Sierra Nevadas

After the Fresno Temple, we headed to the Sierras in the afternoon.  We camped on Friday night in Sequoia National Park.  I think we got just about the last camping site in the park.  We had potato soup for dinner, followed by smores (roasted over the camping stove).  It was pretty cold that night, but I think everyone but me stayed warm enough.  I had a hard time trying to share my sleeping bag with Weston, who kept squirming out from under the bag.  I basically had my legs in the bottom half of the bag and Weston covered with the top half of the sleeping bag.  

We spent Saturday exploring Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.  We all loved the huge trees - very impressive!  We saw the 2 largest trees (by volume): General Sherman and Grant trees.  There were plenty of other massive trees and cool things to see, like the tunnel log that you could drive through. 

I didn't attempt the climb on Moro Rock (350 steps up to the top - sounded like too much for my 8 month pregnant body).  Alex took the boys, but Owen and Jared were too scared to go all the way up.  Alex brought the youngest 3 back down and took Nathan back up to the very top.  Pretty nice view.  

The drive down the mountains in the evening was so pretty - the sunset brought out 

all the beautiful colors.

We did see a little bit of snow - one of the favorites of the day for the boys.  

All worn out...

 I was pretty worn out too by the time we got home, but I survived.  It was a mostly pleasant and drama free excursion.  

Fresno Temple

We took one last excursion before baby comes (I'm about 8 months now).  We headed to Fresno after our Thanksgiving meal.  We stayed in a motel on Thursday night and went to the Fresno Temple on Friday morning.  This temple reminded me so much of the Oklahoma City Temple.  (Alex went to the earlier morning session, but didn't get any pictures of him.)  

Happy Thanksgiving!

The favorites were the chicken drumsticks and olives!  I learned last year that I didn't need to do a big turkey, because the boys just liked the drumsticks.  I just did a small turkey, which worked out well because it was one of those that you pull out of the freezer and cook in the bag.  Easy and tasty!  I also did green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and rolls.

Weston's pumpkin

These aren't that exciting, but I enjoyed watching Weston play with his pumpkin.  He refused to pull the goop and seeds out of his pumpkin (Owen did too).  He was more interested in putting seeds IN and fitting the stem back on.  Silly boy.  

Oct 31st