The kids tend to pick up a few things while they are at the grocery store with me. Alex seems to be on a chili cheese binge.
Eliza and Evan discovered Eliza's spin art in the craft supply bin. (I have been directing them to these bins in the event they say "I'm bored")
This was only the beginning. They did many many many many more.....
More crafts at the library
Yarn was the element of the day
We love our library.
We visited our old school Doherty before the district tears it down to building a newer bigger monstrosity. Alex felt huge in the chairs.
Alex went to Doherty from K through most of 1st, but in Spring of 1st grade it was COVID so he didn't see Doherty again because it was a K-2 school.
Evan attended Doherty for 1st and 2nd grade (kindergarten was online for Evan due to COVID), and Eliza attended Doherty for K-2.
It was sad to say goodbye, it was a fun school with lots of memories of helping, playing, and learning.
More craft bin! Home Depot builds while I did my board notes.
Evan built a tool box and Eliza made a sailboat. I told them they should sail their boat the next time we get a good rain and have puddles outside.
Evan and Eliza love putting on acrobatic shows for us. Lots of twists and spins and leaps of danger.
Thankfully they don't hit their heads.
Garden was coming along nicely, until I took pictures.
After I took pictures 2 out of 3 tomatoes decided they didn't want to be alive anymore. They were happy one morning, and then super sad....... no I don't know why.... yes.... one survived.
Evan blew out his bike tire, partly due to him braking so hard he no longer had tread on his tire anymore, but also because of a pesky stone hitting his tire in just the right spot. So while we were at the store dropping his bike off to get repaired we picked up Eliza a new bike. Her old bike compared to her new one. She has an easier time keeping up with the boys now.
We headed to the Tween library kick off. The robotics team was there showing off their robots while taking turns to enjoy the festivities.
They had a foam party after the event in the back parking lot of the library. Oh my goodness what a fun time!
They were covered head.....
to toe in bubbles. They were so wet.. and of course I didn't bring any towels or clothes. Thankfully it was a 2 min drive home.
All packed and ready to go on our trip. The kitties could not be lost so they traveled in Evan's carry on luggage.
Boys are ready for the adventure.
Eliza's first time on a plane. We had to get them up at 5:30am to get to the airport for our 8:30 flight.
We saw some amazing views out the window. The boys kept opening it to look out, they would block their view with their big heads and then close the window so I didn't get to see anything. So I would have to ask them to open it again so I could see and get blinded again by the light coming in. Good times. :)
We had lunch at an old Army or Navy base right in San Diego. The food court had so many choices and yummy food. We are really happy we got to eat lunch and take a walk with my dad's cousin Tom and his wife Carrie that live there. Tom was kind enough to buy the kids some mini donuts to enjoy.
After lunch we drove to Dana Point and walked to dinner at a Mexican place, then walked to the beach so the kids to see the ocean. I asked them not to get wet because they would need their pants the next day.... yeah....
The next morning we walked to see Erica, the lady that sent Eliza the gift basket for winning the contest and thanked her for her kindness and expressed our excitement about our visit. She was super nice and super tall.
Then we headed to the pier and went whale watching. It was a 2 hour tour, and about an hour in Mike, Eliza and myself didn't feel great. So we took it easy while the boys got to see a ton of dolphins and a sunfish.
After whale watching we headed north and had lunch and then passed through LA after 2pm... big mistake getting stuck in that traffic. Turns out LA doesn't have Left hand turn signals, so only 1 or 2 cars can get through a light to turn left per cycle. It took FOREVER to get out of LA. A fire started while we were driving, it was a cold storage place that caught fire.
When we got to the base of Sequoia National Park (SNP) we went to Walmart and picked up food for the next day and for dinner. It was about 9pm when we checked in and found out the room didn't have a microwave. So we went to the one tiny microwave in the whole hotel in the lobby and had our pizza bagel dinner.
The only tiny microwave in all the hotel.
So turns out finding rooms for 5 people in CA is kind of a pain in the neck. They don't like that 5th person, so Alex had to sleep on two chairs because there was only two queen beds and a hard floor.
So on Thursday we headed into SNP. Mike got to drive through the mountains and did a great job.
We stopped many times while going through the park. We had to see tunnel rock where cars used to drive under before the road was diverted around it because they were getting too big. The family is standing on top of the rock.
The views were just beautiful.
Auto Log, where cars used to drive up on this falling sequoia tree for pictures. You are no longer allowed to drive your car on it, but you can walk on it all you want.
Our first time touching a sequoia tree.
Sugar pine cone. They were giant!
Evan standing under the Auto Tree.
While the family went up the 300+ stairs of Moro rock, I stayed behind and sketched.
Moro rock is in the distance, it is what the family decided they wanted to climb to the top of.
This was the view from the top of Moro Rock.
My amazing climbers!
The stairs they had to go up and down.
Mike got to drive through Tunnel Log, and we fit with no issues.
We took a hike up to Eagle View and it was just beautiful.
You could see for miles and miles.....
in either direction.
The foliage was beautiful and diverse as well. This walk smelled like fresh laundry. The trails just smelled wonderful.
Crescent Meadow. There are people on a board walk way out there.
After the Eagle View we hiked down to see General Sherman tree. Here is a picture of the family standing on the outline of the tree's cross section. It is a huge tree, it is actually the largest tree by volume in the world.
Meet General Sherman, the circle in green is of people at the base. While the tree is no longer getting any taller, every year it still widens.
We took a bus back to our car after General Sherman, we were beat.
But after a drive north through the park we stopped at Big Stump to see some big stumps from sequoia trees that were cut down. Turns out that when sequoia trees fall down, they splinter, so they weren't great for the timber company, but there are stumps you can climb on where they did cut them down.
Driving out of the park.
We got some really great pizza on our way out.
A 16" pizza and small salad was able to feed all of us. Not to mention it was delicious!
The sun was setting as we were getting to our hotel.
Dirty dirty feet from all the hiking.
Next morning we headed back to the park but this time to discover Kings Canyon National Park (KCNP).
The kids were sworn in as Jr. Rangers and we did some shopping before heading into the park.
First stop was Panoramic Point. This was the first vista....
And here we are at the second.
We had a little lunch after our hike. I didn't bring a knife so I did what I could with an apple with a plastic butter knife.
Here is a fallen sequoia that some people used to live in.
Pretty amazing to walk through one of those trees.
Here is how big it is from a distance laying down.
We saw General Grant, which is known as Nation's Christmas tree.
KCNP is actually split into two parts. So this is the beginning of the second part where you drive into the canyon. It is the deepest canyon in America. The views were breathtaking.
Eliza did a sketch of this view.
The pink line is the road we drove on to get into and out of Kings Canyon.
Here is a view of what driving was like. What you don't see is the drop off's with no guard rail.
At the bottom there was this beautiful river.
Fed by the Roaring River Falls that we visited.
Heading back to our trusty steed. We got to try out a Pacifica while on the trip. There was no way we would all fit into a SUV with all of our luggage.
Something cool about the parks in CA is they have these metal castings of where you are and there is star on it so you can see where you are in perspective to the area.
Our teen son next to a teen sequoia tree.
Alex playing like he's falling off a cliff. Not funny Alex.
In the morning on Friday we finally let the kids do some swimming while Mike and I planned the day.
We had to try In-N-Out burger while were were there. Alex thinks it was the best burger in his life and wishes they would come to Michigan.
We to to Yosemite National Park (YNP) late morning and visited the visitor center that was hidden from everyone at the top of a hill. Thought it was a nice green trail to take a picture of the kids.
Eliza was angry when we got near Glacier Point lookout. We pulled off, along with 100 other people (oh my goodness YNP was busy, it was a holiday and a Friday so what can you do). I gave Eliza an apple to eat while the rest of us walked and looked and took pictures of everything.
The views were just too amazing to capture in pictures.
The family is in the middle of the picture, and there are waterfalls behind them, and Half Dome is on the left.
After this family picture we headed further down the road and got stuck on the two lane road because there were 1million people in the park that day. Everyone wanted a close parking spot and didn't just drive on to the next spot that was free.
But we did make it to Glacier Point and this is a view of Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point.
The kids thought the views were amazing.
This is the view driving out of YNP for the night.
You know how I mentioned it's hard to find hotels for 5 people, well... outside of YNP you can't. We were forced to get two hotel rooms, thankfully for $70 more dollars we got an adjoining room, so for our one night stay we paid $700.
We stopped by the grocery store to get some more supplies and dinner. Turns out grocery store sandwiches are pretty dry... now we know.
So not only was this the most expensive stay on our trip... the "breakfast" was lacking. There was toast, you could have it burnt or not toasted in the toaster... or there was a conveyer belt toaster that took a few min to toast only one side. The lemonade was salty and watered down, the Folgers coffee dispenser was actually milk for the single cereal offered (raisin bran) and there were mini apples. Alex did try to make oatmeal from the packets provided, but Mike was left with his single toast.
Worst breakfast on the trip.
Evan found out the rear seats reclined in the van.
Heading into YNP on Sat and going to the valley. We got to drive through a mountain!
We stopped right after the tunnel so I got another picture of it.
Here is where we are on the metal map.
Heading into the valley.
We stopped at Bridalveil Falls. The kids climbed up there with others, but because of the mist from the falls it was pretty slippery.
The boys in the creek the falls create.
We stopped at Yosemite chapel, but they were having service on a Sunday morning so we walked behind it and saw a beautiful meadow. They have the most giant dandelions I've ever seen.
The meadow was amazing and beautiful.
The valley was so busy and so hot and we circled just trying to find a spot. While we were driving Mike had his window down and all of a sudden he was like "OUCH!" we found a place to pullover and he had scratches on his arm and there was berry juice on his door where his arm was. We don't know if something fell out of the tree or what but something hurt him.
After circling for 1/2 an hour we finally found a parking spot and walked to an eating area. Evan spotted a table just as I gave up in looking and we were able to have lunch. We did some shopping after this for some souvenirs.
We attempted a walk to see Yosemite falls, but it was sooooo hot, we walked 10 min and called it.
Alex with the falls behind him.
Evan with the falls behind him.
Eliza with the falls behind her.
We walked a little father to get this picture, but we were done at this point.
I got Mike to pull off as we were leaving so we could put our feet in the ice cold Merced River.
It was the best part of visiting the valley for me.
This was much of CA. If it wasn't rows of trees for produce it was fields of dry grass. It was kind of funny we were driving West and we missed our turn and when we went back to turn onto the road we needed Google had already recalculated us going more North and we lost signal. So I asked Alex for the CA atlas we brought with us, and the kids were all freaked out "GOOGLE IS TELLING US TO GO BACK!!" I just told them "I'm going old school and using an atlas, we'll be fine!" Evan kept saying "Our time keeps getting longer! Turn back!" I showed them on the map where we were and just to enjoy the views, and I got to see Sheriff and Mater from the movie Cars. But in the end we were fine and Google finally got a signal and caught up.
The next morning we let the kids swim some before we hit the road again. They met a friend from New Mexico that had never heard of Michigan and he was 13, kind of makes me wonder what they are teaching in that state.
We got to our hotel for that night about 2pm and we loved it. Home2Suites will be our go to for here on out, even if it was our last hotel of the trip.
We headed to a Redwood forest and it was just what we needed to finish out our trip.
It was just peaceful and quiet and lovely. Alex and I both asked Mike to give me his water bottle with ice because it was making too much noise while he walked.
The clovers were huge!
We saw this forests largest redwood tree, Cornel Armstrong.
We hugged the hugging tree.
We really enjoyed this walk and I would totally go to Northern CA again to visit.
The family thought it was a good idea to take a redwood tree home with us.
More swimming that night after dinner.
Best breakfast as well at the Home2Suites!
In the morning we took it easy. Let the kids swim in the heated pool while we enjoyed some time by the fire in the 58 degree morning.
We let the kids watch TV until 11 or so then we....
made lunch from what we had left from our 'pantry' and got back on the road. We were thankful that check out was at noon to give us time to just chill out.
We exited on Alexander Ave.....
which had Baker Fort on our way to....
Evan's Golden Gate Bridge. Evan studied this bridge in school this year and it was his must see on our family trip. Alex's must see was the Sequoia and Redwood trees, and Eliza's was the whale watching.
We walked around an old base that had lovely views of the bridge.
Drove across the bridge.
And drove around San Francisco.
The roads are so crazy there. They are so steep there are stairs to get up them. When we were coming over some roads it felt like a ride a Cedar Point where you can't see the other side until you start to drop.
We saw the trolly.....
and so many autonomous driving cars.
We headed to the beach because it was the only free parking and we had some time to kill before our 11pm flight.
Eliza and Evan played on the beach while Mike and Alex read in the car.
After the beach we headed to dinner and Evan blew bubbles while we waited for our food. It was so windy there Evan didn't even need to blow on it. There was a guy getting his car repaired that was getting a face full of bubbles, he wasn't as pleased with us as I would have hoped. Turns out the building in the background was a newly built library with a playground, so we found a spot to park....
and let the kids play for an hour while we just hung out.
Then we caught the red eye home and no one slept on the plane. Partly due to the comfort, partly due to the crying baby.
The garden survived the week without me.
Evan and Eliza got right to the Legos to build a home2suites for a full day.
First floor breakfast area with drink dispenser and tables for 2 or 4 people.
Desk to check in complete with keycards.
1st floor rooms with a full fridge and mirror and bumpy beds.
2nd floor had smooth pillows and a flat screen TV with a couch.
They had a pool that was to scale and got deeper.
Another look at the breakfast area.
Garden was doing well.
Rosie was happy to have us back, she was so talkative when we got home.
We have Black Swallowtail caterpillars again in the garden eating the dill.
We got our redwood tree planted. Found out it will not survive our winters because it gets too cold, so we will need to figure out a greenhouse or something for it, but it needs a winter, but it can only get to 40 degrees.
Alex was invited to his friends birthday, and I got this picture from his mom Kirsten... and I just loved it. They have been friends since the 2nd grade and it just warms my heart they are all still such good friends.
Eliza at our patriotic service at church, we were in charge of punch.
We were invited over the the Douglass's house for some summer fun. It was good to be home.
Sadly Evan must have gotten into Poison Oak while visiting the redwoods, but he's doing a lot better now.
Evan built a bird feeder.
