Sentinel Dome and Taft Point Hike

My parent are here this week and yesterday we went on a hike up to Sentinel Dome and Taft Point. It was a really fun day (even with a little bit of fussing from Jack). Here are some picture from the day!

Molly's first day of Kindergarten

Today, August 24th is Molly's first day of Kindergarten! She was sooo very excited to go, she has been waiting since last year when she had her first kindergarten visit. She was up early this morning (quite a miracle for the girl who usually sleeps til 9), downstairs drinking her shake breakfast, and then back upstairs and in the shower. She had picked her outfit out two weeks ago at the store, so she was already to get dressed. Then we took some pictures and then headed off to school. Wouldn't it be nice if every morning ran this smoothly :-)

Jack was so proud of her. He wanted to look nice for Molly's first day so he put on some nice pants and a polo shirt and then a tie...nice idea, but I guess we need to work on his matching skills. When we dropped Molly off at school, Jack brought bubbles and blew them while she went in to school...it was so sweet.

Meadow parade

One day this summer the kids on the meadow decided to have a parade down the path. They worked all morning on signs and decorations and then they had all of us come out to watch. It was pretty darn cute!

Seyl Visit

At the end of July our friends from Texas came to visit...Veronica, Mason and Natalie. We had such a good time! The kids got along so very well, it was amazing! Mason is 14 and Natalie is 10. We went all over, exploring and showing off our awesome park!!!

Jack's family birthday party - 8 years old!!!

Jackson McLean Wright turned 8 on June 23! Wow, I can't believe my baby is 8, well, he is and he is loving being 8! While Josh and Jamie were here we had a little family party and it was lots of fun! Jack is very into Star Wars right now (which makes his daddy one happy guy!!) He got Star Wars sheets and a pillow from Nana and Papa and lots of cool star wars cards. And Aunt Sissy gave him a giant Darth Vader lego ship!!! Quite cool! Josh and Jamie gave him a very very cool science game that has goop you can move around the board!! Aunt Janet and Uncle Joe the Great sent him a cap with lights on the brim (Uncle Joe had one when we were in FL and Jack thought it was very very cool) We had a really nice time at his party...I made his cake and stuck some of his Star Wars toys on top (I know, lazy lazy)

Josh, Jamie and JD visit!!!

My dear brother, sister in law and nephew came to visit after our vacation! We had such a wonderful time with them. In fact the time seemed to fly by, wish they could have stayed longer...next time guys!!! We took them to some of our favorite spot while they were here.

One day we went rafting down the Merced, JD love it..he fell sound asleep in the raft! It was a beautiful day! We also went to the river just to hang out and a quick walk up to the lower falls. We went to the taqueria and to the pizza deck. And we even had a day to go see the Sequoia trees! It was awesome!!

It was so nice to be able to spend so much time together. Jack and Molly LOVED their baby cousin and had a great time trying to get him to laugh - isn't too hard. He is the happiest baby and he loved watching the kids!

I miss them so and hope they are coming back soon! Love you guys!!!

Newport Beach vacation

Toward the end of June we went on vacation down to Newport Beach. We had a really nice time. The kids spent tons of time in the pool and we saw a couple of movies, which we are too far away from town to do during the year. We tried out our new underwater camera, which the kids thought was a hoot to play with. And all in all had a great time.

We took quite a long time coming home. We drove up to Long Beach to where the Queen Mary is docked and we took a tour that was really cool. Then we took our time driving up the Pacific Coast Highway (which I have always wanted to do). It was so darn pretty! Drove thru Big Sur (absolutely incredible) and also something I have wanted to do. And on our drive up we stopped at a pull out along the side of the road and saw Elephant Seals in the water and on the beach! That was one of the coolest things I have seen in nature!

We spent a night in a little town called Solvang. It is a dutch community and the cutest little town ever (it is on our list to go back and spend some time there). After that we continued up the coast to San Francisco where we spent another night. We went to China town and had some not so great Chinese food, but we had fun! The next day we puttered around San Fran until the evening when we headed to Oakland to pick up my brother, Josh and my sister in law, Jamie and my baby nephew JD! Then we piled into the car and drove the 4.5 hours home to Yosemite!!!

Molly's Pre-school Graduation

Molly had a little graduation ceremony at the end of school this year. She and all her friends are all ready to go to kindergarten in the fall! She can't wait. Graduation was adorable! They all had on little red grad caps and they each got a diploma. Molly got to stand next to her BFF Elise (in the pink dress), so all was good! After all diplomas were handed out her teacher asked all the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up..all sorts of good answers, ranger, firefighter, beekeeper, a daddy, etc. and then there was Molly that said when she grew up she would like to be a beautiful horse! I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes! It was hyseterical. But my mom told me that when my sister was little she wanted to be a duck and now she has her doctoate in pharmacology, so maybe there is hope for Molly!

Yosemite is my Backyard Camp

This summer Jack went to camp here in the valley. It was called Yosemite is my Backyard and it was run by Yosemite Institute. They went everyday for a week. Each day they hiked to a new place and learned new things about the cool place they get to call home.

On Wednesday I volunteered and went hiking with the group and that was the day we did the spider cave! It was so cool! We had to crawl in and get really small to fit inside and then there was no light at all...we did have a candle and a headlamp, but wow, it was really fun!

On Thursday Brian went with them and they drove up to Crane Flat and hiked out from there. They got to see a gigantic Giant Sequoia that had fallen awhile ago and not it is hollow and you can walk inside the trunk (there is a picture of the group sitting on top of the tree and one of them walking down the inside of it). That day was longer than the others b/c they stayed up at Crane Flat for a campfire after their hike!

A snowy trip to the high country

At the beginning of June we drove to the high country for the day! It started out as a lovely day....and so we took a short hike down to the bridges over the river and it started to snow and hail on us. It was pretty darn cool! The kids thought is was hilarious that is was snowing in June! It ended up being absolutely gorgeous, so we took some cool pictures. Jack discovered this cool colored tree that he really liked (we have more than a couple of pictures of it). It was a fun day!

Helicopter Landing

Last Saturday (Memorial Day Weekend), we had three helicopter landings in the meadow. The first one was not in a rush and so Jack and Molly got to walk down with our neighbor (a fireman) and see the copter up close!! They had such a good time, thought it was so cool!

Molly's Kindergarten Visits

Last Wednesday and today Molly had visits to Kindergarten. Each perspective kinder was paired with one of the kids from the class and both visits Jack picked to be Molly's buddy (proud parent moment). Jack's teacher had all sorts of cool things planned for the kids to do and see, so they would get an idea of what kindergarten was all about! At the end of each visit they even got to have a bit of recess time, playing with their future classmates! What is so nice here is that Molly already knows the 8 other kids heading into kindergarten with her (they have all been at preschool together for the last two years) and they all know their new teacher b/c preschool is right behind the school building. Such a great environment!!!

Last week Molly made me paint her nails purple - her favorite color (she informed me this morning that she really likes pink for the summer, but purple is still her favorite all the time) :-) After I got her all ready this morning I told her to go get her helmet on so we could ride to school and she told me that she could not ride to school b/c it would "mess up my beautiful hair". She cracks me up!!