Half Dome 2012

About a year ago, my Uncle Tod told Rob and I about his trip to Yosemite National Park and his climb of Half Dome.  Rob and I had been to Yosemite with the family a couple of years ago and had seen Half Dome off looming in the distance and thought it would be fun to actually conquer the mountain.  When Tod let us know that he was putting a group together for this summer we eagerly threw our names in the hat.

Here's the group!!  It included my uncle Tod, his 3 sons, Drew, Ben, and Calvin,Tod's niece Angie, my uncle Wayne, and his kids, Josh and Chloe, and then 3 of Tod's friends, Sandy, Brandon, and Lou.  We had 2 guides for a total of 15 in our group.  We headed out about 7:30 on Thursday morning.

This is the first fall that we came to, Vernal Falls.  Take note of the stairs...yes that's the trail...up and up and more up...almost the never-ending stairmaster!

A little break while taking in Vernal Falls.

 Here is the base of the next fall, Nevada Falls.  

More stairs...up...up...up

Here's Rob, with the gorgeous view, at the top of Nevada falls.  After climbing close to 2,000 vertical feet we had lunch! :)

After lunch it was only about 45 more minutes of hiking until we came to this glorious swimming hole!!  We camped for the night at a camp site right next to this swimming hold called Little Yosemite Valley.  We got to the campground between 1 and 2, and so we had the afternoon to relax and swim before getting ready for our 3 am wake up call!

We were up and eating about 3 am and on the trail by 4 am.  We hiked all morning in the dark and reached the sub-dome of Half Dome just in time for this glorious sunrise!!  I must admit that I rarely am awake for the sunrise but the view was totally worth the early rise!!

Here we are on top of the sub-dome...we're about to get a peak at the cables that you scale in order to reach the top of Half Dome.  You'll notice we're still happy...I got REALLY nervous once I saw the cables.

Here they are!!  I wish the picture did them justice!!  The last 400 ft...after having climbed about 3,000 vertical feet that morning, is a steep climb up holding on to 2 steel cables for balance while your feet cling to little 2 x 4's that are placed in about 10 ft increments.     

Here we are, still happy before the climb!!

Here's Tod on the cables.  It gives you a little more perspective of the steepness of the route.

Rob, who is deathly afraid of heights, wasn't too excited about me standing out on a ledge that has a drop off just below it that is thousands of feet high!!

Here's the whole group at the top!!  

The descent down the cables may have been a little more nervous than the assent.  Rob wasn't very happy when he saw that I had taken a picture in the middle of the cables!

The perfect day to be out enjoying Yosemite!!

Here's part of the group after the 5,000 ft descent!!  I honestly think the descent was harder on the body than going up!!

Here is a beautiful view of Half Dome from Olmstead Point.  Rob and I pulled over to get one last look on our way out of the park.  What an amazing adventure and definitely one to put on the check list!

Utah Lake with the Blackwells

A couple of Saturday's ago, we were sitting around the house bored out of our minds... Luckily, the Blackwell's were up for an impromptu boat ride on Utah Lake!!  It was tons of fun to go with kids that are a little older than our own, because they were a little more excited about trying wake boarding and tubing than our kids are! 

 Here's Jess and Isabel watching Max try wake boarding for the first time.

This little stud, only 9 years old, was up and going on the wake board after only a handful of tries!  We won't mention that it took me like 2 whole summers of trying before I actually got up!

 Disheveled Taylor!!  

 Jess was a stud also!!  Up in like 4 tries!  I like to think it's because she had at least water skied before! 

 Joe loved driving the boat!!

 So did Isabel....

and Max.  Thanks Blackwells for an awesome afternoon on the lake!

My Little Snow White

This is the smile of a girl that is seriously happy!!  Rob and I had some shopping that we needed to get done and we needed a way to convince Taylor that she wanted to behave until we where done shopping!!  Well, a month or two ago I got a credit card application from Disney that offered me a $200 Disney gift card for applying for their card and making ONE purchase with it!!  I'm no dummy and soon we had 200 buckeroos to spend at the Disney store.  I would have never purchased this dress without it!!  But why not make a little girl's day with free money!  

We asked her in the car which dress she wanted and she responded without a pause, "Snow White!"  Well upon entering the store, she wanted every dress that she saw!  The clerk was so helpful (insert sarcasm) and informed Taylor that she could try on as many dresses as she wanted!  I informed Taylor that she could try on ONE dress because come to find out they have a full on bridal sweet for these little girls to try on dresses!!  So we finally found the Snow White dress and she was SURE that it was the one she wanted and that she wanted to try it on.  Before I could even get the dress off the rack and turn around to hand it to her, Taylor had stripped down to her underwear!!  I was shocked to say the least when I turned around and found her there in her panties!!  It was a fight to get her clothes back on while trying to explain to her that we had to go to another room to actually try on the dress.  Well, long story short...we have one very happy girl and it's the gift that keeps on giving.  All I have to say is that I'm going to take her Snow White dress away for the day and she shapes right up!!