Month: December 2014

Sunday — our last road trip day — started with an early morning visit from the dinosaurs. Still funny after all these years.

After breakfast at the hotel, we packed up and went to Bob and Vanessa’s, where we spent a couple of hours getting a bunch of bikes ready and in/on the cars for a bike ride at the beach. Along with the four of us and Bob, Vanessa and Thomas, we were joined by Reba and Michelle and Michael.

It was another glorious day.

We rode along the Strand into Manhattan Beach and when we stopped Ezra couldn’t wait to dig in the sand.

We got some lunch …

… and then rode back, stopping at this swing set at Ezra’s request.

I knew we had a long drive ahead of us but I still didn’t want to leave the beach.

But we finally did, packing up the bikes again and get back on the road.

It was after midnight when we finally got home, both kids already asleep and grownups not far behind.

Saturday was the day we had originally planned to head back to NorCal, but somewhere along the line Bruce decided to take a couple more vacation days so we changed our plan. We still had to leave Palm Springs so we said goodbye to Jamma and wished her safe travels back to Belize. We headed into Pasadena to see friends at a park date at Hamilton Park. My pictures are few and not very good because I was too busy chatting and catching up with friends but here are some of the kids riding bikes, etc. and loving the rocket launcher the Bondsmiths brought.

After Hamilton Park, we went to Pasadena’s new restaurant, Lincoln, for a sweet snack and coffee before getting back on the road to Redondo Beach to visit the South Bay Moisions. We checked into the Redondo Beach Hotel and immediately took advantage of their pool and jacuzzi before going to get some dinner at The Standing Room.

Then we were all off to bed to get some rest before the next day’s activities.

The day after Christmas would have been a nice day to take a rest. But this is a Bruce Moision vacation — there is no rest! So, ignoring the boys’ protests of “no more driving!” we headed out to Twentynine Palms and met Baris and Alexandra for a hike up the Fortynine Palms Oasis Trail.

It was a chilly but beautiful day.

We made it to the Oasis and took a break for lunch.

We had a few complaints and some rest times on the way back.

Keep in mind that the temps were in the 40s when you see Finn in shorts and a t-shirt. I don’t know how he does it.

After some debate about driving a little further to get to Joshua Tree, we decided everyone was pretty wiped out and we just went back to the condo. Finn fell asleep in the car, as did I. When we got back, Jamma and I high-tailed it over to the jacuzzi. It was beautiful and relaxing. The perfect end to another great day.

Christmas Day started early, although not unreasonably so, with two boys very excited to see if Santa had found us in Palm Springs. I think they were both a little stunned with their gifts — a bike for Finn and a laptop for Ezra. Santa did go a bit off the rails this year in the gift department, but he was probably just trying to make up for moving the kids away from their home.

They enjoyed their stockings too.

And then started working on the rest of their presents.

Finn was particularly happy with Jamma’s gift.

A little while later we drove down to San Diego to spend the afternoon with Bill and Therese and this whole crew.

Finn couldn’t wait to show Uncle Bob his new bike.

And they had a race … that was too close to call.

A little later in the evening Laura and Eric came by for a quick visit. So great to see them!

Before we left there was time for a few rousing rounds of Just Dance! Here’s Bruce, Finn and Thomas cutting a rug.

After the last two years of being sick as a dog on Christmas, this year was a total success!

On Tuesday we had several events but I have no pictures. Bruce and I had breakfast with Michelle and Michael, who were visiting from New York (and enjoying the desert weather just like us!). Jamma and I got a pedicure and, more importantly, some rare one-on-one time in our busy week. And in the afternoon, Bruce and I drove in to L.A. to go to the Magic Castle with the Heffernans. After snafus with our unacceptable clothing choices, we were finally allowed in with borrowed shoes for Bruce and a jacket for me. Despite the rough start, it was a super fun night. Bruce and I stayed overnight in Pasadena and on Christmas Eve Jamma drove in with the boys.

The first order of business was a quick visit to the San Gabriel Mission.

Ezra is doing his fourth grade Mission project and his teacher assigned him the San Gabriel Mission knowing he is from Pasadena. We didn’t get to go in, but we walked around the grounds for a while.

Next up was dinner at the Bannings’ house — yay, our tradition continues! The kids had a great time running around and being crazy, and occasionally settling down to do some drawing.

I even remembered to get a picture of the adults!

Later in the evening, Cari and I took a walk with the kids to see a particularly festive house in their neighborhood. It was good to let the kids burn off some energy. The photos are a little dark …

I tried to get a nice one of Ezra and Ruby. Of course, only Ruby cooperated.

After a delicious dinner and dessert, we hit the road back to Palm Springs. Finn was fast asleep in the car and stayed that way once we got to the condo. Santa came and we were all ready for the morning.

On Monday we met the Bannings and Baris and Alexandra at the Palm Springs Aerial Tram to take a trip up to the top of the mountain. The boys rushed right to the windows to get the best view.

Ruby was much less enthusiastic about the tram part of the day, and each swing past the five towers brought closed eyes and a bit of terror. But she hung in there! (For the record, I’m with her on that swinging motion being unpleasant …)

We took the obligatory posed photo, which I like for keepsake purposes.

Once we made it to the top, the boys immediate found some patchy snow and started a much-anticipated snowball fight.

After a while, they came back for snacks.

Then they were back at it.

Finn found the back to a booster seat and tried to use it as a sled, with Chapin’s help.

It wasn’t the best ride, but he had a great time.

Then the big kids got into a snowball fight.

Once we finally moved away from the heavily traveled area, there was some better snow and the kids had a super fun time. Here are more pictures from the day.

After we got our fill of snow, we headed back down the mountain to warmer temps. The kids went swimming in Jamma’s pool and jacuzzi and we enjoyed a relaxing pizza dinner. The kids were all out like lights pretty quickly after hours and hours of snow play and swimming!

We jumped right into activities on our first day. I got in an early morning walk and bathed in the much-welcomed desert sunlight.

We rode our bikes over to Sherman’s Deli for breakfast. Here are the boys putting together their LEGO Advent Calendar pieces while we waited for our food.

A little while later we met Baris and Alexandra for a hike up the Lykken Trail in the local mountains. We didn’t have to go too far up before the views were stunning. We took a lot of photos.

The boys, especially Ezra, enjoyed scrambling up the rocks.

Here’s one of all three Moision boys.

We made it to the promised picnic tables at the top and had a snack.

After a rest, we made our way back down. The boys seemed to be much happier on the down slope. Here’s a picture from the bottom.

It was early afternoon and we were starting to worry that we weren’t prepared for the next day’s plan — a trip up the Palm Springs Tram to the top of the mountain, where there was snow. We hadn’t gotten snow pants for the boys, so we went on a bit of a wild goose chase looking for some. The first sporting goods store had a very small inventory left, but luckily we found what we needed at the second store.

By then it was dinner time and we met Baris and Alexandra for dinner in Palm Desert before heading to The Living Desert to see their Wild Lights holiday setup. The lights really were pretty spectacular.

And we saw this owl at their visitor’s center. It was creepy cool.

I don’t remember exactly what was happening in this shot, but clearly all three were having a good time! It was a great first day.

More pictures from the hike here and The Living Desert here.

We had our Christmas all planned. We were not going to travel this year and Jamma was coming to visit us. Then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, Jamma called and said her condo fell out of escrow and asked if we wanted to come to Palm Springs instead of her visiting us in NorCal. Having lived through a few dreary weeks of clouds and rain, and having come to the realization that we were going to miss out on our burgeoning tradition of Christmas Eve with the Bannings, it took us about five minutes to decide we were going on a road trip!

I mean, seriously, how could we refuse?

We sketched out a rough plan for the week and did some power shopping to make sure everything was done before we hit the road on the 20th. Our plan was to leave about 10:00 a.m. so we could meet the Heffs for a park date in the afternoon. But then this happened.

Let me back up and explain. I was in the house, busily packing, when I heard a knock on the back door. I opened the door to find Bruce, speckled with mud and asking for help. I had no idea what was going on, but apparently Ezra had been digging in the backyard (really? now??) and had accidentally broken a sprinkler pipe. As Bruce described the scene — he was getting something together in the garage when Finn started frantically calling for him. He looked over and there was water sprinkling down. In that moment of disconnect, he thought it was raining only on Ezra.

Alas, it wasn’t rain. And it wasn’t an easy fix either because it was an input pipe not an output pipe, so shutting off the sprinkler valve didn’t solve the problem. Four hours, a trip to the hardware store, tons of mud and some ruined clothes later, we finally hit the road at 2:00 p.m.

I have to say, I marvel at Bruce’s patience in these situations, which, with two boys, are more frequent than I would like. He says there are a lot of expletives running through his head, but what the boys and I see is a dad pretty calmly figuring out a fix to a problem and enlisting the perpetrator’s help.

We made it to El Patron (Finn’s pick) for dinner at 7:30 and ran into our friend Lisa and her husband Allen there. We ended up having a lovely dinner before driving the rest of the way to Palm Springs that night.

As a side note, on our way out of Altadena we drove by our old house. It looks great, no changes we could see and the drought-tolerant garden is flourishing. My heart hurt just seeing it again.

Thanksgiving this year had a new venue: We rented a house in Santa Barbara with the SoCal Moisions for several days of good food, fun times and lots of Nerf gun battles. The house was in the hills so one of the first things we did was explore the surrounding area, which included some ruins of a house that must have burned down a long time ago. Here are the cousins. Thomas was obviously well-prepared for the aforementioned battle.

As usual, I have no pictures from Thanksgiving dinner, save for this one shot of Bob’s computer analysis of the turkey cooking time, which I found pretty entertaining (and informative!).

Some day I will get my act together and remember to get some shots of people. We had David and Beth with us, and we all devoured lots of great food.

The next day we got out for a bike ride along the coast.

The kids were happy to ride for a while, but really, at least my two, just wanted to play in the sand.

Saturday we took another bike ride, this time at Ellwood Mesa.

Another ridiculously beautiful day.

Oddly enough, the kids talked us in to going down to the beach again.

Bruce and I tried to take a selfie and got photobombed by this guy digging in the background.

After the beach time and the ride back, we got some great Mexican food at a place Beth recommended. Ah, good Mexican food, how we’ve missed you.

Next up was a park, also recommended by Beth, with a giant play structure and a creepy clown show. Much to my surprise, Ezra and Thomas (in the blue helmet) joined in.

On Sunday we packed up and headed home, just as the much-needed rain hit California. It was a long and sometimes painfully slow drive back but well worth it!

The weekend before Thanksgiving the Bannings came up to visit Monterey and we got to join them for a day and a half. Not knowing about their upcoming visit (which had been in some limbo so I hadn’t mentioned it) about a week earlier, Ezra had asked me when we were going to get to see our old friends. “Like who?” I asked. “You know, Ruby, Chapin, Jack …” Well, two out of three ain’t bad!

We arrived in the afternoon and after quickly ditching our stuff at the hotel, we took off in search of Dennis the Menace Park. The kids had a grand old time running around while we got to catch up a bit with Cari and Rob. Later, while walking to find a restaurant for dinner, the kids found another park so we stopped for some more play.

Once we found a restaurant that looked good, they informed us that they could only accommodate a group of our size with two adjacent tables. Kids table!

The next morning Cari and I got out for a fairly early walk. It was beautiful. And fun to talk in person instead of on the phone!

A couple of hours later we walked over to the Aquarium, the day’s main activity. I snapped this shot while Cari was valiantly trying to get a shot of all the kids in the bright sunlight.

Up to that point, this had been our main photographic view.

After some minor delays for exploration …

… we made it to the Aquarium.

This room with its wall of glass that a wave tumbles over was a huge hit.

After a nice long visit at the Aquarium, we headed out on our walk back. More shots of the kids’ backs.

And one of Ezra walking. I just thought he looked super cute.

We had another nice dinner before we hit the road since Bruce had to work the next day and the kids had school. I never thought I’d miss Aveson’s full week off for Thanksgiving week, but I do!