Yosemite National Park

Hey  Y’all! Wow it's crazy how fast this past week has flown by .I have tons to share with you this week. As soon as we got back from California we jumped right into the middle of the SXSW musical festival here in Austin. Plus my sister in-law is in town with some college friends for spring break, and Ricky’s parents will be in town this weekend. Add St. Patrick’s Day into the mix and we have a very jammed pack weekend. But for now let me get back to our latest adventure- California.

 We took in a lot on our small 4 day vacation. So I decided to break it down into two parts. Today will be all about the amazing-ness (yes I am aware I made up a new word, ha ha) of Yosemite National Park, and the awesome people we traveled with : )

I’ll start off with how this trip was formed. Back in December Ricky and I headed home to South Florida for Christmas vacation, and while we were there we  meet up with a few friends from College for drinks one night. The idea of going out to visit Joey was thrown out there, and everyone agreed it would be great and that we should do it.

Three months later, and we landed in California. I will be honest in saying- I really didn’t see this happening at first, but in the end I am sooo glad we were able to make it happen!!

 Jen, Nelson, Joey, Stephanie, and Steve 

thanks again for making this trip with us!

We set out to from Joey’s Place in Santa Rosa for our 5 hour drive to the park. After a slight detour to a really awful bakery (it was my fault but really I put the blame on Yelp and their flawed reviews) and lots of small pee breaks; we were finally able to make it to the park.   

Our first stop were the Sequoia Trees in Mariposa Grove and let me tell you it was awesome!! It was truly humbling to see such amazing work by God : )  After that it got pretty dark so we headed out to find the hotel and get ready for an early start the next day. 

The place we stayed at was called Yosemite Bug and I highly recommend it!

Ricky and I in front of the roots of an old Sequoia tree

Ricky and Nelson in the center of one of the Sequoia trees

Ricky was a good sport in helping me get a good comparison photo

Our Hotel

The second day we headed out for a full day of exploring and hiking around the park. I feel like my photos don’t fully show the beauty this park has, but at least they  you are getting an idea with them, lol. Since it has been such a warm winter this year we were able to hike with t-shirts on in the lower levels of the park, and play  in the snow in the higher altitude areas. It was seriously the best of both worlds. By Sunday we were packed up and ready to head to San Francisco for the next two days……… to be continued tomorrow

Stephanie, myself and Jen

Ricky and I on the car ride out that morning

our view on our hike back from Mirror Lake

another gorgeous waterfall

another view we had on our hike

We were in the Beaver Pass area when we decided to go sledding

our breathtaking view from the main Valley

P.S. I barely have any group shots on this post because all the pictures are from my phone- but I’ll update them later when we are able to download the photos from our nice regular camera ; )