A Family Vacation

When Jon first arrived home in mid February we had 5 days together as a family. That was great, but Joshua was sick for part of that time and it didn't feel much like a vacation since we were home. This past weekend we had our first family vacation.

Joshua's school had half-days last week, so we left on Wednesday afternoon and headed to "The Ranch." That is the name of the former France Family Farm, now owned by my Uncle John and Aunt Cindy. We love to hang out there and hadn't visited since Jon's R&R last summer. This time we just stayed for the evening and Thursday morning. Then we continued north to Yosemite.

We had a nice, small condo in Yosemite West, a small development about 20 minutes outside of Yosemite Valley, near the turn off to Badger Pass (a ski resort). Joshua was thrilled that there was snow where we were staying and so we built a snow man, found a place to slide in the snow, got wet and cold. Friday we spent the day in Yosemite Valley. Our car had started making a clunking noise and so we dropped it off at the garage while we explored the valley on foot or via the shuttle buses. We walked up to the Lower Yosemite Falls, strolled the paths through the meadow, hiked up to the bridge below Vernal Falls and had a very enjoyable day together.

Saturday we went to Badger Pass for the first time and discovered that it was their final weekend of the season. There was still plenty of snow for us and so we had a lesson and went cross country skiing. Initially it was "the best day" of Joshua's life, but later on when we were trying to go down a slightly steep slope and he kept falling, it became "the worst day" of his life. Fortunately we ended with a long flat area and so Joshua's memories are mostly happy ones. He does have a bump on his head from a ski pole and bruises on his legs from falling on the skis, but such is life when you are learning to ski. Jon and I did pretty well for "old folks" who haven't cross country skied since college.

Next week we're off to Mexico for spring break, but I'll write more about that later.

Sheryl