Yosemite!!!!

Yosemite has always been one of my favorite destinations. Not only is it an amazing display of God's wonder but it also is just a nice place to be (and many others from all over the world agree). I started going to Yosemite when I was just a little kid and have been going ever since. The boys have been before but this was the first trip with Mia. There is just so much to see and do while in Yosemite. Besides the visitor center and all the other cool demonstrations they have, they also just have a ton of outdoor activities to do-- bicycle, hike, raft plus lots more.

This is all of us rafting down the Merced river. It is the river that runs through Yosemite and it is the glacier that carved the walls of Yosemite-- amazing!!!

We then got changed out of our wet clothes and headed to our bikes and began riding. We rode to the Happy Isles Trail which leads you to Vernal and Nevada Falls. Funny point about this trail is that my family grew up backpacking in the back country of Yosemite. We would literally backpack (carry everything on your back-- sleep in tents-- eat freeze dried food-- poop in holes that you dug with your pooper scooper-- sounds crazy but I grew up taking a backpacking trip every year. We would usually take trips where we walked about 25 miles-- we even did a trans-Sierra one year. When Kevin and I started dating when we were 16 years old the following summer he started doing the backpacking trips with us. I think he went every year with our family from the age of 17 on (that included many Yosemite trips). Anyway, when we did our Yosemite backpacking trips we would end at Happy Isles. It woudl be the final leg of our trip and we would end our amazing trip heading down the mist trail at Happy Isles. It is a much longer trail than we hiked with our group-- we just got to the base of the trail with our group-- but the mist trail goes up miles and it runs along the waterfalls-- hence the mist trail. Anyway, I have amazingly fond memories of Happy Isles and I was so pleased to be able to share it with the kids as well as our friends. It was one heck of a hard hike but it was well worth it.

As you can see, Mia is sitting in front of a trail sign that shows some of the back country trails. There are a few of our favorite overnight stops on that sign-- Merced, little Yosemite and others. Such fond memories!!!

Here is a video of the hike:





Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

After we took our long hike we then got back on our bikes and went to Curry Village and had pizza for dinner. After dinner we took another bike ride where we saw deer in the meadows.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

The last day we rented a sea doo and went riding. That was the day that I took Mia back for an almost 4 hour nap so I was not there a lot of the day but the time I was there was really fun.