Palm Springs

After we spent Thanksgiving in Salt Lake City we were off to Palm Springs. I'm sure everyone is super confused about this so I'll do my best to explain. The original plan, as stated earlier, was for everyone to meet up at a resort in Palm Springs for Thanksgiving. But after that, my mom, my brothers and my own family were planning to change locations and stay at my grandparents time share condo in Palm Springs for another week. So...when we all changed our plans to go to Salt Lake my parents, instead of flying from Oakland to Salt Lake, first drove down to L.A. and left their car there and flew from L.A. to Salt Lake. So the monday after Thanksgiving we all went our separate ways. My sisters and their husbands went back home and back to work, my dad flew home and back to work, and my mom, my brothers and my family flew to L.A. where we got in my moms car and started the drive to Palm Springs. What should be a 2-hour drive took us more than 6 hours because of L.A. traffic. This would have been a total disaster except for one life-saving factor. My mom's car: equipped with GPS and, most importantly, a DVD player. Noah was having a meltdown about getting in the car for a long drive after spending the morning on an airplane - until he saw the DVD player. All he had to say after that was, "Is grandma cool, or what!?!" And yes, that's a direct quote. One he repeated many times over the next 2 weeks.

The first morning in Palm Springs Noah went hiking/exploring with Grandma. He created his very own "rock collection" which we all had to hike out to and see for ourselves. He was so proud! He checked on it everyday we were there.
The highlight of the trip was, of course, the swimming pool...


complete with kid-sized waterslide. This was hysterical. Noah was nervous and he would scrunch up his face, squeeze his eyes shut, and his whole body would go rigid as he slid down, dragging his hands to make sure he went as slow as humanly possible.
Alex, on the other hand, was bombing down this thing so fast we were worried she was going to fall back on her head. She insisted on going down by herself. She was so funny because she looked scared on the way down with her eyes opened so wide, but as soon as she hit the water she was kicking, splashing, giggling and demanding to go again. She's our little wild woman.

The next day was too cold for the pool so my mom and I took the kids to a desert zoo. The kids loved brushing the goats. Alex kept walking up to the animals, squatting down to be at eye level with them, and saying, "Hey!" Then they would move their heads up to look at her and she would run away saying, "Bite me!" What a nutcase.
Why do they always have to go for the bum?
The kids had fun in the play area as well

By this point Paul had left for his interview in Arizona (he drove down with my brother, who lives there). My mom and I had planned to stay longer but the weather wasn't very cooperative. It was too cold for the pool and there wasn't much else to do there with 2 young kids. So we decided to call it good and head back up to my moms house (where Paul would meet us in a couple of days). In order to avoid the horrendous L.A. traffic we left that afternoon and got home at about 1am. It was a fun trip, and we were glad we still got to enjoy some warm Palm Springs weather before heading home. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Noah will miss the pool.