Yosemite

We spent Sunday through Tuesday at Yosemite. It was about a 6 hour drive, but it was worth it. Sunday we spent the afternoon looking at the sequoias. It was one of the things on my bucket list, so it was very fun to experience it with my family. These trees are huge! We hiked quite a ways to see different sequoias. The kids did an amazing job hiking up the mountain.

This is a "stump" of a dead sequoia. Seeing it from this view made me realize just how big the trees are.

California Tunnel Tree

Sitting inside the tunnel tree

Posing along the trail

We got amazingly close to this deer- apparently they are used to people.

Cameron really wanted to bring home one of the huge pinecones, but there are rules against such things, so he settled for a picture instead.

A gorgeous sunset in the mountains.

Monday we started at Bridal Veil Falls. It was a very easy hike and a pretty waterfall, but there was not much water coming over the falls. 

Cameron, Ryan and Aubrey climbed up some rocks toward the base of the falls. Apparently, most of the time they are covered in water, but because of the drought they made a good place to climb.

Lauren and I waiting at the base.

A zoomed in view of the boys after their climb toward the falls.

A rare picture of Mom and Dad!

This is called Tunnel View since you can see a long way through the valley.

Driving up to Glacier Point

Showing the little bit of snow that was along the road.

The view below from Glacier Point, the highest driving point in the park. The views were breathtaking!

Cameron and Ryan went for a hike by themselves because Cameron wanted to go on another "hard" hike, but the girls didn't want to. We explored the valley while they were on their hike.

 Another hike, this time the trail was so steep and there weren't really sides for most of the trail (unlike where we took this picture) so Ryan and I were really nervous. At one point Cameron ran ahead and climbed a big rock at the edge of the trail. He had no clue that on the other side of that rock was a drop down into the abyss! Thankfully he wasn't hurt and we had a little chat about using caution.

 The kids loved exploring in the rocks.

 This is how most of the trail edge was.

 This is El Capitan, a very high granite mountain. The first night when we were leaving the park we saw dots of light and couldn't figure out what they were from. Ryan thought they were people climbing the mountain. I disagreed, thinking no one would be so crazy. I was wrong! They were people not climbing, but SLEEPING on the side of the mountain. This opened a whole new world to me. I do not like heights, so I wouldn't be caught doing such a thing, but it was amazing to watch.

Here is a close-up, very zoomed in shot of two climbers on El Capitan.