Our 7th Anniversary!

January 28th we celebrated our 7th anniversary! 7 wonderful years! We decided to celebrate by spending the week in Yosemite National Park. Just the two of us. It was beautiful! We stayed in the lodge by Yosemite falls. It was the perfect location for us. There was some snow but not a whole lot. They hadn't opened the ski area yet. Which since neither of us ski was okay, but we were hoping to do some sledding. They did finally get enough snow to open the area a day before we were to leave. We missed the shuttle though. But we really weren't that disappointed because we were surrounded by breath taking beauty. We love being out in nature and we love to explore and see new things.

Winter time really is a great time to go to the national parks because there are not many people and it's not as crazy. We were able to drive to most of the places we wanted to see with no problems at all. The sun set on our first night was fantastic! I love how the mountains seem to glow, especially with the snow. It was beautiful!

Half Dome is an amazing sight to see especially with the light from the sun going down reflecting off of it. Luckily there was a place to pull over so we could get out of  the car and just enjoy what we were seeing. It was an awe inspiring moment. We both felt truly happy.

This is a happy memory we will always share. Yosemite will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Because it has been so warm a lot of the smaller waterfalls had begun to start flowing. Some started while we were there. It was great to come back to area's we had previously been to and find it was now a waterfall. It was exciting!

The waterfalls of Yosemite are some of the main attractions of the park. They are beautiful and I believe they are some of the tallest in the country. I thought it was beautiful to see them with the snow in the background.

Just like any national park Yosemite is full of wild life. And another benefit of being there in the winter with less visitors is that the animals seem less distracted by us. We saw this buck a long the side of the road and since no one was behind us we just stopped our car and was able to watch him for a few minutes. He turned to look at us and then went back to eating the moss off the trees. He truly is a beautiful animal and I'm so glad we were able to enjoy him for a few minutes.

I was in photographer heaven this week. There was just so many amazing things to see. I wanted to capture it all! I am so happy I remembered to bring my telephoto lens. We had to laugh because when we got there we realized we had forgotten several important things. For example: my other pair of jeans. I only have two pair of jeans. Ron decided he was going to pack for this trip. Usually I do the packing for us but this time he wanted to do it. We realized he had set out one pair of jeans for me to wear on the way and my other pair was still in the dryer. Oops! We laughed about that one. Luckily our room had a space heater so I could dry my pants each night. We also forgot my coat and our gloves. It was warm when we were getting ready to leave so I didn't want to wear it there. We were also rushing and it was my first time leaving Jaden over night, not to mention a week, so I was a bit emotional with that and I completely forgot about it. Another laugh. I did have my fleece vest on and luckily the gift shop there had a jacket in my size. Luckily again I had been saving for the trip so I did indeed got my souvenir. Another lucky thing was that the weather was so beautiful that my vest was actually warm enough. I only used the jacket a couple times at night. There were a few other things we forgot like our phone chargers which again thankfully they had one for Ron's phone. But in the end it all worked out and I didn't even miss them. But thank heavens I remembered my camera stuff!

Nature has always fascinated me. It really truly does amaze me. I love the lessons we can learn from nature. Water is very inspiring to me. I love its sound and I love its beauty. There we were surrounded by these amazing and tall cathedral like rocks and mountains and yet this little creek which is run off from Bridal Veil Falls was just as beautiful to me. It's simply amazing to me.

It was very humbling to feel so inspired by that creek and then reach the end of the trail and see its source was this beautiful and powerful waterfall. It was one of those " wow" moments. This is one example of why nature fascinates and amazes me.

And then I turned around from the waterfall and started laughing. I saw this and pointed it out to Ron and said " That rock face looks like a Muppet!" Ron agreed. I have to say this is one of my favorite pictures. I can't look at this without thinking about Guy Smiley or some other Muppet. It definitely will always be something I will never forget!

This is one of my most favorite places in Yosemite. This is the great canyon view. It's just breath taking. When we were here a couple summers ago they were doing a controlled burn so while it was still beautiful it wasn't as clear or crisp as this. How beautiful to see the wonderful green with the shivering snow!

I love how majestic these mountains are. Tall and strong and captivating. Sometimes it's hard to find words to express how you are truly feeling. Being here I definitely feel and see what Galen Clark, John Muir and Ansel Adams all saw and why they worked so hard to protect it. It really is a treasure.

I can never say enough how happy, how wonderful, how amazing this week has been. We didn't get to go on a honeymoon when we were married so we've been doing smaller trips along the way to make up for it. They just keep getting better and better!

It's no secret that Yosemite Falls is one of the most popular sites in the park. You can't go to Yosemite and not see the waterfall named after the park. It's beautiful!

The main trail takes you to the lower Yosemite falls. You can hike to the upper falls but we decided not to because we are in no way fit enough for that kind of a hike. I guess we now have one more thing to inspire us to get into better shape.

This is another view off the trail near Yosemite falls. Yet another example of how fascinating nature is. I seriously could stay here forever!

It didn't matter how far from something we were we could still see it beauty. The magic of binoculars and telephoto lenses. I am forever grateful for those technologies! It didn't matter where we were, we could find something new and wonderful and magical to see. It really was heaven.

One of our highlights of the trip was a bus tour of the park and a photography walk with one of the resident photographers. It was so exciting for me to be able to go on that walk with a resident photographer. Ron and I decided that this is what we want to do for retirement. Live and work in one of the amazing national or state parks. I would absolutely love to be a resident photographer! That would be a perfect way to spend each day! I guess I now have a new goal. The bus tour was just as fantastic. It's great being able to go places other people can't necessarily go on their own. This is a deer we saw from the bus. The bus driver saw it also and purposely stopped the bus to give us all a chance to look, see and take a photo. The deer was perfect. It was as if he knew we wanted to see him so he came out from the trees and up to the bus and stopped and posed for us out in the clear. It was fantastic. Between the two events we saw several deer, a bobcat and I found some very large foot prints that at first I thought they might be bear tracks but maybe they are actually some big cat tracks. Either way they were still exciting to find. Another treat of visiting Yosemite in the winter is that the water in the ponds are so still they are like mirrors. You can see a clear reflection of the mountain scenes above them. It's awesome. On the photography walk we came across this scene of Yosemite falls with a beautiful rainbow perfectly mirrored below. This was the morning before we were to go home and it was a perfect way to end the trip. It was just magic! Happy Anniversary Ron! I love you so much and I can't wait to see where the next seven years will take us! Here's to us and the years to come!