Thursday was checkout day so that we can get back to work on the house on Friday. It has been a great vacation. Thanks Poppa and Yaya.

It took more time than normal to get home. We got caught in an ’emergency CalTrans repair’ in Pomona. It took about 40 minutes to get past it. Then on the way to Monya’s house (to pick up the dogs) we suddenly went from 70 mph to near crawl. About 1/4 of a mile in front of us, 4 cars had piled up. There were no fire or police on scene yet. We saw crushed cars and deployed airbags, but it didn’t look like anyone was seriously injured. We got home about 11pm.

Wednesday, we had breakfast with the Bernards, making fun of Jeff for his attempt to get out of the room by the 10 am checkout time. Did he forget that they had the room until Friday or was he trying to fool Jan into moving faster? We may never know

Wednesday night we went to P.F. Changs for dinner. Afterward we had ice cream and discovered that it melts really fast in the desert heat. The kids were covered with their cones and my super think shake was super thin in about 3 minutes.

Tuesday we spent the morning at the Childrens Discovery
Museum. Max and Emily spent most of the time playing dress up. Each afternoon, after our morning adventures, we would go down to one of the pools. One of the pools had a big water slide. Max tried it, but it was a bit long for him. One day we went to the pool with the smaller slide and Max loved it. So I guess we just need to work up to the different slides. Tuesday night Jan and Jeff went to Ruths Chris Steakhouse and we watched all the kids. We took a long walk in the cool of the evening around the grounds. Everyone had a great time, especially in the shuttle ride back.

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Monday was zoo day. We started off feeding the giraffes. The Palm Springs zoo is much more spread out than the Santa Barbara Zoo. By 11a it was pretty hot. There was not much shade. One thing that the zoo had that I wish SB zoo had was a petting pen. There were a dozen or so goats and sheep to pet and brush. Lucy really liked petting the goats until one of them butted her and she sat down hard. No more pet goat. Max spent a bunch of time quizzing the volunteer attendant on the names of each of the goats. His favorite was named Chocolate. Lucy was a bit disappointed because the Meerkats were set far back so she could not get close. At the SB Zoo they are behind glass that she can get right up close to them.

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Sunday we went to Knott’s
Soak City Waterpark. At Salem, there were coupons for admission to the water park, so I grabbed some for our trip. Unfortunately, they stayed in Carpinteria bad Matt. We found a great spot in the shade of a tree next to the kiddie slide Gremmie Lagoon. Max and Emily had a great time sliding down and running back up. Even Nathan spent a long time sliding. Lucy slept for a lot of the morning in her stroller. The lifeguard (Janine) was great with the kids. We rode some bigger slides and played in the tide pool, but the hit of the day was the kiddie slide. That night, Toby and I went to Macaroni Grill for dinner while Jan and Jeff watched the kids. It was a wonderful date, and not just because of the chocolate raviolis we had for dessert.

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