Wednesday, July 3, 2013

You May be Wondering...

...what it is that we are doing all the time that prevents us from sharing our fun with you! Well, we have been doing lots of daily activities which are time-consuming and exhausting, but we have fit in a couple of fun days.  Now, as you may recall, for Memorial Day, we went on a hike in the Iceberg Wilderness in preparation for a much bigger hike. Yes, I hiked that nice big, rock that looks like half of a dome-Half Dome!
About 17 miles with a whole, 1 vertical mile on the way up and 1, whole vertical mile down. The most physically painful part was on the way down (my knees will never be the same!), but we made it up...

...barely. Can you see this cable here? And the steep, steep, slippery granite that it goes up? That is up the side of Half Dome and is the scariest stretch, by far. With lots of support from Dad and a long line of people waiting behind me, I did make it to the top.

The day that we went was gorgeous! There were clear skies with warm, but not hot, weather. We drank lots of water, but that was good. Mom and Marta spent some time enjoying Yosemite Valley while we hiked (Mom's knees couldn't have made it, she said, and Marta has already done it). The only reason we even got to go was that Dad's friend that he met during his all-nighter in the Mt. Whitney storm managed to get a permit. Dad lacked the luck to win the permit (by lottery system), despite the many, many attempts he has made.

Two days before going up Half Dome, we had a much more tame adventure in the Gallo Center for the Arts.  This was something that everybody had been looking forward to for a very long time, because one of our favorite musical groups was performing that day. At the time we were getting tickets, the evening performance was filled up, but we managed to get into the matinee performance of the Piano Guys! AMAZING! We all enjoyed it and hoped it would never end, but it did. Here is one of there songs just so you can see how amazing they are.

Besides all of that wonderful stuff, we have each been keeping busy. Marta is lifeguarding at the lake, I am lifeguarding at one of our county's four pools, Levi volunteers at our county library, Mom stays busy taking Levi and I where we need to go and working on Family History, and Dad continues to support us all by going to work every day. We all love each other and enjoy spending time together- especially late at night (talking) when we should be asleep. For updates about Eliza and Luke, visit the links (on their names)

Enjoying her Break from School, Tess