Meeeerrrrry Christmas

This year the family decided to mix things up a bit and rent a cabin in Yosemite for Christmas. I ended up finding the most wonderful cabin/house (2700 sq ft) in Fish Camp which was about 3 miles away from the southern gates to Yosemite. Let me tell you, the cabin was perfect... it had all the amenities from home too. The owner decorated it Christmassy for us... Christmas tree, wreathes, garland, cute decorations, etc. It had plenty of room for everyone to spread out also. We'll definitely rent it again... maybe in the summer. We were worried that we wouldn't have any snow to play in but luckily they had a big storm the week before we arrived and while we were there we got BIG snow. Brian estimated a couple of feet. He almost got stuck (with K) in Oakhurst. He headed down there to get gas and call his parents but came back up because the roads were so bad... then we heard that they closed the road. We had snowball fights, made a slope for sledding right outside of the cabin, made a snowman (complete with coal for his eyes and a carrot nose), played games, ate a lot and just enjoyed each other. That's what Christmas is about, right? The guys (my brother-n-law and Brian) stomped us (the girls) at Scattegories! I'd love to get a cabin every year.

The kids had a blast opening gifts (I knew they would). M got up at 5:30 and came right to our room but surprisingly didn't go look at his presents from Santa without us. We held him back as long as we could... until about 6:30 and then headed downstairs (see picture in collage). M ran right to the cookies and milk that we left Santa and screamed "he ate the cookies and milk". M had also written Santa a letter. Boy were they happy. M got the Imaginext Fire Station which comes with guys, a fire truck, training tower and accessories as his big gift and K got a My Little Pony toy that comes with a roller coaster, concessions stand and ferris wheel. She's been asking for it for months. M got a Bakagon, Doodle Pro and some little stuff in his stocking and K got a Doodle Pro and some Littlest Pet Shop toys. They also get some candy but they weren't really into the candy this year for some reason.

We enjoyed breakfast and then started opening our presents. Of course, everyone went crazy overboard on the kids. I say I'm not going to every year but I still do. I love this age. K has been walking around the house for weeks saying, "it's Christmastime Mommy" and today we were at the park and she was walking around telling everyone, "Happy Holidays." I'm not sure where she got that from.

Snow fun.
Click to see bigger.

Brrrr, it's cold.

The cabin had a room with huge windows. Oh how I miss having my morning coffee in there. This was the view on Christmas morning.

K and I snuggling early Christmas morning. Coffee... one of the food groups, right?

Miscellaneous pictures from the trip. Top left-El Capitan and Half Dome on our way home (look at that sky). Top middle- M super excited about sleeping in the top bunk. Top right - Santa came. Middle - K and her pig that sings Old MacDonald. Middle right- We even had to put our clothes on the top of the car in Brian's hockey bag.
(click on the picture to enlarge)

M wrote a letter to Santa.

K, laughing at her pig.

Transformer!!

"Here's some milk little kitty".

This silly hat sang a song. Isn't he cute? And so photogenic.

This cat drove us crazy the entire way up there. MEOW! The kids couldn't figure out what was going on. M thought there might be a real cat in one of the boxes. We STILL can't figure out how to turn it off!

Not a great picture but at least we're all in it. Poor K. She was so cold and miserable. "Wanna go home."

The gang.

Wish my mom would have been in it. She's taking the picture.

Leaving you with one last picture of Yosemite. The sky really was that blue.

Wish I had time to write more.