My cup runneth over...: California Baby

This is not the most timely post I have ever written..but it's an important one.

In May we were blessed to go on an amazing vacation to La Quinta just outside of Palm Springs, California! For all intents and purposes I just told everyone we were headed to Palm Springs. That's where we flew into and that is what people have heard of, it is also not the name of a budget friendly hotel chain.

We left extremely early on a Saturday morning, waking Brody up at about 5:00 am. Thankfully he must have sensed that we were waking up for something fun and he was in a good mood. Some of our best friends, Will and Sarah Kersey went with us, they were equally excited to be leaving so early. (insert a little bit of sarcasm.) They were extremely pleasant as always, just maybe not quite awake yet.

The flight-Brody gets about 100 gold stars for being an awesome airplane baby! We really planned out our packing and even bought Brody a new backpack and lunchbox for all his entertainment and snacks. Brody had 3 dirty diapers on the first flight, he tee teed all over me, and he never went to sleep..but I was so excited that he didn't have any melt downs that I didn't even care. He fell asleep for about 30 minutes on the 2nd flight after I read Where is Baby's Bellybutton about 15 times over and over. As soon as his eyes shut we began our descent. (He never napped again all day long and was as happy as can be!)

Palm Springs-The airport there is all open air and you walk outside form your terminal to baggage claim and there are no clouds. We found all of our suitcases and golf clubs and after leaving them one arm and one leg ("California tax")..we took our rental car, rental car seat, bags, and the 5 of us and headed out to a parking lot that was about One Million degrees in the nice desert 108 degrees. :) It was an awesome drive to our house and checking out the landscape and the different looking architecture. The mountains were gorgeous!

The House-Incredible..we had our own pool and everything we could possibly need in the kitchen and around the house. We didn't really have room for may toys for Brody but it didn't matter because they had plenty of coasters, tiny shampoo bottles, and a tiny couch for a little dog. What more can I child need? We unpacked and then headed out to Costco and Wal Mart...no, Palm Springs is not too good for these places.

We loaded up on food for the week and then headed back to SWIM!! Brody wasn't sure about swimming for about 5 minutes and then he LOVED it so much. He isn't scared of water, he will gladly stick his face in, and the higher you can throw him, the better. Then the boys grilled hot dogs and we sat out by the pool as the sun went down and felt pure contentment wash over us.

On Sunday we tuned into the Crieve Hall worship service online and had a nice worship service out by the pool and just relaxed and enjoyed the day. The rest of the week you can pretty much say that Sarah and Brody and I did NOTHING most of the time, just swam, read, ate, talked, and played and it was amazing. The boys played golf on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

Friday we took a somewhat scary (rotating) tram ride way up this mountain and then hiked around and took pictures, climbed rocks, got winded, and admired God's creation. It was much cooler at the top of the mountain and it was a really enjoyable day. The only time Brody melted down on this whole trip was on the way home from this activity. He fell asleep for about 15 minutes and woke up absolutely furious about something. We got home, gave him food, and then he played in the pool for the rest of the evening.

Random information-Sarah and I got mani/pedis and massages. Ryan and I actually got to go on a fun dinner date one night after Brody went to bed and Will and Sarah kindly stayed with him. Somehow the Kerseys came back from like a -300 score in Rook and beat us. Brody napped 3+ hours each day and slept over 12 hours at night. The boys bought too much ice cream for us to eat in one week. 108 degrees is not as hot as you would think in the desert, but the concrete around the pool will burn your flesh on the bottom of your feet. Pandora is one of the best apps you can have on your phone. Brody is getting a little heavy to carry in the Baby Bjorn for more than a few minutes. We love Will and Sarah and Brody LOVES them too. I am better at catching a frisbee than some people would have guessed. I read 2 1/2 books on this trip. We are pretty awesome at packing light. Renting a house is really nice when you have a baby.It is really hard to get sunscreen all over a wiggly baby! We are extremely blessed!!!!!