Road Trip: Yosemite National Park!

Yosemite National Park has been on our short list of places that we wanted to go for quite some time. Last Friday while we were eating lunch Andy asked, "Did you know that Yosemite is only an 11 hour drive?" He had a small window between summer blockbusters and we decided this was our window of opportunity. So we packed up the car and began the 650 mile drive.

Somewhere Andy saw that US-93 was nicknamed "The Loneliest Highway." That was a pretty accurate description. It was a long straight road with no towns to speak of, no billboards or anything else to look at, no cell phone service and no one else around. We drove for 160 miles before we finally passed another car; two cars to be precise. They were old antique cars and the drivers were wearing aviator goggles. For a moment we thought we had traveled back in time!

THURSDAY

We started our first day in the park at Bridal Veil Falls. The instant we set foot in the parking lot Makenzie said she didn't feel good and puked all over. (Note to self: keep Dramamine in the car at all times to prevent this kid from getting car sick.) It was kind of hard to see the actual waterfall because of the position of the sun and all of the mist coming off the falls.

After that we headed to Yosemite Village, grabbed some lunch and rode the shuttle to the Vernal Falls Mist Trail. Brayden was complaining before we even hit the trail that his feet hurt because it was standing room only on the shuttle. He whined. And whined. and WHIIIINED. But as soon as we got to the staircase he got totally excited and basically ran up the whole thing, which is no easy fete—there are between 600-700 granite stairs cut into the mountain on the Mist Trail! The scenery was spectacular on this moderate 3-mile hike!





 

The view looking down from the top of the falls.


What goes up 700 stairs must come down! the twins JUMPED down many of the stairs, and scared the crap out of me in the process.


The drive out of the park was not so spectacular. We did see a bear, but the sun was blinding, making it difficult to see anything. We couldn't get cell phone service to make our GPS work, and we had a difficult time getting to our vacation rental based on the printed directions. Mapquest failed to tell us that there were two roads with the same name or that you had to have a special access card to get through some of the gates in the lake community. We spent over 2 hours in the car trying to find a house that should have only been an hour away.

FRIDAY

We ate breakfast on the back porch with a few visitors. They seemed to like the golf course grass.


After that we got back into the car (insert groans from everybody here!) and went back to Yosemite Valley where we walked the short path to the Lower Falls.





Then we hit the switchbacks (60 of them to be precise—insert more groans here) to get a close up view of the Upper Falls. Unfortunately, it was slow going and we ran out of time.



Brayden, Makenzie and I turned around after enjoying the view from Columbia Rock so that we could make it back for the Junior Ranger talk so that they could earn their badges. They learned a lot about bears and even got to touch a real skull from a black bear.





Andy and Lexi went up the trail a little farther to see the falls and met us at the Visitor's Center a little later.





We headed back to the house we rented, had dinner and then walked to the lake that was only about a block away. The kids had a great time wading in the water and splashing around.



Then they warmed up in the hot tub at the house.




SATURDAY

After breakfast, Brayden asked if we could go swimming in the lake since they had so much fun the night before. This wasn't on our agenda, but we decided to let them do it.



Then we drove to Hetchy Hetchy and hiked to Wapama Falls. This was the hike I was looking forward to the most. It had lots of points of interest along the way—bridges, a tunnel, stairs, etc.—that would keep the kids motivated and the pictures I had seen of the falls were amazing. The terrain was relatively easy with very little elevation gain; yet, this hike was full of ups and downs!

• DOWN: Lexi fell down in the tunnel just minutes into the hike and scraped up her hands and knees. 
• DOWN: Lexi tripped a little later and hit her already sore knee. 
• UP: We spotted a mama bear and her two cubs and spent a while watching them.

• DOWN: Andy slipped on a wet rock while carrying Lexi. Somehow he managed to stay on his feet, but one of our cameras fell out of his backpack. Another hiker saw it and went to get it for Andy, but in doing so slipped on the same rock, fell and slid down it. 
• DOWN: Brayden tripped on a tree root and scraped up his chin and his knee. He wanted to go home, but we were so close to the waterfall we didn't want to turn around. I pulled the bladder our of my camel back to ice his chin and carried him on my back the rest of the way. He fell asleep almost immediately. Nothing like 40+ pounds of dead weight to make a hot hike even hotter!
• UP: Wapama falls was AMAZING! Everyone enjoyed cooling off in the refreshing mist and taking in the scenery.  

  

Do princesses wear hiking boots? This one does!

That wasn't the end of the roller coaster, however. On the way back down, Brayden started complaining that his stomach hurt. Since our trip began with vomit in the parking lot from his twin sister, it was only fitting that our trip ended with vomit in the parking lot of the Evergreen Lodge where we stopped for dinner. Unfortunately, the vomit didn't end there. He also threw up in the car when we were driving out of the park. Nothing like trying to clean up that mess with Wet Ones and napkins on a road with virtually no shoulder in total darkness. We made our way to a campground to finish cleaning up, where I backed into a pole that I couldn't see because it was pitch black. It was after 1 am when we finally got to the hotel room in a town on the other side of the park where we planned to spend the night before driving the last 8 hours back to Utah. Everyone was exhausted.

SUNDAY

We had quite an adventure, but we were all glad to get back home and sleep in our own beds. Brayden decided that we shouldn't get in the car and go anywhere for at least two weeks. I think that is an excellent plan!

From Womb-mates to Twin-dergarten Graduates!

It seems like just yesterday that I was laying on my left side for 6 hours a day anxiously awaiting the arrival of Brayden and Makenzie. Now, they are almost done with kindergarten and anxiously awaiting next year when they get to go to school for 6 hours a day!

As I sat and watched their kindergarten program yesterday, I was feeling a bit nostalgic. One of my favorite quotes is, "The days are long but the years are short." So true! I can't believe how fast they grow up. The past year year has been full of ups and downs, good and bad; here is a small glimpse.

The Good

One day when Makenzie was too sick to go to school, Brayden took her library book back for her and decided to pick out a new one for her (his idea!). My mommy heart grew three sizes when he pulled a Little Mermaid book out of his backpack. We all gathered around her bed and read it together.

Whenever the twins got candy for being quiet in the bus line, Brayden wouldn't eat his; instead, he would bring it home and give it to Lexi.

The Bad

Makenzie got off the bus madder than I have ever seen her. She stomped over to me and started yelling, "I am so sick of Brayden sitting with me when we don't have assigned seats. I want to sit with someone else!" That broke my mommy heart. Most of the time they are pretty good little friends, but not always.

There was plenty of other drama on who sat with who on the bus as well. Poor Kenzie. And poor mommy. . .I am never going to make it though the tweens and teens when the cliques really form!

The Ugly

Crazy Sock Day in the fall. . .

Ugly Tie Day during Wacky Winter Week. . .

 . . .and Tacky Sweater Day (Kenzie was sick). Notice his the socks on his feet? The ones from Crazy Sock Day? Brayden pretty much wore them every possible day he could. I had to hide them after he tried to wear them pulled up to his knees to one of his basketball games.

The Hilarious

Brayden came home from school one day and told me that Izzy was his best friend. I asked him what he liked so much about Izzy and he replied, "Her long blond hair. It's BEAUTIFUL!" On a different day at the bus stop Izzy was putting her hood over her head and Brayden told her not to because he didn't want her to mess up her hair.

The Sounds of Spring

What do you do on a rainy spring day?

A cold, cold wet day

when it's too wet to go out and play?

You could sit in the house waiting for The Cat In The Hat to appear, or you can make the most out of your time inside with this fun alphabet game that teaches phonemic awareness. I adapted it from something I saw in an Usborne Reading Game Book. I used this in preschool last year and all of the kids (age 4) loved it. This year, my 5-year-old twins had a great time helping their 3-year-old little sis with the activity.

Step 1: Start with a long sheet of butcher paper, print out large letters to spell a seasonal word. We used "Spring" this time, but have also done it other words like "Santa."
Step 2: Fold back the flap of an envelope and wet the glue strip to attach it to the butcher paper.You may also need to to reinforce it with a little bit of clear tape.
Step 3: Fold the envelop back down over the flap.
Step 4: Make list of words that relate to the seasonal word and start with the same letters. For example:

• S: Soccer, sun
• P: Picnic, puddle
• R: Rainbow, red breasted robin
• I: Iris
• N: Nest
• G: Grass, galoshes

Step 5: Use a clip art program to print out pictures of the words. You could also cut out pictures from catalogs or magazines.

Step 6: Hide pictures around the house and let the kids hunt for them.

Step 7: Once a child finds a picture, he or she needs to identify the object, decide what letter it starts with and place it in the correct envelope. (The picture of the picnic table will be placed in the "P" envelope and so on.)

Step 8: When all of the pictures are placed in the envelopes, go through them together and make sure they are all in the right place. This is also a good time to present fun facts about the items.

Step 9: Repeat and have fun! You can mix it up by letting kids take turns hiding different pictures, etc.

Rapunzel to the Rescue!

I’m going to be brutally honest: if I have to play Rapunzel with my adorable 3-year-old one more time I just might blow my brains out. 

Over and over and over again we play each day; by her rules, of course. The other day when I tried to deviate from the rules she actually “paused” me with her imaginary remote control, told me exactly how to play and what to say. Then she said, “OK, Mom? Now start at the beginning.” She then proceeded to “unpause” me. And don’t even get me started on the pieces. Tangled’s tower came with these itty bitty cups, saucers, a ladle and a frying pan which I considered to be pretty much worthless. Well, I guess the frying pan is important to the story—how else is she supposed to keep that conniving thief Flynn in line? But the other pieces? I didn’t think they served any purpose except to drive me nuts trying to keep them off the floor and out of the vacuum. Until Sunday, that is.

Brayden’s loose tooth would move until it was perpendicular to the other teeth in his mouth. He could wiggle it and wiggle it, but it still wouldn’t come out. So I decided to help him and pulled that tooth right out of his mouth.  Then I handed it to him. He was soooo excited! He ran right into the bathroom to check out his new smile in the mirror.

His dad, who was watching the NCAA basketball tournament on the couch, yelled, “Don’t drop it down the drain!” That sent me running to the bathroom. I placed a paper towel on the counter and told Brayden to put his tooth on it. He was still so excited that he more or less threw the tooth at the paper towel. It bounced once and—you guessed it!—went straight down the drain. Nothing but net! And so our own March Madness began.

Using our real remote control, I made Andy pause the game and come help me. He unscrewed the drain and we could see that the tooth was stuck in the gunk on the side of the pipe. Gross, I know. We scratched our heads and tried to figure out how we could get it out without knocking it further down. Most everything we could think of was too fat to even fit through the drain hole. Then Andy asked if there was something that we could attach to a wooden dowel to retrieve the tooth. I knew just the thing! So, using our mad MacGyver skills, we taped Rapunzel’s ladle to the dowel. 

It was the perfect size for the tooth! Mission accomplished! 

I sanitized the ladle, hung it back up in the Tower and everyone was happy. The tooth fairy came and left Brayden a treat and a quarter. Hooray!

The moral of the story is: don’t judge a book by its cover. Even something that seems small and insignificant can be a huge help given the right circumstances.

Frisbee Fun!

I finally came up with a good use for all of those Frisbees piled up in our garage. You know, the ones that certain restaurants serve kids meals on? We have given some away to friends and family, donated some to charity and yet, we still have about 20 of them sitting on a shelf.

On a nice spring day, we went outside to play. As I sat looking the yard around I came up with this idea for a fun, educational activity for preschoolers that helps the kids identify capital letters with their lower case counterparts. I kept the playing field small so it wouldn't be too hard, writing 8 capital letters and 8 matching lower case letters using sidewalk chalk. Each set of matching letters was also the same color to make it a little easier. It's a little hard to see in the photograph, but easy to see in person.

Then I covered each letter up with a Frisbee and called the kids over to play.

Even though my Kindergartners can already easily identify the lowercase and uppercase letters, they still had a great time playing. Now that they know how to play the game, they can create new game boards for their little sis and practice their handwriting skills. Hooray for activities that are fun and educational at the same time!

Toothless

Since January 31, this little girl has lost 4 teeth! I love her toothless grin, although it does make for a messy face. . .the food just won't say in her mouth.

She had a very loose tooth that she had been wiggling during January. Then she got sick and started puking her guts out. Her dad and I told her if the tooth fell out while she was throwing up that we weren't going to fish it out of the toilet. I left the room for a minute. When I came back, she was holding the tooth in her hand with big wide eyes. I think she was worried if the tooth went down the toilet the Tooth Fairy wouldn't come. Poor girl!

She was ecstatic the next morning to find that the Tooth Fairy left her a whole dollar! This was quite the increase from the first visit from the tooth fairy last year when she knocked her front tooth out. The Tooth Fairy left her a quarter and a treat, which I thought was very generous. But the other kids at school were bragging about the "paper money" that they got. The going rate at their school is between $1 and $2 for each tooth, and cousin Kara got $2 for her tooth as well. Brayden and Makenzie both wanted to know why this was. So, the Tooth Fairy had to raise rates at our house. I'm curious. . .how much does your Tooth Fairy bring? 

Makenzie lost another tooth at school when she bit into her snack, another at home just from wiggling it, and then the dentist decided to pull the fourth one on the bottom in order to give a little more room to her very crooked permanent teeth, hoping that they would grow a little less crooked. (Wish the Tooth Fairy would leave a little extra for Mom and Dad to pay for braces with!)

Meanwhile, Brayden is still patiently waiting for his first tooth to fall out. Makenzie keeps giving hie twinsightful advice like "wiggle it more" and "eat something sticky" but nothing has worked yet. We just might have to get the piers out before long!