June 2012

All right, I'm back! We finally have something fun to blog about (after months of moving, sickness, David studying for his PE for 3 months, and then a month long shut-down at work where David worked like 30 days straight) and now it's summer! Hoo-ray! It's actually something to celebrate here in Utah and we have been enjoying every minute of it. Here are a few of our adventures:

 Adam's Canyon David and I dropped the kids off at Granna's house (one of my favorite features of Utah by the way...love you Wilma!) at 6 pm on a friday evening and headed out to hike one of David's favorite trails. It starts with switchbacks straight up a mountain in sand, and then drops into a canyon and winds it's way up to a beautiful waterfall. This hike is not for the faint of heart. It was so nice to get out with David and do one of the things we enjoyed so much while we were dating and newly-weds.And thanks to daylight savings we were leaving the canyon at 9 pm, just in time to catch this beautiful sunset.  

Hogle Zoo We celebrated the beautiful warm weather by buying a membership to the zoo. Emma and Maylee love the brand new polar bear exhibit. And Eli's favorite part is this big water ball at the entrance. If you look closely you can see me and Maylee too!  

Twin Lakes One of our favorite places to visit is Silver Lake up by the Brighton ski resort. It has a lovely walkway around it and we always see moose while we're there! Behind this lake are a couple of hikes to lakes further up the mountain. We chose one of these as our first family hike of the season. At first I thought we might have made a mistake because even though the hike was only 2 miles roundtrip the trail was very steep the trail was very steep. But we all made it to the top, even me and my 30 lb Maylee pack, and had a lovely picnic lunch by this beautiful alpine lake.
 

Jordan River Parkway One gorgeous Sunday evening we went on a family walk on a local river parkway. We were so excited when David spotted a beaver on the opposite bank and we sat there for 20 minutes watching him swim and eat and play. We also saw birds and squirrels.  

Donut Falls Our next adventure was a 3 mile hike to a waterfall. The reason it's called Donut falls is because the water cascades through a round hole in the rock. This was a lovely hike with beautiful scenery. David got some very scenic shots, I love this one.

 Lake Solitude We went back to Silver Lake to do one of the other hikes in that area. A short hike through a beautiful aspen grove to a small lake called Lake Solitude. At least it was supposed to be a short hike, then we decided to go over the mountain and loop around to the Twin Lakes trail we had done last time. Making it a much longer and more challenging hike. These trails basically follow the ski runs at the Brighton ski resorts, which turned out to be really (really) steep. We all made it to the top and the kids were so proud of making it (I was too frankly,). For sure, our hardest hike to date. Obviously we are enjoying our summer so far! Lots more fun to come.

Vacation (Days 10 & 11)

Today we headed back to Yosemite and drove down into the actual valley for some hiking and a picnic. It was very crowded but amazingly beautiful.



And then it was over. Just like that. Sniffle. Saturday morning we packed up our trailer and headed home with a little navigation help from Maylee.

We had such a wonderful time, I can't even describe how grateful we were to my parents for putting up with us for 11 whole days. If you've never been to Yosemite you definitely want to put it on your "to-do" list.

Vacation (Day 9)

Yosemite!

Waiting in line to enter the park. We did this a lot. There was construction on the road and so we did a lot of waiting in line.

After getting into the park we headed to see a grove of giant sequoia trees. We went on a short hike to see a tunnel tree. Here's Emma right before we started in front of a big tree.

Emma and Eli, ready to start hiking...or maybe to defeat Darth Vader.

Up the trailhead a bit. You'll notice I am now carrying the walking stick/lightsaber.

Up at the tunnel tree.

While we were looking at the tunnel tree these two bucks came wandering through the group of people standing there.

After we were finished hiking we hopped in the car to drive to an overlook where we could see Half-Dome. You can see it behind David in this picture.
David, Emma, and Eli reaching the summit of the giant boulder at the overlook.

We don't really have this color in Phoenix.

Vacation (Day 8)

Moving day! Saying good bye to the ocean and hello to giant trees. We got up early and packed up the whole trailer after breakfast. We made a quick stop on our way out at the organic berry farm to buy some jam. We got strawberry, blackberry, and Straw-Ollaliberry jam. Now what is an Ollaliberry you might be asking? It is a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry and in my opinion heaven on earth! This is jam is so good it's criminal. I guess all the wacko, eco-friendly people are right, organic food does taste better. :-)

Then we got back in the car and drove...and drove...and drove. It was actually only 3-4 hours but it felt like forever in the car before we reached our new KOA outside of Yosemite. None of us were super thrilled when we got out into the 80 degree heat. There were some wistful sighs for our green ocean-view campground. But we worked at getting our trailer set up again and right into bed. We were all pretty tired.

I think this picture of Maylee sums up how all of us felt after a day in the car.

Vacation (Day 7)

Today's Agenda - Fisherman's Wharf!

We got an earlier start today and made it into the city in decent time. We were all very excited for today's excursion. SO excited in fact that the first thing we did was lose Emma in the parking lot as we hurried toward the pier. Luckily we noticed after only a hundred yards or so. Hopefully she won't be scarred for life. Here's a picture of me and the kids at the pier.

Our first stop was the Bay Cruise. I decked the kids down for this one with long sleeve shirts, coats, and hats. And then when we got out on the water the sun came out for the first time and we all got hot and sunburned. And then the wind came back and we all got cold again. Sheesh. This is Maylee and I on the boat and Maylee is doing her super villain face.

Here's Emma and my Mom, looking lovely and windswept.

My parents...the founders of the feast, as it were.

This is Eli demonstrating that the 90 minute Bay tour was about 60 minutes too long.


After the boat ride it was time for lunch. I also needed to feed Maylee and all of the restaurants around us looked like little cafe's with no seating. So I requested we find a restaurant with chairs so Maylee could eat too. We ended up at a very nice restaurant paying way too much money for food that just wasn't very good. It still makes me all upset to think about eating here! One of these weekends I'm going to make David drive us to San Fransisco just so we can eat somewhere fun on Fisherman's Wharf and then come home. Just to erase the memory of the $60 bowl of clam chowder (yes we did get other food too).


Here is my favorite sign of the trip and I'm sad I didn't get a close up of it. (One more reason for a weekend excursion, right David?)

Next was Aquarium on the Bay which was rather disappointing after the aquarium at The Academy of Science. But we did get to pet rays, sharks, and sea slugs so the kids still liked it.


After that we did some walking around and shopping. I bought some super expensive chocolate that, unlike lunch, I do not regret at all! There also was a funny moment where two Chinese women sat and took like 40 pictures of Maylee. Then we were ready to head back to the camp while my parents went to see Wicked. When we were driving into camp we almost ran over a couple of raccoons which was cool, until later that night when they were breaking into stuff around our camp. We also had a skunk which got into our garbage can and made a mess.


David enjoyed our time in San Fransisco so much. It is totally unlike any other city I've been in. We can't wait to go back and spend more time there.

Vacation (Day 6)

Day 6

Good-bye Santa Cruz, Hello San Fransisco! Today is our first day venturing into the city. Today's itinerary includes Golden Gate Park, The California Academy of Science, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Academy was way cooler than we expected it to be, and our expectations were pretty high. This museum has a planetarium, an aquarium, a 5 story rain forest, a living roof, and various other exhibits. We spent 6 hours there and could have spent more if they didn't kick us out at closing time.
Here is the inside rain forest. There were fish, birds, and butterflies inside. As well as animals from each of the world's rain forests.

Here's the kids in front of the aquarium. Their aquarium was amazing, we spent almost 3 hours down there.

This lady is cleaning the INSIDE of the fish tank. Weird.

These were everyone's favorite.

Emma with the largest mammal ever.

Here we are on top of the living roof. That giant mound behind me is the dome of the planetarium. We didn't stay up there very long because it was windy and cold. (Yes, to us poor Arizonans 50 degrees is COLD)

This is what Maylee and Daddy did while I took the kids to the planetarium show.


The Academy closed about this time so we had to leave (before we saw everything) and we were going to explore the park but by then we were so tired and it was so cold we decided to skip it and head straight for the bridge.


After that it was back to the KOA for food and sleep to gear up for our 2nd day in San Fransisco.