Friday, August 29, 2008

Palm Spring Vacation Part 1 & 2






We had such a fun vacation the past week! The perfect refresher to get us ready for this fall. Part 1 of our trip we headed up to Palm Springs ( last Friday Aug 22 with kids). Then on Monday we came back to SC to take care of a few school things and drop the kids off with my parents. Part 2 of our trip James and I got away by ourselves for the first time since the beginning of parenthood, I had a lot of anxiety about leaving the kids for more than a few hours, and even though I missed them a ton, it was SO NICE to take a break!!
Part 1
The weather was over a 100 degrees the whole time we were in Palm Springs so we decided to take the Aerial Tram up into to the mountains where it was only about 70 degrees, the tram ride up was fun and Luke thought it was really cool.


The not so smart thing we did was to take Luke hiking at nap time which pretty much turned into a nightmare and by time we finished hiking and road the tram back down to our car Luke was just crying, no reason, just crying. As soon as we set him in his car seat he was immediately asleep. Above is a picture of us at the end of the hiking trail which overlooks Palm Springs. Can't you see the joy on our faces


The best thing about the resort we stayed at was the pools which we spent several hours at each day. Luke is just like a fish in water now, he is even starting to learn to paddle his arms and kick his feet a little. Every time we would walk by one he would say "pool pease, pease" he was so cute and is completely efficient at holding his breath underwater. We even got him a little pair of goggles so he could open his eyes.


Our last day there with the kids we made a big family dinner, Bella got to experience spaghetti for the first time (she loved it) and Luke got to try Sparkling cider (not so much, but he liked the cool cups we put it in)



Part 2

Getting away from the kids was really bitter sweet (more sweet than bitter ). We had so much fun, it really made me remember all the goofy fun things we used to do. I don't know why but becoming a parent made us a lot more serious as individual and as a couple when we were dating we used to be really spontanious and silly. On this trip we got a refresher on that and it was fun! The other thing that was really cool was that if we wanted to go somewhere or do something we just grabbed our shoes and went it didn't take us a half an hour to get out the door and that was so nice, but it finally got a to a point after about a day and a half the we were just sitting there like, wow, I am really board I don't know what to do with myself because we are so used to going a million miles a minute changing diapers, feeding, laying down for naps and comforting, we weren't used to having a ton of time to ourselves. We also had a lot of fun staying up till 1 am the sad part was neither of us could sleep in much past 7 (darn those internal alarm clocks). Some of the things we did while we were there: Soak City (fun but over priced), Shopping (yay for no kids), Played games, watched TV, and James finally got to see the new Batman movie which was really good (we hadn't been to the theatre alone since before Luke was born).

I love the Olive Garden right now they have their never ending pasta bowl and we ate way to much. I think my favorite was Asiago Alfredo Garlic Sauce with Penne. We were goofing off in the movie theatre cause we were the only ones in there. James decided he wanted to train to be Batman and did a few laps around the theatre (Sounds weird I know but I'm not joking)

We have to give a big Thanks To James and my parents for making this trip possible. Thanks for the graduation present! Love you guys!

Summer Fun

In the quest of finding a job James often has to travel all over Orange County for job fairs, interviews, ect. Well the kids and I have taken up going with him on these trips and after he takes care of whatever responsibility he has we do something fun that we wouldn't usually get to do (because its to far away or to much gas). Even though James has been working hard we have had a ton of fun this summer! Here are some pics of our adventures

We went to Irvine Regional Park and road the train which Luke of course loved since he is obsessed with anything with wheels

They had ponies there and a little duck pond where you could rent paddle boats. It would also be really fun to take bikes up there and go for a ride.


They have hiking which sounded like a lot of fun so we attempted to hike, It was probably about 90 degrees and this was the outcome after about 10 minutes of hiking.

Bella is fully mobile now, not quite walking but crawling and pulling herself up and getting into whatever she can get her hands on. She also has about 10 bruises on her forehead and head from whacking it on stuff (her black eye has healed). Poor thing.

They have a baby beach in Huntington, we met up with James sister Shari and her three boys. Luke had a lot of fun playing with his cousins (as always) and it was good catching up with Shari. I do prefer the sand at the baby beach in Dana Point though (it was really hard here).

On a total whim we went to the Discovery Science Museum in LA. Luke loved this contraption he probably spent 15 minutes talking to whoever would listen to him. It was a really cool museum, it even had a area specially designed for kids under 8 and a cool toddler area where we just let Bella go and crawl around. The best part about it was that it was admission is Free!

Here is Luke being the little social butterfly that we know and love. He loves making friends especially with older kids who can show him cool new things to do

Bella's bottom two teeth finally broke through (after I swear months of teething). She is starting to get the hang of the biting thing but she keeps making goofy faces like this (she also bit her lip [it bled] and her own thumb today which she got pretty upset about)


They had a giant rose garden right next to the museum with a huge fountain in the middle. So beautiful.