The River

 

Though the water was cold, Kristin was game for tiptoeing in.  She took off her shoes, rolled up her britches and waded with the kids.  I personally thought they were crazy - but the kids never complained of cold feet.  I did notice, however, that none of them opted for a swim.

I know that each and every one of us have trials and tribulations and troubles every day.  I am so blessed and proud to have a daughter-in-law that shows the joy of Christ in her life minute by minute.  She is a delight and pleasure to have on our trips, loving on us and loving on all the children including nieces and nephews!  I pray that her personal troubles (which I know must exist though she never outwardly shows them) I pray that they are few and far between, and that the instant she takes them to Lord in prayer He grants her grace and mercy.  I believe that part of her peace and joy comes from forgiving ME and others in an instant for our weaknesses.  Our other daughter-in-law is much the same - and she is also a grand lady of God.  (People!  GOD DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN OUR LIVES - MINUTE BY MINUTE!)  Please, Lord, make me more like them and all of us more like Christ!

The pictures of the river are so gorgeous and so personal to each of us who were there.  It's virtually impossible for me to select photos to share!  But I think someone might be upset if I don't at least try!  

Have you ever seen someone snorkel like this?  I told you that it was cold!

  

And we weren't the only ones around!

 

Finally Made it to Yosemite National Park

We finally made it to Yosemite National Park.  Well, almost.  We camped outside of the park.  One place the first night and a different (much more awesome and private) place the rest of the time we were at Yosemite.

Rylee was the official people photographer:

This was probably the most spectacular part of their Arizona trip  to see Granma and Granpa.  We took them to Yosemite, the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest and through the ever fearsome Death Valley National Park!  

If you were to ask any of the kids what was the best part, they'd undoubtedly say camping by the river and the road-trip down from the Ancient Pine Forest.

Us adults thought that it was all good!
 
As you can see in the background of the first picture, our first campsite was beside a lake - which was w-a-y  too cold to swim in.  Rylee, however, found some floating rocks (No, REALLY! Floating rocks!), and we were all impressed by those  floating rocks!.  But we found a place closer to the entrance of Yosemite and closer to a town for re-supplying.  There weren't many campsites available by the river, but we kept looking until we found a HUGE site right on the river.  Wow! We snagged that one!

         Everyone was excited about this one!

Even these charming ladies of the wilderness!

Calin - Bless His Heart!

THIS is what happens to a little boy when you stick him in a car with five females for three and a half weeks!

 

And the Grand Canyon

Bearizona is actually at the Interstate exit for the Grand Canyon, so we will kill two birds (eh, bear) with one stone and take the kids to the Canyon.

They were under-whelmed.  I suppose, after Bearizona, it was maybe not very impressive to them.  But that's okay.  They can now say they were at the Grand Canyon and have the pictures to prove it!
 

 

Well, The Grandkids Wanted To See A Bear ...

There's no better place to see bears than Bearizona.  (See our previous posts: 
http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/08/bearizona-bears-in-arizona.html
http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/08/the-bears.html
http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/08/red-fox-swift-fox-peacocks-porcupines.html
http://www.thetravelerstwo.net/2013/08/the-end-of-bearizona-fabulous.html )

As you can see from the list, there are more animals than just the bears (bear?) And there was this one elk that wanted to really get up close and personal! 

I think he had a crush on Nina!

But we finally made it to the Junior Black Bear place.  (Don't miss the guy up a tree above the sign.)

There are bears everywhere out here!  (But of course I knew that having been here last year.)

 








There was a certain young man who was absolutely fascinated by all of this:

He finally got to hug one - sort of!

 

The baby bears would run for the trees anytime they were startled or afraid.  They were so fast!!

But we know someone who didn't seem to be afraid of anything (except maybe a haircut.)

 

A great good time was had by everyone!

Going to the Hualapai's

There's a small mountain down the street from our home in Kingman.  The grandchildren would walk there in the evenings with our daughter-in-law.

Those are the Hualapai Mountains in the background.  Kingman is in a valley between a multitude of mountain ranges.


So we chose to drive up into the Hualapai's.




(Don't ya' just hate telephone poles and power lines?  They intrude on so many of our people-pictures!)

But what's this walking down the road?  A hear of elk!



There must have been a dozen or so - including a fawn - and they just munched their way through the neighborhood!



One of our granddaughters tends to get car sick on windy roads, so we always had her "Oops" bucket handy.  Once we figured out that her eating habits were minimal and we filled her tummy with some food, most of her car sickness went away.

Discovering a Gold Mine!

They believe they've discovered an abandoned gold mine!  They're afraid to go in because of the possibility of rattlesnakes! and probably spiders or gila monsters!

So what do these intrepid explorers do?  Send in a point man, er, girl.  Who's missing from this picture?  Well, as this was taken on my daughter-in-law's smart phone, I'm guessin' they sent in the big girl!

Where am I?  Babysitting a sleeping baby in the car, of course.  Isn't that what Granma's are for? 

Must have been cleared out by the point lady, huh?

But the honest-to-goodness gold mine is right around the corner.

 

See all those lines of quartz in the side of the mountain.  THAT'S your first clue that there's gold around.  The guy that first stumbled onto this must have been ecstatic!

But this one definitely belongs to someone - and the iron door blocking the entrance means business.  But it is a real live gold mine!  (Look at all of that quartz!)

Downtime In Arizona

We may be in the high desert here in Arizona, but it's still hot in July.  In the afternoon, the grandkids would play in the shade of the front porch,

and completely used up a brand new, monster box of sidewalk chalk.

 

 

Day after day they would go outside, erase earlier artwork with Granpa's brush from his grilling set (uh-oh.....) and let their vast and vivid imaginations run wild.  When they ran out of design ideas they decided to make chalk dust.  Needless to say, they usually came in covered head to toe in more chalk than they managed to leave outside!  I loved it!  That is exactly what kids are supposed to do with their summers!

But I think some of the best artwork was saved for the t-shirts.  They were using "The Hobbitt" devotional book each day, and I think that's what inspired this one.  The Bible verse on the back was Jeremiah 51:34.

The Local Swimming Hole

What good is summer without going swimming?  So I found our public pool and we moseyed on over.

It took them all of two seconds to hop in.  (Of course it took my daughter-in-law and I two days to round up the snorkels and masks and swimming diapers...)  They were having a marvelous time.

And then they noticed a couple of lifeguards scrutinizing the far corner of the shallow end.  Turns out some little child had done something unacceptable over there - and they cleared the entire pool of humanity for thirty minutes!






I must say, my grandkids were wonderful about the "warm up" time.

Eventually they got to hop back in.

Got to do a couple of stunts off the diving board,

(Yup, I missed the action on that...)  and the swim session ended.  But even then the smiles never left their faces!