Palm Springs(ish)

The fine fellows at Tod's work thought that they'd do something nice for us since Tod has been working 60-70 hours/wk for the past few months. It's been nuts. Seriously.  One of the dudes he works with has a vacation home in Palm Springs. Well, to be accurate, it's his parent's home and it's in La Quinta, just past PS. 

But for this shot, just pretend I'm in Barcelona.

The home we stayed in was very nice. Here is cute Tod critiquing the art.

The hot tub and pool. Note the golf course in the back yard. An Arnold Palmer course. Too bad we think golf is dumb.

 

La Quinta has a charming little quarter called Old Town. In Old Town we ate at Hog's Breath Inn, but we chose to call it The Stumpy Borehound. That is a tavern in the book Tod just finished illustrating.  We had the most divine artichoke soup here. Who knew you could make a soup from artichoke!?

The fellows who funded this trip sent us spending money. We used it to eat some yummy food and get massages and pedicures. This was Tod's first. He really enjoyed the feet soaking part and the massaging chair part...

....and he hated the rest....

 Way too ticklish for his sensitive little tootsies.

He got me these SO cute earrings. FYI, I don't intend to wear these together, I have 2 of each.

We were there on Easter and Tod snuck out at 6 am and made me a lovely breakfast complete with a sweet note and a lily.  

And then he sent me on an egg hunt. Each "egg" was in one of these bowls he'd seen me eying the day before. Aren't they cute? He's such a keeper!

Great mini vacation. And until we can make it back to Barcelona, it will have to suffice. :)

A bit behind...

Random events from the past couple months. 

Ana and Lily took an archery class. The instructor is a 3 x Olympian. They enjoyed this more than I expected them to. Probably because they both love The Hunger Games.

 

Randomly before Lily took a shot I told her that if she got a bulls eye I'd buy her an ice cream cone. Then all the kids there started bartering with their mothers to get them something if they shot the dead middle of the target. Ana's wish was for 2 rats. She's been begging me for to let her get pet rats for some time. I always respond with an enthusiastic NO! I had a moment where I considered saying yes, since the likelihood of her hitting her mark was pretty low on her first day. Glad I didn't!!

One of our favorite bands over the past couple years has been fun. They just released their second album and they played an in-store event near us the night the album came out. We went. I was so glad we didn't have to worry about it being a school night. It was fun to jam out with Ana & Lily in tow.

We were pretty darn close to the band.

Afterward we stood in line to get the band's signatures on our fun. posters. I made Lily try this hat on in the record store. She wasn't as entertained by it as I was. 

 

It was a long line, but we finally got to say hi to the band and chat for a few seconds. Woohoo! 

And Lily was in Pirates of Penzance. She played the part of the flirty, pirate-crazy daughter of the Modern Major General.

Pirates is over now and Lily has moved away from our local drama group to a more professional playhouse. She's in a musical called Greece! The Musical. It is about Greek Gods and Lily plays the part of Echo. Ana is in another ES Senior Drama production. It's a comedy called Fools! She plays the part of a shoes maker. Not a shoemaker, a shoeS maker. It's pointless to make one shoe so she is a shoes maker. 

More randomness coming soon.