Yosemite in the winter -- YIPPEEEE!

Okay, while I have a few minutes and have finally downloaded 3 months worth of pictures at one sitting, I'd like to pay tribute to our terribly missed friends, the Fennimores, and thank them for inviting us to cross-country ski with them in Yosemite 4 years ago. Since then, we have made it a tradition to go cross-country skiing in Yosemite each year sometime around President's Day weekend. It's really a stretch to call it cross-country skiing however, since this year, in particular, both Devon and I pulled polk sleds behind us, and Devon carried a child carrier/backpack while we skiied. Too bad we don't have any pictures of that -- the camera ran out of battery power about 30 minutes into our "ski trip". Alas.

When we got to the park, we stopped to play in the snow on the way to our cabin -- we played until dark and we were all completely soaked.

We tried out our new sleds, picked up at the Kmart right outside the park, and found it pretty tricky to avoid the trees.

Ella enjoyed her ride in the sled, but she showed her true colors when we stopped for lunch and she commandeered Devon's skis and poles and skiied up and down a pretty steep hill for over an hour. Sam and Luke were pretty mellow until we broke for lunch, but all their pent-up energy was quickly released as they plowed into each other, pummelled each other with "snow balls" and beat each other with our ski poles.

Sam stuffed cookie after cookie in his mouth whole--almost choked but just kept on doing it until we had to take them away.