Steele Family Trip:Yosemite

On Thursday we traveled to Yosemite. It is about a 2 hour drive and even though we went the best way, I was feeling a little sickish when we got there, and I rode in the front seat. After getting to the park, we wanted to eat our picnic lunch. That was the first stop that we made. As you can see, my youngest needed a ride to the picnic spot.

We ate near the river. Of course the kids wanted to check it out. My daughter thought that maybe she found some gold, that is what they are doing with Kirk in the picture.

This is the Red Chapel located in the park. That is the next place we stopped. I didn't get a picture of it, so I pulled one off the web. The last time we went to Yosemite, the chapel was locked. It was open this time, so we went in for a peek.

We tried to get all the kids kneeling on the prayer kneeler thingy (I don't know what they are called.) We couldn't get them to do it all at the same time. You should have heard me, (looking back at it I just laugh,) in a very stern voice I was saying, "GET OVER THERE AND PRAY." I am still frustrated that I couldn't get the picture perfect. Oh well.
Since we were in a chapel, it is close to our 10 year anniversary, and my brother Tommy was our minister, we did a "sorta" renewing of our vows in the red chapel.

The kids loved finding sticks that they could use for hiking.


My nephew wasn't too keen on seeing any bears. Mom saw this sign and made him take a picture next too it. But what do you know........


we saw a bear! Okay, it was just a baby bear. At first we were wondering where the mom might be, but we decided that the bear didn't look too healthy. Maybe it had been on it's own for awhile - at least we hoped.

Some deer that Kirk and I found let us get pretty close to them to take this picture.

We hiked all the way up to Crystal Lake, to find that it was not a lake, but a creek that you could wade in. I am guessing that it is usually more full and looks more like a lake during the rainy season. Another reason could be that we are in a drought this summer. Boy, was that water cold! (By the way, if you look real close, you can see Kirk's mohawk. I think this is the only picture I have of that.)

This is a better picture of what we found of Crystal lake. This is a picture of Tommy and the girls. The girls are busy looking for rocks. My camera was especially acting up on this trip, so I didn't get many great pictures. We were suppose to take a family shot at one of the waterfalls, by the time we got to the waterfall, the 3 youngest members of our family were asleep and it was still 1/2 mile hike to the waterfall. Needless to say, we didn't get a family picture taken that day. It was a great trip, but it was so nice to crash when we got home that night.