Stop #6- (Day 7 & 8 on the road....then home)- Fairfield, CA

Our last leg of the road trip before heading home, was to visit family/friends in Fairfield!

We spent the first half of Friday with Mike's mom. We drove out to Lake Berryessa and a visit to the Jelly Belly Factory which included lunch and a tour!

 We had lunch at the Jelly Belly Factory! Burgers and Pizza in the shape of jelly bellies!!

 We spent the second half of Friday at my cousin's house in Fairfield!

The kids got to play, and we enjoyed a great family dinner!

 Friday night after dinner we drove to Benicia to socialize and stay the night at Mike's friend Ian's house! Ian and Kelly have a great home with two extra rooms, so it worked great!

We had a delicious breakfast Saturday morning with them, then we hit the road for HOME!!!

 It was a LONG 8 days......but we are so glad we got to see SO many people/sites along the way.

Have to take in Northern California somehow!!! Might as well do it squeezing in family/friends along the way. Lucky to be able to do so :)

THANK YOU to everyone who put us up for a night or two!!! We really appreciated it!

XOXO The Smith Family

Stop #5 (Day 6 on the road) Roseville, CA

On our way toward Sacramento from Tahoe, we were able to meet Mike's sister Linda at her horse stable for a visit/ride! Her horse "Sonny" is 20 years old, and was very forgiving to two eager little girls!!

THANK YOU Aunt Linda!!!! What a treat for the girls first horse experience!

Stop #4 (Days 4-6 on the road)- Lake Tahoe

Our next stop was in Tahoe, where we had reservations at The Resort at Squaw Creek!

We drove up in very dry conditions....

 And the next morning woke up to this!! We had a few inches of snow the first night, and a few more the second night!!

 SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!

 We had to build a snowman or two!!

 Snow angels!!

My favorite video of Maddy sledding! That is her giggling the WHOLE way down!!

The girls LOVED our $10 sled investment/entertainment!! We had the whole hotel property to ourselves to sled and throw snow!! They loved it!

 Abby sledding down the hill

 Waiting for Hwy 80 to drop their chain control the morning we left....Keeping busy :)

We made it off the mountain without chains, on fairly clear roads!!

Stop #3 (Finishing up day 3 on the road)- COOL, CA

We stopped for the night at my dad's house in Cool, on our way to Tahoe!

Dad made a great dinner, and the girls cheered their grape juice!!

We stayed the night, and were on our way up to Tahoe the next morning!!

Stop #2 (Day 3 on the road)- Yosemite Valley

There were TOO many great photo ops, so I'm posting a ton!

And I played with a few camera features too, so excuse the artistic attempts!

 It was a gorgeous day to visit, with very low crowds!!

First stop in Yosemite--Mariposa Grove of Giants

 And onto the Valley floor.....What a view!!!

 Playing around!!! 

A quick drink from the waterfall!!!

 

 

This is what happens when you've been playing with your camera, and someone offers to take a family picture of you!! It gets taken in "sketch" mode!! Uggghh!!! Redo!!! At least we know what we would look like in a cartoon!

Bridalveil Falls!! Where Mike proposed to me......11 years ago!!