So to celebrate my 30th and just to get away, we decided to go with my parents to Yosemite, or as Allison would call it, "Somebody". The day after Andrew's birthday party, I got home from work and helped Paul load up the car and off we all went. One word can describe our car... CRAMPEd!!! With 4 adults and 2 kids we were packed from floor to ceiling. We made the long journey to Yosemite valley and lucky pregnant me, who has been up for 30 plus hours was the only one who puked on the side of the road in a nasty road side bathroom. But we all survived thanks to the dvd players, snacks, naps and Papa's i pod player. We arrived just as the sun was going down. My parents were a bit taken back at our "cabin". It was truly a cement slab with 3 cement walls and a canvas roof and a fourth wall that was a canvas door. There was one full size bed, bunk beds and just enough room for my parents to place their air mattress. It was nearly freezing at night and thankfully we brought a space heater, which I am pretty sure blew a fuse and we were without electricity for one of the mornings, which wasn't a big deal since we only had one outlet and one light.
during our 3 night stay in one of the world's most beautiful places we managed to see pretty much everything. Our first full day was spent hiking up a nice little trail to the bottom of lower Yosemite falls with great views of upper Yosemite falls as well. We spent all morning taking in the views and had a great time taking pictures. We spent the rest of the afternoon back at camp in the river. We brought a large inflatable raft that we carried up the river and then the 4 of us floated downstream peacefully looking up at the mountains hanging over us and waterfalls cascading all around us. It was so peaceful that Allison fell asleep. My parent's sat on the shore an relaxed and took pictures of us making our way down the river. Paul was a trooper and pulled us back up the river in the ice cold water only so that we can go back down again. As he was pulling us back up for the second time, it started to rain and we could see lightning in the distance. We decided to make our way back to camp to dry off and head into town for dinner. It poured on us all night, but we stayed dry and had a lot of fun.
The second day we decided to make our way up an awuflly steep and difficult trail to Vernal Falls. Not realizing what we were getting ourselves into, we all struggled to catch our breath as we hiked up the ridiculous trail. The kids had no problem with their energy level or with the altitude but I must say the adults were struggling. Mom and dad had to turn around before we made it to the top. We were told the whole trail was 2 miles total, when in reality it was 2 miles one way with a huge incline that can nearly kill you. The demboski's kept going until we reached our destination which was a bridge that over looked the falls. Me being pregnant made it even more of a challenge. We survived and then ate our weight in lunch back in town. We made our way back to camp and took the bikes for a ride.
We managed to convince my poor mom to go down the river with us. My dad was not a fan of this idea, but it turned out to be a whole lot of fun. We laughed so hard at Paul running down the river chasing after his sandal as he was pulling us upstream so we didn't have to walk back up the river. My mom is such a good sport and I hope I am that willing to do crazy things like her when I am her age. during our stay, we also went a say a performace of John Muir which we all enjoyed and the kids slept through. Each night, Papa Bug would tell the kids bedtime stories and let the kids listen to his ipod. They learned the "yellow submarine" and the " All together now" song by the Beatles.
Our last morning we had an amazing breakfast buffet at the Ahwahnee Hotel. It was such a beautiful day with amazing food, the kids behaving like angels and Grandma Bug even ran around the hotel grounds singing "the hills are alive with the sound of music". I think the altitude was making her crazy :)
We ended our last night with a big kid bike ride around the village. Andrew, me, Paul and my dad took off and biked around and took some great pictures. Andrew was ridiculously good on his bike, going through mud puddles, balancing on trails that were way too steep for a 4 year old and giving mommy a heart attack. We managed to get to a great spot to take some amazing pictures of half dome. It was a great way to end our last night in Yosemite.
It is safe to say we all had an amazing time and I look forward to doing it again real soon.
