Raining Shannons

I figured that Shan would write a few words about Yosemite, I would write a few more, and between the two of us we'd pretty much cover the whole trip.  But as luck would have it, her rendition of our camping experience was so dead-on that I don't think there's much for me to add.  But here are a few more pics of my own:

Yang wedged into crowded car

Trinity squatting on a giant leaf?

Cassidi surfing

 Shan and I on our favorite rock

 Clint and I at the top of Veneral Falls

No one's gonna steal this tree.

Our campsite backed up against an endless forest

 Campsite at night--so cozy!

 Clint panning for gold that didn't exist

Home sweet technology!

Actually, all of the other photos Shan posted were mine, too.  She ransacked my facebook since her and Jer took, like, six photos to cover the entire five day experience. 

My favorite photo of all is the waterfall/rainbow pic in Shan's post.  In person, it was breathtaking.

On to other things real quick.  I started my summer job last week, and I couldn't love it more.  It is the most pleasant, kick-back teaching position a person could ask for.  The staff is super-friendly, and they really take care of their teachers.  The students, also, are bright and enthusiastic.  It's strange to have a classroom full of students who are all there because they want to be.  As much as I love working at my beloved middle school, it's going to be rough going back after being spoiled by this job.

Friday afternoon Becky and I went out for our monthly girls' lunch.  Because Becky loves culinary adventures,  she suggested a cute Korean barbeque restaurant where you grill your own food.  Everything was delicious, but more than that, we had such great conversations.  It began with idle chit-chat about work (how awesome it is to work with your girlfriend!), but eventually we started to talk about things more near-and-dear to our hearts.  For me, it was much-needed therapy.

Yesterday we went to my parent's house on the lake for an early Fourth of July celebration.  My parents know how to entertain, and they pulled out all the stops to ensure we all had a good time.  We ended up having an amazing day.  Something about the whole day just felt different and more memorable than normal.  Part of it was my dad was being so nostalgic and loving.  Meanwhile, my mom was being hilarious and silly.  Shannon and I normally just float around on rafts, but this time we actually played in the water.  I swam all the way across the lake and back, which is something I haven't done in years.  It's fun, except for the fact that when you get to the other side, you're forced to stand up in a bunch of muck.  When I was a little girl, the lake used to be full of small leeches.  Shan and I would exit the water and our legs would be covered with them.  My grandma used to spray our legs down with the hose to clean off any residual mud, then any brown blobs still remaining would have to be plucked off by hand.  I never thought this was a big deal until I shared this memory with Clint once, and he was completely grossed out.  Luckily, despite my gallanting around in the mud yesterday, I came out of the water leech-free.  I wonder if they are even there anymore.

My favorite part of the day was last night.  We all piled into my dad's speed boat and went out into the big lake to watch the fireworks.  Between the silly oohing and ahhhing, song-singing, and my mom freaking out that my dad's lousy anchoring skills were going to result in us missing the "finale", it was a perfect night.

Oh, one more quick thing about Yosemite.  Jeremy's constantly teasing Shan about possibly having more kids, and of course she is way, way done.  Well on our last night there, we were sitting around the campfire and taking turns responding to questions posed.  It was my turn to come up with the question, so I asked the group, "If you could make it rain anything besides water, what would it rain?"  This question prompted the most hilarious responses, but by far the one that stands out the most in my head was Jeremy's.  He said:

I'd have it rain Shannons and I'd scoop them all up because I'm sure at least ONE of them would want to have a baby."