Yosemite 2012

In our house the end of June means camping in Yosemite at least it has for the last 4 years.  This is something everyone in the family looks forward to, yes, even me.  I love Yosemite, it might be one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. 

This year was a little different because we were taking a tiny baby.  Owen was 10 weeks old on this trip!  We had to plan a little differently then we usually do.  We had to bring formula, I had to pack for 4 kids...yikes that was a lot of packing and everything that might go wrong with that.  We also decided we needed to change the seating arrangement in the swagger wagon.  We set Owen and Kevin in the far back, so that Kevin could take good care of him and the middle guys in the middle seats.  It was perfect and the Kevin was the star of the show he was the best big brother on the planet!

Another difference this time was that we went with our friends, the Bartys, They have two boys, 3 and 5...so this was definitely going to be an adventure!!

We had breakfast on the road in hopes of missing some of the traffic through L.A.

Here is the car all loaded down with kiddos and gear

the boys are very good travelers.  I would take them anywhere in the car.

Our first adventure after getting our tents set up and braving our first night was to Bridal Veil Falls.  The boys had tons of fun with their friends, Jonah and Ashton.

Next we went to Sentinel Beach for a picnic lunch and some long awaited playing in the water, which is my boys' favorite thing to do in Yosemite.  Ours are the ones in Orange and White!

El Capitan!

We stopped for wood and Bryan amazed us with his wood cutting skills with no saw or ax...

here is our campsite we ended up at a handicap site which posed some interesting challenges in setting up our tents but we figured it out, but didn't have any tents actually on the site but off to the side.

helper boys!

Check out Adam and his pro stance he has here on grilling his hot dog!!

early morning by the campfire

day two: we went on a hike in Mariposa Grove to see the giant Sequoia trees

Snack time!

The shirt Isaac is wearing was bought our first year in Yosemite when we realized how car sick Kevin gets in the car.  He had thrown up all over himself so when we got to Curry Village we got him a new shirt and now Isaac fits it, how time does fly!!

We saw these two deer but they were not nearly as interesting apparently as the Caterpillar on the ground as seen in the next picture.  We couldn't get the boys away from it to look at the deer.

This little boy walked the entire 2 mile hike!!

Day 3:  We went over to check out The Pioneer Center in Wawona. 

Then we went to the river that ran through our campground for some more swimming

Here are some pictures of our campsite.

Here is the set up for Owen and I in the minivan!

Here we are the last morning at our last campfire.

by the way, did I mention that Owen was an angel baby.  He nearly slept through the night every night and I believe he cried once when he got really hot and hungry once.

We stopped a few times on the way back and one of the places was here at a park in Kingsburg.  We also stopped at a Costco in Bakersfield and a McDonald's in La Canada...