Me and My Boys: The End of Summer

Before I moved to Arizona, I always was so sad when summer was over. I hated the prospect of it getting cold and snowing and school starting. Well, since I am not in school anymore, and here, the end of summer means the beginning of beautiful weather...I AM SO EXCITED!!! Luckily, it flew by really quickly and there were a lot of wonderful things that happened this summer. The latest of which was our trip to Yosemite for a family reunion with Dan's family. There were 33 of us in all and we were so lucky to have the youngest of the bunch. Needless to say, Tyler was very happy to return home to his air conditioning, toys, and TV. We had a wonderful time though, even it Tyler didn't the whole time.

The first night was very interesting for me and Dan as we were awoken in the middle of the night by a huge animal outside our cabin window. We were looking at it only about 3 yards away and a screen in the window separating us. When it finally moved it turns out we saw a huge silhouette of a bear!!! That night we saw 4 in all and it was quite nerve racking for me. The next day we found out that since there is hardly any water around, there has been so much wildlife in the valley looking for food and water. Luckily all of the bears (hopefully) are tagged and tracked, so rangers know when and where they are in the camp. They are also armed with bean bag guns to shoot the bears with if they start misbehaving.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip, we had a great time hiking and playing and the best part was spending time with the fam. I really lucked out marrying into a wonderful family that I get along with and adore so much.

Family pictures by the river

All of the grandkids. I liked this shot the best because as you can see the two little ones, Mikey and Eli, are duking it out on the end of the log. Too funny.