We rolled out of the hotel parking lot around 9:30 Monday morning. As I explained in the previous post, we had to drive back into Yosemite & then south toward Sequoia because of the landslide. The road was SO winding! Back & forth, back & forth, all the while with nothing but trees lining the road. The Tioga Pass Road was MUCH more interesting!

It was interesting to watch the thermometer rise as we headed out of the Sierras & into the Central Valley. Thanks to a fellow homeschooler who lives in the area (thanks LizAnn!), we had wonderful directions to the nearest Costco & all the other retail establishments in the area. It was great to be somewhere familiar again, have some of that great Costco pizza, and escape the heat--it was 102 in Fresno, yikes! My sister called me while we were trying to decide which cake to get for my cousin's birthday that day, and it turns out that she & her husband were nearing Fresno on their way from San Jose, so they met up with us at Costco! What was even better was that they took the older 2 kids with them in their car the rest of the way to Sequoia--and the baby & J slept the rest of the way, so Mike & I had some blissful time "alone". What a blessing!

We finally arrived at Cedar Grove Village in Kings Canyon around 5 pm that afternoon. We found the rest of the family, sorted out which family was going to go where, and started moving our stuff in. With 22 of us, that was quite the process! Altogether, we had 5 cabins, and 2 rooms in the Lodge. It was nice to have Jaime & Mark in the cabin sharing a wall with ours (it was a duplex), as the kids could run back & forth between the 2 rooms. They were happy to give Auntie Jaime her early birthday present, and were glad to hear that cousin Amanda was going to stay in Jaime & Mark's cabin too, especially since she'll read to them! (Our kids have a well-deserved reputation for accosting any unsuspecting visitor to read to them!)

The cabins were very rustic--just 2 beds, a small closet, and a very basic bathroom. That was fine with us--it was clean and had just enough room for all of us. We were especially grateful for the generosity of Gramma (my mom's mom), who subsidizes these family reunions by covering the cost of the lodging. What a HUGE blessing! We are also thankful that our kids are still small enough to share a bed, so we just pile the 3 older kids into one bed, and the baby sleeps in her playpen--when she sleeps. To say that our vacation got her a bit off-schedule is being generous. We're still trying to get her back on-track!

We went up to the John Muir Lodge for a quick visit with my cousin, her son, and her parents. It was her birthday that day, so we gave her her gifts, but didn't tell her that a big chocolate cake awaited her for after dinner! Her son liked his little gifts too, as he would be turning 2 just a week later.

We all walked down to the dining hall together and saw some deer in the meadow. Little did we know just how many deer we were to see that week!

The family meal in the dining hall was quite the experience. For some reason, the staff acted like they didn't have groups of 22 come in very often! :) They did very well for such a big group, and the food was good too. All of the "adults" sat at one table and we "kids" sat at another (never mind that I'm the oldest at 33, and mother of four children myself!). What fun!

Our baby & Josiah had fun sitting at the end of the table together & stealing each other's food--well, it was more like Josiah stealing our baby's organic O's and her looking at him, wondering what he was doing! It was a bit much for her, and she ended up getting her thumb in her mouth & her other hand in her hair, and nodding off. That got a lot of smiles from the other diners!

After dinner, we headed back to the Lodge, where they have a big "living room" complete with lots of tables, couches, and board games. We got out the big chocolate cake we'd gotten earlier at Costco, and sang to my cousin. We served up the cake onto the 5 paper plates that we were able to rustle up, so we had to all shard. Even the baby tried to get a piece, young as she is! She had to be content with crumbs from Dada's mouth... one of them fell right onto her lip, which thrilled her, and made the rest of us laugh! Everyone else stayed up to play games, but we grabbed our kids & headed back to our room--it had been a long day, and we had big plans for Tuesday!