Our Great Escape

We enjoyed our annual get-far-away-from-old man winter-vacation with 10 days in sunny southern California. We invited our friends, my brother and his girlfriend, to join us on the trip. We also invited my youngest sister to join us for a long weekend-small vacay...sadly, due to issues flying standby - she was unable to join us.
We love visiting California, but this was our first time to the Palm Springs area, located in the Coachella Valley, about 90-120 minutes east-southeast of LA. We really lucked out with above-average temperatures in the 80's and mid-70's and found the Marriott Desert Springs resort to be absolutely fabulous.

Our 2 bed/2 bath unit was nearly on hole #4 of the Marriott valley golf course and right across the street from the pool...the important things. We golfed, cocktailed, spent time by the pool, enjoyed one day at various Orange County beaches (Newport, Laguna and Huntington), and took a really cool Aerial Tram ride in Palm Springs which takes passengers up to 8,700 feet high (going from 75 to 40 degrees in just a few minutes). Miss L loved the pool, and was a trooper napping in her car seat under an umbrella so we could enjoy some adult time at the pool (or even nightime hot tub visits) too! All-in-all, we had a fabulous trip and our lil' family of 3 extended the trip two more days to soak up the California sun!

Here are some of my favorite phrases of the trip:

"I don't think we can have a baby this cute...I can't stand all of the attention" - says Miss L's Uncle JJ to his longtime girlfriend

"Your daughter is gorgeous! All grandparents think their grandbabies are the cutest, but yours is REALLY cute. Even cuter than ours." - says random "Grandma" in the resort lobby

"Does the blue line mean she did something (in her Pampers Swaddlers diaper), because I swear it is always blue!" - says Miss L's Uncle JJ

Some things we learned on our trip include:

• If you are over 60, you MUST own a kindle to use poolside
• It definitely takes more than 60 minutes to get from LAX to Palm Springs
• We found out our resort was actually in Palm Desert, not Palm Springs, like we thought
• Regardless, the average age for this area is 65
• And Palm Springs is infamously known as the "it" destination for the gay and lesbian community

Jer and I have a vacation anthem every year. This year's anthem was: "Somebody that I used to know" by Gotye. It was #14 or so on the Top 18 charts on Alt Nation when we left on vacay and within a week it was #1 on that chart. If the number of times we played it is any indication, we certainly helped it soar to #1!

Here are some photos highlighting our fun times...