rachel's continued ramblings

it was another scorcher! the day started with laurie’s famous french toast (cut in squares, of course). then we (everyone except papa, who was coming down with a cold) headed out to the theater to see monsters university. everyone loved it. after the movie, gramma laurie to shane shopping at kohl’s for his birthday present. back at home, gramma jackie let layla pick through some of her seashells, after her tiny prized sand dollar had gotten broken the night before. even julie was ready for the hot day. a minor mishap when the hot water tap broke. dave and gary tried to fix it, with no success. I did my best to get all of our stuff packed up and ready to leave the next morning. then it was back in the pool, where we spent the rest of the afternoon. how micah ‘dries off’. one last in-n-out burger for dinner. I like my double-double protein style with grilled onions, added pickles, and no sauce. yum. best burger ever. then layla got to open her birthday present from gramma and p...

the temperature was creeping up near 100* and we were all glad to have a day of nothing but swimming. micah was out of his jammies and into his swim suit by about 8. we swam all morning. after a late lunch, we had a mandatory ‘out of the pool and chill out’ time and put on finding nemo. dave did this: gary made some delicious ribs for dinner, which layla loved and micah refused to try. this resulted in no more swimming for him and he was made to get his jammies on.

after a TERRIBLE night’s sleep, we got up, made eggs and bacon for breakfast, cleaned up and tore down. we were off, back into the park for some real sight seeing. first glimpse of half dome. after finding a place to park, we were ready for our first hike to find bridal veil falls. dave, shane, and nolan scrambled way up the rocks. layla, micah, and I only scrambled up the bottom ones… see those two people behind layla? this was right before they both fell into the water, waist-deep. the rocks were very smooth, which is why I did not let the younger two keep going, much to their disappointment. back in the valley.   we had some lunch, perused the gift shop, and then headed out to find yosemite falls. they had several of these fences, presumably around trees they wanted to protect. this one had a chipmumk hanging on the side, completely immobile. I seriously thought it was dead. it just sat there. after several minutes, it finally turned its head. so weird. view of the very ...

off to yosemite! we hit the road in the morning in a borrowed truck pulling a borrowed tent trailer. the truck was huge and the situation had been described as “a gnat on the back of a whale”. pretty funny. nolan came with us, and he was the only who had ever been to yosemite before. the views in the valley did not disappoint. so gorgeous. so we stopped and took a ton of pictures and planned what we wanted to do the next day. the grass in this field was so tall the kids were playing hide and seek in it. when they sat down, you couldn’t see them. on the way to find our camp ground, we saw several of these signs. I thought they were awesome. (and no, we didn’t see any actual bears.) after we got there and got the tent trailer set up, shane and I unloaded some stuff and put layla and micah in charge of gathering sticks for kindling. we hadn’t brought any wood, and the campsite was out, so dave and nolan took the hatchet and went in search of downed branches in the woods. there wer...