Our first week of summer break

Last year during the summer while Chloe napped, Connor and I would do a craft a day.  He looked forward to when she would sleep, so he could have some special time.  Now Connor and Chloe look forward to Elise's nap time.  Here they are making jelly fish.

Connor shows his jelly fish...we hung them over the banister to dangle.

Next we glued tissue paper to canvas and made turtles out of empty fruit cups and tissue paper.

The kids painted red, white and blue stars and I added them to the wreath I put together.  I was introduced to deco mesh wreaths at a Super Saturday event and have made a few since and plan on making one for each holiday/season.

Peter cut out these fun patterns for the us to paint. 

Chloe wanted a cantaloupe, so we painted her one today.

Elise turned 4 months old last week!

Friday Peter and I put wonderful film on this window which totally reduced the amount of heat that was let in.  Then his dad came over and they put film on our skylights too.  Not having AC makes our house downright miserable for a couple weeks of the year.  This film made the house tolerable today as it was 99 degrees outside.

 The kids also enjoyed some pool time in our backyard.

 

 Sunday we went to Sean and Amy's air conditioned house.  Chloe enjoyed cooling off in the fountain.  She's sure going to miss that fountain when they move next week.

This little girl continues to crack me up.  She often sleeps with socks on her hands and this night she insisted on having boots on.

Yosemite

May 21st-25th we were in Yosemite.  We had a great time looking at all the waterfalls at their best.

Above = Lower Falls

Below = a look out point up in Glacier Point

Glacier Point was closed due to snowfall when we arrived at the park, but on our way out of the park the road was open for a few hours, so we detoured and went up.  We're glad we did because Tuesday the road was closed the entire day expecting snowfall.

We went in the park Sunday and Tuesday.  We totally should've gone in Monday and Tuesday as Tuesday was significantly less crowded than Sunday.  On Monday we toured some local things like the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Rail Road.  We went on an hour steam engine ride.

Shortly after the train took off, Chloe fell asleep and stayed asleep the entire time.  Good thing her ticket was free.

Sunday we did a lot of driving and seeing the waterfalls, Tuesday we parked and hiked to some waterfalls.  This is Swinging Bridge.

One of the cool lookout places where you can see a couple of waterfalls.

The kids hiked a couple miles to Mirror Lake and then decided to play in the freezing cold glacier water.

The kids got soaked and it wasn't a terribly warm day...notice the jackets.

Right before we headed off to hike I put on my hiking boots and then walked from the parking lot to the bathrooms (5 min walk maybe).  Then I noticed something felt funny about my shoes, I look down and my sole flapped every time I picked up my foot.  I headed back to the car and put regular shoes on again and was sore when we were done hiking.  Luckily the kids were exhausted so we didn't hike terribly far.  I've had these shoes for nearly 20 years, the soles had completed deteriorated so I think it's time for a new pair.

While in Yosemite there were several wood carving shops along the road.  Peter insisted we needed a bear for our house and so we stopped and picked up this cute guy.

We had a great time!