A Busy Week and a Big Day

It has been quite the busy week. Jarrett is in the middle of a big work project, and had a meeting most of the day Downtown yesterday related to that. Elsa and I made it to the gym twice earlier in the week, went to a playgroup, went to the aquarium, and, thanks to the warmer temperatures over the last few days, even made it out on a few nice walks. Yesterday's walk even included a stop at the Oakhurst Community Garden, where Elsa was able to see the chickens up close, as it was our first time back there since she started walking. She also had fun in their children's play area, playing in the sandbox and going down a miniature slide. She toddled around the entire garden, clearly enjoying testing out all of the different types of ground beneath her -- crisp leaves, crunchy gravel, soft sand, and sticky mud. She had a blast and certainly did not want to leave.

Elsa's first aquarium experience was a lot of fun. She enjoyed looking at all of the fish, but even more enjoyed the person dressed up as Deepo, the orange garibaldi fish and Aquarium mascot, and just generally tromping around and exploring with all of her boyfriends (Finnan, Jude, Christian, and James).

She was plum tuckered out by the time we got back to the car.

Yesterday marked a hugely important day for us -- it was Yosemite reservation day. Campsites go on sale (both online and by phone) at 10:00 a.m. on the 15th of every month for reservations made six months out from that date. Our goal was to get a campsite for a campground in Yosemite Valley for seven days (the maximum number of days you can stay in the Valley during their peak period) beginning June 14. We had read many the warning that these campsites start disappearing within seconds after going on sale. Because of Jarrett's meeting yesterday, he was obviously not available to help out in securing the reservation, so Kate came over with James and her laptop in tow, and Natali also joined us to help out in wrangling the children. With Kate on her laptop and me on our desktop, we both raced to get sites in two different campgrounds just to make sure we could get something. Kate got through with hers (for Upper Pines) immediately, but someone snatched the one I was going for (in North Pines) before I could get it in my shopping cart. I was able to go back and swipe another one, though, which is the one I ended up going for in the end, as North Pines was our top pick of campgrounds. It is the smallest and is bordered on two sides by the Merced River and Tenaya Creek. Needless to say, I was ecstatic to reserve a site -- especially since those warnings we had read were no joke. Sites really were disappearing in a matter of seconds, and when I checked back later in the day, nothing was available except for sites in two campgrounds that are over an hour away from the Valley. So it's official -- our vacation is well underway in terms of the planning. Now we just have to make the reservation for our VW Westfalia camper van and get our plane tickets. Well, that and much planning of details. We also plan to stay about another week at a higher elevation in Yosemite, in Tuolumme Meadows, and then another couple of weeks split between King's Canyon and Sequoia. However, we're likely just going to chance getting first-come/first-served campsites at all of those locations. They are not taking reservations for Tuolumme yet, as they are not sure when the main road, Tioga Road, will open. It just all depends -- as it does every year -- on how the weather plays out.