A Fun Saturday with Friends

Today Todd and his kids, Kasey and Cora, came over for breakfast and we had the greatest time. Lily and I always love talking to Todd and the breakfast spread was delicious (pancakes/fruit, bacon (from Todd), eggs). The kids had an awesome time together. Ammon had a lot of fun making fairy houses in the backyard with Cora.

After our time with Todd and his kids, our kids prepared a tea party for us all. They did an amazing job. I think Lydia was responsible for most of it. She’s so good at making things eventful!

In the evening, I had the best time with the kids. The had built a massive fort, and I played in it with them. Then we pretended that we all went to an outing to the fair. I ended up being a bucking bronco, a twirling swing ride, and another ride where I carried the kids around (and Lydia was live advertisements along the way). Then we all rode the train and Lily joined us for that part. We pretended to be different characters getting on and off the train and it was really fun. We also had an America’s got talent performance as well as a ballet performance from Clarissa. It was all very fun!

Clarissa Day

Every Tuesday and Thursday Clarissa has no school. I love working from home on these days, but I also lament that I don’t take more time in the day to spend with her. Every moment with her is a gift and today I found more moments to be with her. I watched Bluey with her (which the whole family has been captivated by, and I found little segments of the day to spend moments with her, including this moment below. Clarissa often protests going to school, and doesn’t want to go. Today, I turned the tables on her, and made her act like the parent telling a protesting me why I needed to go to my work meeting.

Lily’s day started off really strong with a delightful outing shopping with her mom. Then at home Lily got tired, and didn’t get everything done she wanted, but she did read to and feed Clarissa, drop dinner off for a close friend (who is under a lot of stress right now) and work on her TSOS work. TSOS ends next week, and she’s looking forward to having more time and energy to spend on other things when that wraps up.

I played Pickleball with friends and grilled salmon for dinner. Right now Lily is helping Ammon with homework while I blog and catch up on my giant work pile. I’m hoping that we play wingspan tonight and I think we will! Also, here is a cute page from Ammon’s school journal:

Easter in Palm Springs

Today we woke up to Easter baskets and Easter eggs that were hidden all over the house (thank you Lydia and Mary for stuffing and hiding all of them!). The kids had a great time opening their baskets and going on the Easter egg hunt (also thank you to Walmart for having premade baskets!).

Then Lily and I packed everything up and we all went to Lulu California Bistrtro for their Easter menu. Lily and I went there last night for a quick date, and we saw they gave big servings of cotton candy for desert. We thought of Clarissa (whose favorite desert is cotton candy) and scheduled a reservation for today. The food took a while to come out, but we gave the two youngest kids a big speech about behaving in the restaurant before hand, and they were incredible, almost perfect. We passed the time by playing with the blue hairpiece that came in one of the kid’s Easter baskets and also by reviewing our trip together (see video below):

At the end of the meal, Ammon and Clarissa were so happy with the cotton candy. It was so fun to see their joy!

We then drove home for over ten hours. We hit a lot of traffic heading towards LA to jump on the I-15, and then at one point the freeway was closed so we had a short detour. We got home around 1:30 AM and I had a 7:30 AM meeting the next day, which was a little brutal, but the trip was so so so worth it, as was the morning fun we had. It was totally worth getting in later to be able to have a fun Easter in Palm Springs. Thank you Lily for organizing this trip!

Joshua Tree National Park

I LOVE our national parks, and even though our time at Joshua Tree National Park was short, it was my personal favorite day of the trip. We drove up to a pull-out and we walked around until people needed to use a bathroom. Then we found another turnout with a restroom and the kids played on the rocks and I also go to do some fun climbing with the kids. Ammon skinned his knee and got sad when I was short with him for something else he was doing, but all the other kids were overjoyed with the experience. I too loved hiking and climbing on such beautiful scenery.

on the way home we went to Walmart and Mary and I went inside to buy easter supplies. Back at the condo, we spent more time in the pool and then Lydia and Mary hid all the eggs and baskets for the easter egg hunt the next day. Those two girls have become some helpful!

Tall things (like date trees and wind turbines)

Today we revisited one of our favorite places in Palm Springs, Shield’s date farm. This time around we were very struck at how finnicky date trees are how incredibly difficult it is to raise fruit from them. First of all, they can’t pollinate themselves, so humans have to manually collect pollen from male tress and brush them onto the female trees. You’d think that would be easy, but these trees grow insanely tall, so people have to climb large ladders, and the trees put out spiney thorns that are very painful for the people trying to work on the trees. Then, they can only live in dry, arid deserts, but they require an enormous amount of water. So Shield’s periodically floods the date farm so the trees can get enough water. And although they love water for their roots, they are basically allergic to rain, so the workers put rain coverings over the date fruits when it rains. It’s pretty amazing what all has to be done for these dates to come to the market, and they are so so delicious!

After the date farm, we went to tour the windmill farm in Palm Springs. I think the correct term is wind turbine. We learned a lot on our driving audio tour:

  • Denmark for a long time has made the best wind turbines (by a long shot), but the US and other countries like Sweden are starting to catch up.
  • Wind power had a very rocky start. Early turbines broke easily and had a lot of problems.
  • Wind turbine size is limited to what is allowed to be transported on highways. The future of wind turbines is having them in the ocean. There are already some and they are HUGE.
  • Wind and solar are about the same efficiency to make. Coal burning produces WAY more power per area it takes, but obviously has very negative consequences for the environment.

Back at home we had fun in the pool. I enjoyed doing some fun tricks with the kids where they would stand up on my shoulders.

Also, Lily has still been enjoying veggie Pho from a nearby restaurant and it feels great as she is still sick, and she and I have also been playing a lot of wingspan, which we love so much!

Exploring Downtown

Today, we explored downtown Palm Springs as a family.

We LOVED our time in downtown Palm Springs. Back at the place, we served spaghetti to the kids, then Lily and I had a date night while Lydia babysat.

Lily and I went to the art museum and we loved it!!

Then Lily and I wandered to downtown, where there happened to be a street fair going on. We got some great Mexican food, rugelach, and juice.

It was so fun to go out together!

Sunnylands

Per Mary’s request we started the day with another fun bike ride.

We then went to Sunnylands. Lily found out about it through research and it was such a delight. It turns out a wealthy media family, the Annenbergs (invented TV guide, owned stations etc), built Sunnylands as a retreat in Palm Springs with the specific intention to spread peace to those who came. Both the husband and wife served as ambassadors and they were highly connected to US Presidents and top political leaders. They were close with Nixon and Nixon came to Sunnylands to decompress and find refreshment after Watergate. Obama met with the leader of China to have talks. A trade dispute with Japan was resolved here. And the list goes on. They also famously had a New Years Eve party every year that drew dignitaries (such as Regan) to attend every year. It was awesome to learn about this beautiful place that I never knew existed.

The kids had fun playing tag on the grass.

Lily and I LOVE labyrinths! The kids seemed to enjoy it as well.

Then I played tag with the kids in the beautiful weather while Lily checked out the china and table setting pieces from Mrs. Annenberg. She was a master hostess, very detail oriented, and tried to use hosting as a means for building bridges and diplomacy with people. I got a chance to peak into the exhibit as well and I especially loved the yellow settings. Lily was so inspired that she bought a book about Mrs. Annenberg’s table settings.

We then walked through some additional gardens and headed home.

Back at the AirBNB, we thoroughly enjoyed the pool. Lily got a lot of sun which was great because she has still felt sick and we hoped all the sun would help. I had a lot of fun doing obstacle courses with the kids. I also spent a lot of time just floating on three noodles. It was unbelievably comfortable and highly soothing.

Me floating
Birds!

We also found an amazing Pho place that could doordash giant portions of veggie pho, which Lily went crazy for. It was especially soothing since she was still sick.