Santa Cruz

chugga chugga choo choo!

we zoomed down to Santa Cruz on Saturday and took JD on his first ever roller coasters! He loved it, even if he didn't really understand what was going on :) 

Ahoy! I Sail!

come sail away with me

I still can't believe that we took JD with us on this little date. But at the same time I'm so glad we did :) It was a lot of work keeping him bundled (it was SO WINDY!), keeping his mind off of how uncomfortable his life jacket was (poor babe, I wouldn't have liked it either), and holding him whilst juggling our hot cocoa and not spilling it all over ourselves. But we absolutely loved sailing on the bay! I surprised J for Father's Day with a ticket to a sailing cruise, and he absolutely loved it. It was so dreamy to sail right beneath the GGB and watch the sunset. Definitely a night we will remember

Yosemite

we spent our 4th of July weekend galavanting around Yosemite National Park.

and guys, that place is beyond beautiful.

driving into the park, I couldn't help myself from hanging my head outside of the window like a dog - THE VIEWS ARE SO INCREDIBLY GRAND. The rocks and cliffs are massive, and the TREES. Oh man that place made me realize how much I miss seeing mountains and trees everyday! I mean, CA is obviously wonderful, but boy do I love the mountains.

Our first day in the park we hiked about 8 miles. We did a loop - We took the Mist Trail up to Vernal Falls and to the top of Nevada Falls, and then came back on the John Muir Trail. I swear every 10 minutes one of us would say, 'this is my favorite part'... and then we'd come across yet another breathtaking view and be like 'no this is my favorite part!' so in conclusion, every.single.part was drop-dead amazing

Our second day in the park we decided to drive up to Glacier Point. cue the 'this is our favorite part' quotes once again. glacier point has STUNNING views of half dome, and we could even see the top of Nevada Falls that we had hiked to the day before.

Then we hiked to Taft Point and... you guess it... chanted 'this is our favorite part' the entire hike. but seriously, this might have been our favorite. this hike makes you feel like I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD, HEY! we were hiking on a sheer cliff, so so so high in the air it made me shake. we were both happy jd was asleep during this part, because it would have been scary trying to wrangle him on those rocks!

we weren't able to get a camping site inside of the park, but we found a fun site about an hour away, at a place called Don Pedro Lake. Justin was in heaven because we could see all the houseboats parked in the buoy field right from our campsite :) This was a super fun place to camp, complete with a swimming lagoon! Like, a man-made giant swimming hole with a fountain in the middle. It was the perfect temperature - not too hot, not too cold (all you need is a light jacket) and jd was a little water baby splashing all the way!