thanks to my awesome brother and sister in law, we get to see unique parts of the world! this time they led us to their new home in Hanford California! a bitsy little town about 30 minutes from fresno. It truly was an individual space in California, nothing like the trendy L.A or magical Anaheim. No, Hanford was a little bit of retro! and we had an awesome time!
our trip was centered around the biggest party of the year, Jane's birthday party! She has been in planning mode for a good month and we were fortunate to be such hot guests for her fabulous shindig (we lucked out because it was james birthday too, that made him a special guest of honor). she chose a pirate theme and we pAAAARRRRRied all day long!!!
from a pirate cake (that sunk by the afternoon), to a pinta, and finished off with a round of walking the plank we had a pretty awesome day.
I would say a birthday wish came more then true though when grandma jill got in the pool!!!!
the next day James and Scott went into Yosemite to hike Half Dome. No small hike for these two. they came back a little stiff. the pictures sum it up nicely as to why James needed Scott to make this trek. I would never have been brave enough to go with him.
the first four small pics are of scott and james starting out on the hike. james said that waterfall behind them is usually rushing but since they hiked later in the season it had a slower flow. the bottom right picture is of them finally reaching the last stretch of this monstrous hike. they had to hike up those make shift, steep steep stairs. james dared to take a picture of scott climbing up them in the 2nd picture from the left, on the bottom row. the top right corner is them at the top, just hanging out taunting death on a ridge hundreds of thousands years old. this hike is not for the faint of heart, scott and james had to bid for a permit to hike the trail, and when they returned home safe and sound, after a nine hour trek, they told us that one guy had to be life flighted out while they were hiking. something that happens quite often on this hike.
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| up close of the stairs. coming down is harder then going up. |
Sunday we decided to take a relaxing drive to see the Sequoia's. they were great and amazing, but the ride up the canyon to see them wasn't so relaxing. george and I both got a little queasy from the windy road. a trip worth taking for sure, but most likely a one time deal for me. george can go again when he's old enough to clean up his own barf! yuck!!
we also drove around the park to see some of the other cool stuff, like driving through one of the sequoia's and some random hike to the top of a look out. it was a pretty neat experience.
Jana showed us around town, Hanford has a lot to offer, but it mostly comes in their fields upon fields of lemon and lime trees, strawberries, corn, various nuts and a mystery plant, cotton! I was quite amused at these fields of food. incredible how many and huge they are. the corn was by far the best I have ever tasted.
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| the fields are a lot more fascinating in person |
we had the best trip ever! a week full of dance parties, ice cream, swimming, toad spotting, hot tubbing, olympic watching, eye dilating, shopping, national site seeing, crazy hiking, out to eating, big slide braving sorts of fun!
thanks scott and jana, we'll for sure come back soon! and bring grandpa with us! right grandpa???