cali trip: day 8

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 top of yosemite falls.

view of half dome through the trees en route to the bottom of yosemite falls.

when we got in there, it was awesome. there were rocks and pools at the bottom of the falls. tons of kids wading and swimming. we all kind of wished we had bathing suits, because it was very hot.

so pretty.

we did scramble down some rocks and put our feet in. the water was so cold!

after being super careful about making sure everyone’s shoes were accounted for, that no one fell in, and keeping tabs on layla who was determined to take her wading to the very edge of what can still be called “wading” and not “swimming”, I managed to drop one of micah’s socks into the water.

el capitan.

one last shot of half dome.

waiting for nolan to meet us with the truck. layla was “soooo hot. she was gonna die.” it was hot, but she’s just a tad dramatic.

the drive out of there was long and hot. we saw a lot of nothing, and then some farms and ranches. we came though turlock (home of colin kaepernick), and found a dairy queen for some well-deserved blizzards.

the dairy queen, in addition to being air conditioned, had this huge industrial fan.

between that and the ice cream, I was frozen.

I was happy to get back outside and warm up. everyone thought I was nuts.

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Road Trip Day 6

Yesterday was our last full day in Milwaukee. Shane arrived in the morning, but promptly went to bed and slept most of the day, since he had caught a flight at midnight to get out here. Matt took the kids fishing for a little while in the afternoon. Layla caught 1, Lauren caught 1, and Micah caught 4. They also did a little canoeing. Then there was some swimming, where Lauren, Madeline, Micah, and Layla were all trying to flip Dave out of his donut floatie. It took them like 20 minutes and was pretty funny to watch. Also, his toenails were stupid-long and some kids got mauled. Later Melissa, Doug, and Josh came over. We played corn hole, basketball, badminton, and an epically terrible game of kickball at the park. Until Josh kicked the ball over the fence and lost it. Good times. We brought Matt some Woodinville Whiskey from home. And then we impressed everybody with our $2 Harbor Freight tennis racket bug zapper. And Simon decided that Shane was a good enough human. License plate stat...

Road Trip Day 8

We've been a full week on the road now. 2 more to go. We started our Sunday in church at St. Paul's, where Dave worked (and the reason we ever lived here in the first place) from 2004-2006. Then it was lunch at Hill's, a bit more driving around, and discussions of various places (the fairgrounds, the bridge that got blown up, etc.). Then we went to visit Fred and Brenda, and wound up riding around on 4 wheelers all afternoon. Then, back to Danny's for steak dinner - so yummy! And then over to the Lange's for some puppy time! And we finished off with soft serve in a baseball helmet at Frosty Boy. It was a great day. So awesome to see so many friends and visit important places. License plate and state stats are the same as yesterday.

week 46 in pictures

sunday: when dave went in to wake up layla, this is how he found her. face, essentially, smooshed between the bunk bed rail and the mattress, and the covers pulled up over her head. monday: roscoe, chilling on the pooh couch. dakota figured out how to get it to open up to make a nice little doggy bed. roscoe just took advantage when it was vacated. tuesday: my 2 pages of allergy test results . the red ones have to go! wednesday: micah fell asleep during quiet time, snuggling a domino. he had been pretending it was a phone or a video game and insisted on taking it in with him for quiet time. thursday: the missing lug nut . friday: crazy busy day. kids had half days at school because of conferences. I has my workout in the morning, then came home and tidied up because tina was coming over at 11:30 to cut my hair, shane’s hair, and my mom’s hair. I even went to the bus stop w/ part of my hair clipped up because she wasn’t done drying it! then I had to run off to do back-to-back ...

how to cook a turkey–by layla, age 6

“you get the turkey from the wild, where the wild turkeys are. you catch it with a net. to prepare it, you cut off the legs and the bones, and the beak and the eyes, too. you can stuff it with stuffing that is made of chicken. then, you put it in a big pan and stick it in the oven. you cook it at 4 to 5 degrees for 11 minutes. then you serve it by taking it out of the oven, cutting it up a little, and putting some spices on it. then you put it on plates and people can dish up all the other food, too.”

Road Trip Day 11

Happy 13th birthday, Layla! We woke up to another hot day, after a hot night. We left our trailer at the campground and headed into town to visit the Louisville Slugger museum. We were all pretty excited about this. That's Micah at the bottom of the bat. It's gigantic!Inside, we the guided tour and saw them making all the bats and learned all about that process. You're not allowed to take pictures in that part, but there's plenty else to do outside of that part, and we took pictures of all that. I got my picture with Ken Griffey, Jr. (sort of), Micah practiced his pitching, and we all got to hold the actual bats of current or former major leaguers. I went for Edgar Martinez's bat, Shane did Ken Griffey, Jr's, Dave and Micah both held Willie McCovey's, and Layla went for Evan Longoria's.Our official report on this one: Do it. Totally worth it. We then went back to camp, ate some lunch, shut down the trailer, and hooked up to head to our next destination,...

rachel's continued ramblings

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