Santa Train!

I had heard about this Santa Train for a couple of years, so I thought all 3 boys would be at a fun age to try it this year...I think we ALL had a great time! It was about a 45 minute ride and Santa came thru 2 cars and sat and talked to each and every boy and girl! Patrick asked for rollerblades and a basketball and Zach wants a fish and "town"...I guess he needs to build a town around all his flags!

No more birthdays...just "celebrating" ;)

OK, I've decided I'm not having "birthdays" anymore...just "celebrations"...haha This year tho, Patrick was sick and had to go to work with me for a few hours, so there wasn't much celebrating. The boys did make a wonderful cake for me tho! It was chocolate (of course, I had to put it in the fridge like Granny!) and since we couldn't decide on the icing, we did half and half! ...with purple decorations! Debbie made a surprise visit for a few minutes on a "break" from work. :)

Coming home!

Although we had a wonderful trip and enjoyed every minute of spending time w/family, we were ever so happy to come home! We saw an amazing sunrise as we left Palm Springs (on the little puddle jumper plane)...got to LAX and ended up delayed so we got sent to Chicago! We werent rushed this time...with a 2 1/2 hour layover...so we walked around and saw the "people mover" and ate dinner watching other planes come in. The view leaving Chicago was breath taking! Saw the Grand Canyon and snow covered mountains! Patrick got to watch another movie and Zach passed out again. ;)

The Living Desert

The Living Desert was awesome! There was a HUGE model train display!! We saw lots of desert animals from North America and Africa...including the 'happy zebra'! And the boys finished the afternoon with a drum session with Grama Bonnie!

Apple pickin' and Date Shakes

We were a DAY LATE for apple pickin'...so Auntie Donna quietly took the boys across the parking lot to pick a couple since they had been looking forward to it for so long and heartbroken when they thought they missed out. ;) We called it "preserving the apples" because if WE didnt pick THOSE apples, they would have just rotted and fell off the tree! So wouldnt that be considered teaching a GOOD thing?? haha We ate apples all the way home...they must taste better when you pick them right off the tree yourself!
And as you can see, we crammed so much into just a few days, the boys took advantage of riding in the car anytime they could! They really did well being so off track with the time change tho.
Dates grow on the palm trees in California so "date shakes" were the most popular snack for us! ...I think I had 3!! YUM!!! You could see ladders and bags at the tops of the trees from where the pickers would collect the dates!!

Windmills and dinasours!

Stopping by these dinasours was hillarious!!! OH NO! They're chasing us!!! ;) hahaha



We went to the windmills and had some good laughs on the "bumpy" way over! ;) Stopped at this really cool auto shop on the way back where this "spider bug" was!

The San Andreas Fault & Flamingos

We had SEVERAL day trips!!! One was to the San Andreas (did I spell that right?!) fault...really cool. Had a little picnic and meet 2 Indians who ran the little visitor center and before we knew it, ended up on top of this mountain that looked like some kind of cool Indian spiritual thing!
We also went to the famous Marriott to see the flamingos...and met a parrott named "Cowboy" in the lobby!

more of gram

Zach is our snuggler...and our clown. Patrick and I seem to have the same expressions, huh?? It's obvious we are related! haha ;)

Visiting Gram

The boys and I had a wonderful time visiting with Gram. They read books to her, we played "pin the tail on the donkey", she did her famous "magic finger trick" and I did her hair. She is definately not the "Grama" I last saw, but some things will never change about her...:)