Family vacation. Part 2 Yosemite, and San Fran!

This was in Yosemite National Park. It was a beautiful day, a little on the warm side, but we loved the scenery and all the trails to hike on. Bret and I had our Iowa shirts on for the day :) The kids had a great time climbing all over the rocks at this water fall. Don't remember the name of it. Sorry.

We had to take a picture of the kids running down the trails it was good to get out of the car and stretch our legs.

Then it was off to San Francisco! It was so exciting to get close to the city, and drive through all the hilly streets to find our hotel. We stayed at the Beresford Arms. Quite the cute hotel. It was a few blocks from Union Square, and it was one of the older hotels, so it had all the woodwork and design, and charm of those classic structures. I loved it! Bret couldn't have picked a better place to stay. After we settled in to our room, it was around 9 pm and we hadn't had dinner yet. We inquired of a family place to eat, and we were told there was a Cheese Cake Factory at the top of the Macy's building. So off we walked to Union Square and headed to Macy's. Wish I could've done some shopping. We had a wait so we went out on the roof and had a great view of the square.

It wasn't soon after we had our food that Sam got a little tired. He had finished his pizza, and went to sleep. It had been a long, fun and exciting day! I had the best meal! It was a pecan crusted cat fish, with this amazing sauce, and garlic mashed potatoes with this corn salad salsa stuff. Soooooo yummy! And we couldn't go with out having some cheese cake! The city was so alive! It didn't feel like it as almost 11:00, so many people were still out! We walked back to our hotel, I had to carry Keaton, and Bret carried Sam, they had both fell asleep at dinner, I must say it was a good thing I'm in such good shape, because Keaton isn't exactly lite, and it was mostly up hill. I was very proud of myself and it didn't hurt to burn off a few calories because I'm sure my dinner was way over the top!

So after falling asleep to all the city noises, we woke up and had breakfast then walked to the square again to catch the trolley car to the wharf. It took us a while to get one that wasn't' full of people. It cost 5$ per person for one way. It was fun hanging off the side going up and down the streets of San Francisco. The wharf was a lot of fun! They had this big old ship, like the ones from the 1800's that we could go on and walk all through, it was amazing. Ahh to be a sailor out to sea on one of those. I would've loved it!! We took so many pictures and I just wish I could put them all on here, you'll have to check out my face book page for more. After getting some fun things at the souvenir shops we headed back on the trolley car to our hotel to check out. It was off on another road trip up the coast of California.

We HAD to go over the golden gate bridge! How could you not go to this city and not go over it! It was very exciting and was over way to soon. But it was just amazing!

Our family vacation! Part one

Our vacation started out, and I won't say "bright" and early because at 3 am it's still dark! But that is when we left our home to catch a 6 am flight out of Omaha. We were all very excited to start our adventure! This was uncharted territory for all of us. The boys had a great time in the airport and on the plane.

I had bought each of the boys a few new toys to take on the plane with them, including new Pokemon card packs. I got them about a week before we left, and the deal was they couldn't open them until we were on the plane, so that was a very big deal for the boys. Amber had received two new books, so she was excited to start reading those.

We landed in Fresno, and were all tired but very excited so we didn't really feel it. It was nice to be out of the airport scene and out into the fresh California air. In Fresno it's very hot and dry.

We picked up our luggage and rental car and armed with a GPS, we headed for the nearest Wal Mart, picked up a cooler and some food for making picnic lunches and snacks and headed for Sequoia National Park.

We couldn't believe the size of the trees there! It was like they weren't real but apart of some movie set. We walked around and looked at all the wonder of Gods creations and just enjoyed the very nice non-humid weather, and had a lot of fun.

There were lots of places to stop along the roads to look out and take pictures, which was a good thing because the roads were VERY curvy and winding so some of us were feeling a bit queasy.

We drove back to Fresno and had dinner, and found a hotel. We were so tired that we just crashed and when the alarm went off at 7am to get going again we all slept right through it. So we were a little later getting out than planned. Our next stop was Yosemite National park. It was a lot more crowded and it took us awhile to drive through it and find a place to park and have lunch. It reminded me of driving through Yellowstone last year. bumper to bumper traffic and the road construction that seems to always be going on didn't help. But we had a fun time on the trails and saw some very impressive water falls. So far everything was going great, the kids were being so good and we were all having fun!

Sorry about no updates lately. We're on vacation, and I'm sending everything to facebook right now. So check that for updates until I can figure how to get my pictures sent from my phone to this blog. Or I'll just have to wait until I get home. I wish I would've brought my lap top.