Fallin' for Yosemite

Our weekend began and ended with a bang. Before we left for an extended weekend in Yosemite last week, Mia had her soccer game, I wanted to skip it so we could leave for our trip earlier. We stuck around for the game since they were already down a few girls that week and were going to have to play 4 players vs. 6. Well... she scored her first goal!! She was so excited, she came running over to the sideline and said "I got my first goal!" The whole team did really well, they didn't play like they were out-manned at all. Then it was off to what turned out to be one of the best family trips we've taken. We experienced every kind of weather (except snow) It was pouring rain one minute and we were huddling under trees and bridges to keep dry. Then the sun came out and it was warm and beautiful. Then their were thunder storms, almost freezing temperatures, and at times so windy the leaves were being pulled off branches by the hundreds so it was almost like snow. Whatever mother nature threw our way we had fun with it. We stayed in the Yosemite View lodge 3 minutes outside of Yosemite's gates. The views from our back porch were amazing and it was so relaxing. The reasons we stayed there instead of the park are pretty pathetic. First Mia and Kai love the indoor pool (we stayed there before) and second they have TV's to occupy the kids while we're in the room. Yosemite has no TV's in any of their cabin's/rooms-which is a good thing, but it's nice to keep the kids busy in the morning so we can get ready (and sleep in a little longer). There was tons of wildlife out and about too. Raccoons everywhere, then we also saw a bear, we were in the car so I didn't feel worried about the kids. Something else that we saw while in the car was a coyote. We rolled down the window and the kids were all peeking out and it came right up to the door! Needless to say, we rolled up the window, I think it wanted to eat the little kiddies :P We saw deer and of course squirrels. Can we just talk about the scenery too?! The leaves were changing and it was beautiful. I've never experienced autumn like that before. It was also great because there are no crowds this time of year. We could have made it a week instead of a long weekend. And I said it ended with a bang, well as a welcome home we experienced a 5.6 earthquake just as I was putting the kids to bed. It really shook me up, Aaron was at the airport and I didn't know who to get to first. I ended up just standing in the living room waiting to see if it was going to get bigger and then it was over. Mia just called out, what was that? She thought someone was shaking her bed. Kai didn't show any sign that he just experienced his first earthquake. Something to add to the "firsts" section of their baby book...I love California.