Thanksgiving 2014: Yosemite

We chose to spend this Thanksgiving in Yosemite and I am so happy we did!  I have been to Yosemite a couple of time so I know how special it is and I was anxious to share that with Chris and the boys; however, the extreme summer crowds have prevented me from wanting to organize a trip during out usual vacation times.  When it occurred to me that we could go during Thanksgiving, a plan started to come together.  Smaller crowds, cooler but not freezing weather, and the fact that we could really take advantage of the whole area without the throngs of visitors tipped the scales on this decision!

Our trip worked out great.  We rented a little house right outside Yosemite.  I cooked a small Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday and we packed it in a cooler to take with us on Thursday morning.  We got up early and drove the 3 hours to the mountains, stopped for a picnic lunch and then headed to our cabin.  We did some sight seeing during the day and then sat down to a nice dinner on Thursday evening.  Friday and Saturday we pretty much did the same things: had a leisurely breakfast at the cabin, went for a nice hike, had lunch, did some sight seeing/more hiking, then had dinner, watched a Christmas show and then the kids went to sleep.  Chris and I stayed up and did what we ALWAYS do when we are on vacation: watch HGTV (boy does this ever give you a window into our very exciting and supper crazy world, ha!).  It was a very relaxing and restful vacation full of togetherness.  The boys were troopers (this seems to be a common observation on my part) and really hung strong on some pretty challenging hikes.  The dogs were in heaven because they were with us during every outing.  It was the prefect little getaway and a great way to celebrate what we are thankful for!

We spent some time hiking amongst the giant Sequoias.  Standing in and around these true giants really makes one reflect on how small we really are.

And of course we took in the amazing beauty of Yosemite.  At one point while we were hiking a buck walked right out onto the path a short distance from where we were standing.  It was so cool to see such a big creature up close (the only demerits that Yosemite gets (in my book) is that there are no moose.  If moose lived there, it would be my version of heaven).  On another afternoon, amazing clouds blew in right as the golden evening light started.  We do not get a lot of cool cloudy skies in California so this seemed particularly special.  We were trying to get back to our car before the kids got too cranky so I could not just stand and take one million pictures but I could not help but snap some pictures trying to capture the perfectness of this moment (I failed by the way, the moment was way more perfect than it looks here).  Last, there are tons of waterfalls in Yosemite and even though they are not flowing at full capacity this time of year, they still have a little bit of water and still look pretty awesome.  I love waterfalls and get really excited when we see them.  I must have made this clear to the boys because in the week we have been home I have heard them exclaim several times "Look at that waterfall!".  Since I know there are no waterfalls in my house, I can only imagine that this frequently repeated statement is pinging around in their toddler brains and they are unable to hold it back!

I am so very thankful for these cuties.  They slept in the same bed in our rental and ended up sleeping like this the whole time.   What little loves they are.