Splendid chaos

Oh so nice to be back home.
We had a great vacation, even though the 1st day there was the worst day of my life and I may never forgive my husband for what he made me do. Having said that we had fun overall.
Before I am ready to talk about the 1st day... We were cracking up on the drive into Palm Springs. The girls were in their own world with the travel bags that I had packed for them (even though it was only an hour drive). About 45 min into the drive Ruby looks out the window and really bummed out said "Oh man, our hotel is out here?" I guess big fans out in the desert were not her idea of a vacation.

Eric really wanted everyone to ride the Palm Springs aerial tram. I told him there was no way I would ever ride it. The one at Bridal Veil falls (in Utah) almost killed me and this one is way higher then Bridal Veil falls. After much persuasion I agreed (big mistake)that I would ride it if all of our children WANTED to ride it. I knew Lucy would never get on it as she gets freaked out that we are going to fall off high freeway overpasses.

See this photo. This was taken while Lucy still believed that her parents loved her and would never do anything to put her in harms way. Just a few minutes after this was taken she was crying, screaming "I want to go back down" while I was trying to breath through my own panic attack while holding her, I was praying that this would not scar her for life.

Every time the tram went over one of these towers the whole thing sways and you know you are going to die. She would see a tower coming and start digging her nails into me.

Haley and Ruby were fine looking out the windows, walking around.

Once we got to the top and I started breathing again, we hiked around. Lucy just kept telling us that she did not want to go back down. Eric bought her a baby in the gift store to get her back on the tram. Lets see, endangering your whole family then bribing your child to get back into the torture chamber that she just escaped, not Eric's finest hour.

Now onto the stuff that was enjoyable. We went to the Living Desert Zoo. This was way cooler and nicer then I thought it would be. There were tons of neat animals and hands on things for kids to do.

I think the girls favorite exhibit was the butterflies. There were butterflies everywhere.

Ruby took this photo.

The next day we decided to take the girls bowling. Ruby and Lucy had never been and informed us that they did not like bowling and were just going to watch. Of course they quickly realized that it was fun and decided to play. They absolutely had a blast.

After bowling Eric decided that they needed Ice cream sundays for lunch. This was probably Haley's favorite part of the whole trip.

Another day we went to Soak City. Even though they have tons of water slides and a wave pool, my girls just wanted to go around the lazy river. We went around the lazy river most of the day.

Eric and Haley played tennis.

Everyday we went swimming and rode bikes. Lucy was a swimming mad women. At one point she told everyone in the pool to move over becasue she was going to swim across the pool- she did! She is so strong I cannot believe what she can do.

We went to The Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert. We have been here before and love this place. Every time we go we try to excavate one of the fossils or rocks out of the archaeologist exhibit. We have never been able to, it's so hard. This time we had Dad to help and 30 min later....
Haley pulled out a mano and pestle.

Our hotel had Cable so every morning the kids were up early watching Disney or cartoon network and at night Eric and I were glued to the Discovery channel, home shows and the travel channel. I'm so glad that we don't have Dish or cable, I would never get anything done...but I would know how to fish for king crabs and lobsters.

Eventhough he tortured me, I really loved having so much Eric time. He will be leaving for six weeks so I am really appreciating every minute I can. It was so fun to spend time together as a family.