Cory, July, Cayman & Cooper: Winchester Mansion and Yosemite Part 2 of trip

The next part of our trip starts in San Jose, California. We got up and drove to San Jose and first thing went on the Winchester Mansion house tour.

I have been wanting to go here for years. I was very excited to finally go! The kids did great going through the house and I was a little disappointed to find out I couldn't take any pictures inside, but the outside property was fine.

Cory and I learned a lot about Sarah Winchester and the craziness she possessed. The mansion was 24,000 square feet, had 160 rooms and 47 fireplaces.

There were Tiffany stained glass windows everywhere in the home and and when Sarah died in 1922, the storage room held over $25,000 of Tiffany stained glass. Today, it is worth over 3 million dollars and we got to see it with our own eyes! It was beautiful!

Here is the door to nowhere...

There were lots of doors found in the house like this. Doors that opened to floors, doors that led to ceilings, doors to walls, and just crazy stuff like that. This was one of my most favorite things we did.
After this we went to lunch with our friends Connor and Mikila and their 2 boys. We had fun seeing them for a little bit and Cayman had fun playing with the kids. After lunch we headed to Yosemite. We got there a little before 6 pm and it was raining pretty hard. We went to Mariposa Grove first to see the big Sequoias.

We got a few pictures and just kept walking in the rain.

We hiked around a little bit and the kids didn't mind getting wet at all.

Cooper was so proud he got on this log all by himself! What a big boy!

This is the middle of a tree broken in half! It is huge!

On our way back to the car, we ran into a couple with a very cute puppy. Here is our celebrity sighting...Roy off The Office! and my show Drop dead Diva. We were totally cool and didn't even ask for a picture. His other half was very nice to Cayman as we looked at their puppy. I am bummed we didn't get pics though. I just didn't want to be one of those people. Ya know?

Now back to the hotel we drove and then woke up early the next morning to do some more hiking in Yosemite. What do ya know, it is raining again!! But not for long. We stopped at this cute little river with all these rocks and moss around. It was just beautiful. Probably my favorite scenery all day!

I am not sure really all the places we went so these are just pictures from our Yosemite trip. I think these are up to Bridalveil falls.

I think this is a look out for Galcier Point.

Here we are at Yosemite village. It was a really cute area and there was lots to see.

We walked around the old Indian artifacts and even got to go in some of the old huts. I felt right at home! Just a little joke since I have a little Indian in me! Here is Cayman and I doing our Indian Hows!

On our way out we got to see a family of deer. Here's the family standing by one of the deer. We were so close you could touch them.

Here are some pics of Yosemite. I think some of these are Half Dome and then the others are lookout points.

Cory, getting a moment of peace on top of the rock. It was really pretty there.

Cayman is not in this family picture because she wanted to sit in the car. She was having a moment.

This tower was Caymans favorite stop of the day. She felt like Rapunzel and had fun playing in the tower.

Our last stop in the park was Mariposa grove again. You may see repeat pictures but not in the rain this time.

After playing on these huge trees, they were covered in soot. Cayman thought she would make her face black. This is what she thought was funny.

Cooper loved to walk everywhere we went. He was in heaven. He just got distracted a lot and then we had to pick him up.

Cory was on a mission to find a huge pinecone. Here is one that he found!

This tree would make a beautiful table. You can see the rings on it and it is so smooth. It was amazing.

Here Cayman is hugging the tree. It is huge!

These trees are called a bachelor and his three graces. Lucky tree huh?

This hike was .8 miles to the Grizzly Giant. It was monstrous.

This is the California tunnel tree. You could drive a car through this in 1895. Crazy!

That is it for Yosemite. We made one last stop on our way home and it was to Lake Tahoe. It was pretty cold outside but the kids still walked in the water and played in the sand.