To take full advantage of the the childrens meagre school holidays we have just spent a week in stunning Yosemite with my Mum and Dad.

This is the iconic shot of Yosemite Valley with Half Dome rock in the background, Bridalveil Falls on the right and El Capitan on the left behind the tree. Believe it or not Mr D took this shot and it isn’t a postcard. Yosemite was breathtakingly beautiful and I am so glad that we went at this time of the year. We arrived last Saturday and for the first couple of days the weather was a little chilly and rainy. It didn’t put off the great Easter Egg Hunt on Sunday and it meant that the valley was teeming with lots of waterfalls.

After that the weather improved and we enjoyed many sunshine walks. Parts of the park are in excess of 5,000 feet which at this time of the year means snow! We visited the Mariposa Grove to see the Giant Sequoias and the kids had a ball playing in the snow. They weren’t so keen on the mile walk up to the trees so Diesel and I had to Sherpa them up which wasn’t the most enjoyable part of our trip!

Other days were spent at the Railway Museum in Jamestown and a very enjoyable afternoon sitting on the ‘beach’ of the River Merced panning for gold. I’m convinced what we found was gold but Mr D is going to subject it to some vigorous scientific examination this week to confirm. Either way, I doubt it will make us rich!

We stayed in a little town called Midpines which was not far from the Arch Rock entrance to the park. Our rental house was a total find … a three bedroomed house built around a very large tree. The deck wrapped around 3/4 of the house and we had terrific views of the mountains and pine forest. We all had a fabulous week, great scenery, great company and too much good food and wine. We all felt very sad yesterday when we had to leave. In fact Patrick’s comment was ‘no Mum, we need to stay at The Treehouse for 100 more sleeps’ ….. we wish little boy!