8th Anniversary in Yosemite

Dave and I just celebrated our 8th Anniversary. I can't believe it has been 8 years already. It felt like only yesterday the girls were born and we got married. We have had a great 8 years. This year Dave surprised me by planning a special trip to Yosemite National Park. He went last year with his scout troop and couldn't wait to take the girls and I there. We left Saturday night right after I got home from work and then we drove to our hotel in Mariposa about 40 miles outside of Yosemite Valley. We got up and drove around the south and west end of Yosemite. We saw several animals. The girls had a great time looking out their window for different animals. We saw a 4 point buck (this one is for you Andy)About 10 deer...
2 Coyotes....
And Yes a BEAR! It was a very little cub but none the less a bear. Dave and I both wondered if this was a baby bear where is his mommy??? We didn't stick around to find out... We hike 2 granite hills. This one was so huge you can hardly see Dave and the girls. We walked pretty far up together and then I ran down the hill to get pictures so you could get an idea of how huge this rock really was. The rock was surprisingly really easy to walk up. We got to some pretty steep angles and still had a great footing. There is a little dot in the middle of the rock... That is my little family.
We let the girls run as far and as fast as they wanted to straight up the hill. They actually got pretty far but the got tired and sat down to wait for Dave and I. I am amazed how little oxygen there is at 8500 ft. It couldn't have been how out of shape I am... Okay maybe it could. The views were breathtaking.We then stopped for lunch at Silver Lake (at lease that is what I think it is called.) From a distance it was the most amazing blue I had ever seen. Dave said when he went last year the water was really cold about a foot below the surface. We also climbed this rock... The girls had so much fun climbing and playing on the granite. It was such a great view we took pictures from every angle. I think in all together we took over 180 pictures. So I had to be very selective on the pictures I post. :)

I have always wanted to see a redwood (or Sequoya) tree that is more than 20 feet in diameter. Well we did. This tree fell down several years ago and is on the very beginning of a trail. I couldn't wait to see what else there was to see. The picture of the biggest tree didn't turn out but this one tells a little of how big these trees get. Some of them are over 3500 years old. And I learned something really interesting... It takes a Sequoya 20 years to drop a pine cone. In this picture below the roots aren't even completely in the picture.