Yosemite Trip June 2008

With the hearty approval of Kiera's fifth grade teacher, Mrs Westbrook, Kiera missed four days of school in June in order to keep our original vacation schedule to visit Yosemite the week of June 9th. We had resevations for a tent cabin at Housekeeping Camp and our attempts to reschedule the dates were not successful. The plan had been made with different school dates in effect. But how much work is still getting done the last three weeks of the year anyway?
Please see our Smilebox photos below. We arrived at Yosemite on Tuesday June 10th, and left reluctantly on Friday June 13th. This time we all had our bikes and the roads, bike paths and trails of Yosemite were experienced in a fantastic way on them.
We rode the shuttle buses, biked, hiked and did the "slow water float" down the river in rafts. It went by too fast and next year, we are going back next year, we'll add at least another day.
When we left on Friday we decided to take the drive up to Glacier Point. Something Mike and I had never done in any of our trips to Yosemite in the past. What were we waiting for?! What an amazing, amazing, (did I say amazing?) experience. A total view of the Yosemite valley we had only seen in pictures.
Below are a couple shots from that vantage point. Our trip was planned to have an opportunity to see the waterfalls in full flow, and we were not dissappointed.
A little Gayle and Mike trivia, we first met on a day trip to Yosemite with my friend Karen and his friend Gary in September 1978.

What We Did On Our Summer Vacation

Make a Smilebox photobook

It's A Boy

Big Sister Naia

From Kel's blog:

I had my 20-week (5 months for those of you who get annoyed by pregnant women who count in weeks) scan this morning and I'm happy to report that Naia has a very healthly, perfectly-sized, ten-fingered and ten-toed baby...brother.
I was a little shocked, actually. Both Jason and I were convinced we'd have two girls. Maybe because I am one of two girls and his sister had two daughters. Maybe because Naia's baby brother will be the first grandson for our combined families and he's grandchild #5. Or maybe just because we had a girl's name we were 100% sure of but we're still waffling on a boy's name. Admittedly, I panicked a bit on the ride back to the office wondering, what on earth am I going to do with a boy? How will I understand what he's going through when the horomones kick in or he starts acting like...well...a BOY? This is where I will rely on my oldest friend, Heather, who has two adorable sons and where I will look at Jason and say, "help!"
Lots of people have asked me if Naia understands she's going to have a baby brother/sister (since we didn't which know until this morning). I didn't know for sure, although I suspected that while she understood the individual words, she probably didn't truly understand the concept behind them. Well, she understands more than I thought because tonight, while we were reading on the couch, I asked her if she was excited about getting a baby brother. She turned toward me, lifted up my shirt and pointed at my belly. I asked if she wanted to give her baby brother a kiss and she leaned down and kissed my belly. Yeah, I pretty much said "wow," too.

Around the House

Sometimes there isn't that much going on.

Here is Mike and Kiera on the loveseat watching TV.

And a shot of Mike attempting to prove me wrong ( I was right ) because he swears that the sprinklers really do hit everywhere and the brown grass can't possibly be lack of water.


This is Mike saying "Its getting water here!" ( Note big brown grass area to his right )

After some hours of manual labor, this is the backyard looking pretty inviting.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Blog Hijacking

Shame on me, a little, for bootlegging from Shannon's blog. But this was so darn cute I had to use it! Jenna with her cousins Jayden and Logan in their uniforms from this season's YMCA indoor soccer.

Angels vs Orioles

Thanks to one of my credit union members who is a season ticket holder we were provided four premium seats, and preferred parking, at a definitely bargain price. Mike, Kiera, Stevi and I set out for the 12:45 game this Saturday.

We enjoyed shade the entire time. Here are Mike, Stevi and Kiera enjoying the view. And Kiera working at getting the attention of the Angels girls who were shooting tshirts into the stands.