is an amazing place. It was a little hazy and overcast, so you can't see it in all of its true glory, but still. Soooooo neat. And just think, that tiny little river carved out that canyon over millions and millions of years. HA! My kids get so many when I say that. It's so obviously a post-flood occurrence. Everything that we've seen on this trip just makes so much more sense when you know that there is a Creator and that this world and all of the glories of it didn't just accidentally happen.

I will say this. It is NOT fun to be at the Grand Canyon with kids this age. They scare me to death!!! I never used to be bothered be heights, but I'm amazed at some of the things that really bother me nowadays--even just driving a mountain road when there's a drop off on my side of the car! And when you go to a place like the Grand Canyon with kids who are at the age to not have sense enough to stay back. Or even to just NOT RUN UP TO THE EDGE and then expect to be able to stop on a dime--on all that loose gravel! I was a nervous wreck the whole time. The kids kept telling me to just RELAX, but I couldn't do it. Sometimes I would just turn around and leave them with James because I couldn't bear to watch.

They were all standing up on this rock posing for a picture (before this one) and suddenly Joe turns and screams and jumps off the edge. I had no idea there was any ground back there (where Katie is in this picture) and the split second before he landed just about gave me a heart attack--which was Joe's intention all along, of course. Jerk. Ha! It must've been some Steve Smith genes that inspired that little move.

Aaaaaaahhhhhh! They were killin' me!!!


But we all made it out unscathed. :-)

Family Vacation, Part 8 - Sequoia

The day after the Yosemite day it was finally the Sequoia day--the main motivation James had for taking this trip in the first place, I think. So here's the fam in front of yet another National Forest Sign...We had an interesting day. James woke up with his ears plugged up and I woke up with no voice at all. So I squeaked all day long, only a little blip every several syllables actually coming out, the rest just disappearing into the air. And James spent all day leaning in and saying, "Huh???" Ha!

As we were driving up the mountain we spotted a couple of parachuters up above us. Very cool.

The farther we drove the more snow there was--something we hadn't expected. Most of it was very old and crusty and dirty, but still... it was SNOW. :-)
And here we have it, the General Sherman tree, the largest tree in the whole world. How cool is that?!
After just seeing the Redwoods, the Sequoias didn't really seem that much bigger... until you got right up next to them! This tree is magnificent. It's just gargantuan.
The bark on these trees is so very different than than on the Redwoods (these actually look more red!) and something about them is... I don't know, I just think they are soooooo neat. The Redwoods are amazing and are the tallest trees on earth, but the Sequoias are more beautiful, I think. They look almost animated or something.
Here's looking UP at the General Sherman.
And here are all sorts of really cool facts about it, for those who are interested. :-) Just click on the picture to enlarge it.
Just another tree we stopped to take pictures with, since you can't actually walk right up to the Sherman tree and most of the others in that area. I guess they don't want people carving their names or something. Ha!


Trying to stretch around just this side of the tree... and not fall down the mountain. :-)
We had taken stuff with us to have another picnic on this day, so that was nice. We found a quiet little picnic table away from the crowds (which really weren't that bad--especially after having been at Yosemite on a Saturday!) and had lunch. We let the kids climb around a bit on the mountainside and only needed one band-aid when it was time to load up. Here are a couple of pictures taken on the way down.

It's strange. I knew that seeing the Sequoias (which, despite my lack of commentary about them, was one of the VERY COOLEST parts of this entire vacation) was the last thing on the list of things to see and do before we headed home. I guess my body was aware of it as well as my brain because about ten minutes after we headed down the mountain I was out cold! If you knew anything about the road that goes down that mountain (10 mph curves the whole way) that would be remarkable to you. Ha! I slept through the whole thing. I didn't wake up until I felt the van stopping. I looked up and saw that we were at a road side fruit stand. And it was over 90 degrees! Up where the trees were it was 52 degrees. James said at the base of the mountain it was 94!!! THAT'S NUTS. Why would anybody live UNDER the mountain instead of ON it??? Anyway, we'd been seeing these fruit stands all over the place, but didn't want to buy anything that would go bad sitting in the car until we got home. We finally decided we could get some cherries--I knew the crowd would eat those fast. :-) So we bought some nice, shiny sweet cherries, fresh of the tree. Yum!

I took over the driving for a while, until we stopped for dinner, I think. I don't remember when or where that was. Throughout the trip we'd been trying to stop between seven and eight o'clock each night, both so we wouldn't be driving in the dark (we wanted to SEE things!) and so we would wear everybody out by driving late into the night. But we were on our way home at this point so we drove until about 10:30 or so.

Oh, wait. Somewhere along the way we saw some more of those nifty windmills. This wasn't NEARLY as many as there had been up north of Bakersfield, but still neat.

The kids are such great travelers and they are usually quite content to just read books or draw pictures or play travel games. These were taken after it got late that night...
Joe was THRILLED when we finally said he could get his guitar out and play for a while. He'd been asking throughout the whole trip and he finally got his chance on our late night in the van. We all sang for a while, but the BEST was when Sam sang "This Old House" for us. Ha!
Our day ended in Needles, California, just a few miles from the Arizona border on I-40.

Family Vacation, Part 7 - Yosemite

Here we are, still vacationing!!! I really don't feel like I have a lot to share tonight, even though we saw some of the most breathtaking scenery in the whole world today. For starters, words can't express the WOW of what we saw. Secondly, we are re-e-e-e-e-eally wearing down here! Ha! I feel like I'm running out of steam, even with the blogging. We're moving a little slower each day and making fewer tracks, it seems. The kids are getting a little edgy with each other and getting "the look" a little more frequently. Don't get me wrong--we're still having a GREAT time. You can just tell that we're coming to the end and everybody will be ready to be home when the time comes. Until then we're still trying to pack in as much as we possibly can. :-)

The biggest excitement of the morning was Joe's fear of missing breakfast. This whole family sits around waiting on that kid ALL THE TIME. He's our lagger. Everybody else is already in the van and he'll start to walk out the door and then realize he doesn't have any shoes on. And he doesn't know where they are. And then the laces are knotted and he can't get them untied. Then he has to take that one off again and pull the tongue up because Dad says to always do that. And on and on and on. Well, when there's a continental breakfast involved and he can see the clock ticking he gets a little panicky. Makes the rest of us want to just SLAP him! Ha! See what I mean about getting edgy with each other! ;-) Joe did, indeed, get his breakfast. I opted to stay behind and let James take the kids to breakfast. I needed to blow dry my hair and repack the suitcases. We are now down to just TWO suitcases. That will be nice. :-)
We left this morning and drove down through Sacramento, listening to Governor Schwarzenegger all the while. Ha! We have several voice options on our GPS. We usually keep it set on Sean Connery, but it seemed fitting to have "Arnie" guide us since we're in his state. Actually, we've made most of this trip purely by map--good, old fashioned, paper map--and have only used the GPS a few times. Anyway, we hit Highway 49 and headed south. I had read that Highway 49 is a great drive filled with lots of historical cites and little towns left over from the Gold Rush. We weren't impressed. We missed a road that said "Gold Rush Road -- Old Highway 49," so I'm assuming that's where all the good stuff was. Besides that, the roads were absolutely exploding with cars and MOSTLY motorcycles. Must've been having some sort of biker convention or something. It was crazy.
We did, however, see a sign that said "Mark Twain Cabin, One Mile" so we swerved to take the road and go see it. (We needed something interesting to look at other that bikers!) After we turned it occurred to me. "Wait a minute... Mark Twain wasn't from California!" It seemed weird to me but peeked my interest. When we got there, we found this little cabin with a plaque out front. It explained that Mark Twain visited that county at some point... So after he became famous they built this cabin and put a sign up so people would come see it, I guess! HA! Pitiful. I guess he had been impressed with some things he'd seen around there (like the frog jumping competitions--which we would have LOVED to have seen) and it influenced him and some of those things ended up in some of his writings. Or something like that. It was really lame.
But it gave the kids something to do! It said the cabin was open from sunrise to sunset, but the gate was locked. We told the kids they could squeeze through the bars if they wanted to since they sign said it was supposed to be open. It was just a cabin with no door, you know? They didn't have too much trouble getting through. It was sooooo funny when a car started coming up the road. They all PANICKED and ran back into the cabin to hide--with great big scared eyes--as if it was a cop coming to arrest them or something! Ha! For some reason they all had a harder time making it back OUT through the bars than they had getting in. ?!
So now you, too, have seen and experienced the Mark Twain cabin in all of it's glory. ;-)

We drove and drove and at about three o'clock we finally made it:

Get it? Yosemite... and then Sam... YOSEMITE SAM?! :-) I've long wanted to visit Yosemite National Park and I'm soooooo glad we were able to loop through there on this trip. I would tell you all about it, but it would be the same words I've been using throughout this entire trip: beautiful, gorgeous, tremendous... You get the idea. A picture paints a thousand words. Unfortunately, I was super disappointed in the way most of the pictures turned out today! We got a few real good ones, but the majority of them were pretty washed out and just didn't end up looking anything like it did in real life. So if you want to see what it REALLY looks like you'll just have to go there. But stop by Albuquerque on your way, Sister Tammy. ;-)

Here are a whole bunch of pictures, most of which don't require any commentary.


Ha! James and I didn't think the sun was that bright, but apparently the kids did! (Notice the waterfall wa-a-a-a-ay back there, then the winding river through the valley.)



Joe trying to abide by the DON'T GET WET TODAY rule.


See all the little shiny specks? Is it gold, or fools gold? James and I are about 99% sure that it's iron pyrite (fools gold)... but there's always the chance we could be wrong, you know. Which leaves you asking the question: Who's the real fool? The one who takes it and has it checked out just in case, even if you're pretty sure it's not the real thing... or the person who perhaps passes up a fortune because you think it's probably fake? ;-) Either way, it was fun to see it in the edge of the river. It's probably a crime to remove it from Yosemite anyway, ESPECIALLY if it's real. Ha!
And here's Joe, after having broken then DON'T GET WET TODAY rule. The story was that he was stepping from one rock to another and somehow never knew that he had walked through the water at all--but his shoes and the bottom of his jeans were soaked completely through. If it were any other kid they'd be in big trouble for lying. But I happen to know he was telling the truth. He had NO IDEA he'd walked through the water until several seconds later when he realized his feet were cold and wet. Amazing.




Okay, so this one DOES need some commentary. Ha! I picked out this great spot for a picture on the bridge. I stood right where I needed to, then handed the camera to James. He kept circling around (way too far) and I was trying to explain, "No, James--not THERE. I don't want the waterfall coming straight down into my HEAD, just sort of off to the side..." I was at the HEAD part when he took this, I think. Ha! He did take another one from the right spot, but it was all washed out. I figured most folks would enjoy this one better anyway. Ha!
This is more how the picture was SUPPOSED to be lined up. :-)



This is Joe after he broke the DON'T GET WET TODAY rule. Again. I don't even know what the story was with this one--I couldn't bear to listen to it!

This is not a Redwood tree, just a regular old pine tree. A really, really big California sized pine tree! See the little itty-bitty James down there at the bottom of it?

The kids needed to RUN some today since it was mostly a drive-and-look-at-the-pretty-scenery day. I think James was racing with them in this picture. What a great place to get out and run. :-)

And that's it! It was a nightmare getting out of the park. There were sooooooooooooo many people and cares in Yosemite Valley and I just couldn't figure it out. It's still May, right?! It's not really big vacation time for most people, right?! Most kids are still in school, right?! SATURDAY. We went to Yosemite National Park on a Saturday!!! Is that dumb, or what?! It wasn't intentional; we've just been moving along to the next thing each day and I guess Saturday had to fall in there sometime. Oh well, we did get out. We drive to Fresno and got a room at about 8:30, then James brought back Dominoes Pizza for dinner. I don't know if it's just because I was so hungry or what, but it was really good! (I'm a Pizza Hut girl.) And that was it! Tomorrow morning, we get up and go at it again. Really looking forward to our next big stop (maybe the last--we haven't decided yet) as we make our way back home. :-)