Pre-Reunion & Yosemite N.P.

When you buy a pass to a national park, it's always good for one whole week, so we were able to take advantage of the pass we bought on our way into California and return with the family to explore the park together.  It took forever for all 14 of us to get out of the house and ready to hike, but we finally left around 11:30am.  Jocelyne and Jim took us past a few of the important sights (Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil Falls, etc.) and took us to the tunnel view.  It's a very famous area for pictures on the whole Yosemite Valley.  You can see El Capitan, Half Dome and I think Glacier Point from this view point.  It's just absolutely beautiful and it was a perfect day for pictures, so we worked around the hoards of tourists to get a few shots.

They've had a ton of snow this year, so the waterfalls are still raging.  The last 2 times we visited Yosemite, the waterfalls were rather lacking by July.  It's usually springtime when you can catch them raging, but the rivers and waterfalls were so beautiful.  Zach found waterfalls everywhere.  They pop out of the rock as you are driving along and he was so excited to tell us about the waterfalls that he found!

We ate lunch at a picnic spot right below El Capitan.  If you don't know what El Capital is, I can tell you that it's a rock climbers dream!  Rock climbers come here from all over the world to climb this huge mass of granite the frames the Yosemite Valley.  We always look really hard to see if we can see the climbers because they look like little specks from down below.  Jocelyne put together an amazing lunch with freshly carved tri-tip beef roast sandwiches, fresh fruit and scones leftover from breakfast!  Let me just tell you that Jocelyn is an amazing cook.  We savor every meal that she makes.

Most of the crew with us made the hike up to Vernal falls.  It was rather steep and I noticed that Emilie was not feeling the hike early on, so I opted to stay behind with her and Dolcey stayed with her 6-year-old, Ian, as well.  While everyone else got to see one of the most beautiful waterfalls up close, we truly enjoyed letting the kids play in a small pool of water to cool off while we took some time to catch up!  Zach and Annabelle went with Alain and Z-man hiked almost all of the way by himself.  That kid is going to be a serious track or cross country star!  He amazes me.  Annabelle made it to the bridge of the falls and then came back down with Aunt Mary and Jy!