Yosemite, part one

Ok, grab a cup of coffee because this is a long one!! We packed up our rental car to the brim (really should have upgraded to a bigger vehicle!) and took a 4 hr drive to Yosemite National Park. The ride went by really quickly and the girls did great in the car. Larkin did cry a little because she wanted to go back to her "old hotel" and did not want a new one.

Once we arrived we checked into our hotel, which was a lodge inside of the park-so it was very convenient. There was very little snow anywhere, but we could see a little up in the mountains. Right behind our hotel was Yosemite Falls--so we headed there first. The girls loved climbing on fallen logs and throwing sticks into the water.

Yosemite Falls


The next day we hiked out to Mirror Lake, where you can see Half Dome's reflection in the water. Very beautiful hike!!


Joel and Larkin hiking above Mirror Lake.



That evening we rode the shuttle bus to Curry Village, which is an area inside the park that has an outdoor skating rink and also a fire pit. We were hoping to have Joel teach Larkin how to ice skate. On our ride over there, the sky just opened up and it started DUMPING snow. The girls had the best time--it was coming down so hard that you could hardly see. They immediately started making a snowman in the middle of a blizzard! It was snowing too hard to teach Larkin how to skate, but she forgot all about skating and just had fun in the snow!

It was a good thing that we took the shuttle bus to the skating rink because the snow was so heavy that chains were REQUIRED (by law, or you get a $500 ticket) on your car in order to drive in the valley! We did end up putting them on our car later on our trip, but it was nice to not have to learn how to install chains in the dark during a snowstorm!

It snowed all during the night and when we woke up, we were in a winter wonderland!

This was the view right outside our hotel. Yosemite Falls is right between those two large trees behind Joel. It's hard to see here, but the mist from the falls was frozen! All the mist piled up on the rocks and it looked like a huge pile of powdered sugar.

The girls could not walk more than three feet before spontaneously falling down for another snow angel.
Willa had a hard time walking in the deep snow with her little legs!! All of the snow you see here was all new--these pics are from the valley floor where there was no snow the day before.

Can never eat enough snow!

After breakfast we hiked back toward Yosemite Falls again.


We built a snowman right at the base of the falls.

El Capitan
The biggest snowball yet!


Willa standing on top of the snow fort Joel helped them build.

After the snowfall, we drove up into the mountains. This picture below is at a place they call "Tunnel View." There's a huge tunnel through a mountain that you drive through, and when you come out on the other side you see this view of the valley. This picture really doesn't do it justice, but it was beautiful after a snowstorm! There were lots of professional photographers there that were excited to take pics after the snowfall.


From there we continued through the mountains to go find some giant sequoias. More on that in the next post!