Memorial Day Weekend- Palm Springs

We headed out to Palm Springs for our Memorial Day weekend. I had to work at the graduation for the dental school today since our IDP students all marched, so that took up a couple hours this evening, but Friday my boss ended up giving me the day off, so we drove out to Palm Springs to spend Friday through Sunday afternoon with Aunt B, my sisters and Ryan (Uncle Wayne had to go to Yuma and Patrice had to work overtime on Saturday). We had such a fun and relaxing time! Seriously, on Saturday we did nothing but hang out by the pool, drink iced tea and soda and lay in the sun. We did leave to all grab coffee, but other than that we just stayed at the house and enjoyed all being together. Aunt B & Uncle Wayne have the best house for hanging out and B's comment to us is always, "mi casa es su casa" so we all just make ourselves at home. I think today we feel tired from just relaxing...if that's possible??? :)

The view from the backyard right at sunset- I'm telling you in Palm Springs I think you get the next best sunsets next to being right on the beach itself. And you can see every star in the sky every night!

Mother's Day Surprise!

This would have been the first Mother's Day my mom would have without any of her daughters home to celebrate with her. But...my dad, who is the best dad in the world, helped all three of us girls coordinate a huge surprise for my mom this weekend! We all flew from southern California on Friday night, woke my mom up at 11:00 p.m. and surprised her with the news that she would have all three girls home for a weekend to celebrate Mother's Day with! She was soooo surprised and it definitely will go down as the best Mother's Day ever. We had such a fun weekend the five of us- we stayed home for most of it which is what we wanted- but we also took a trip out on Saturday for coffee and to walk around downtown and then again on Sunday for a coffee at McGlade's. We did what our family does best...laugh a lot, talk a lot, play games (we love just about any card game and Yahtzee), take walks, cook and bake (we girls made in one afternoon homemade energy bars, an apple pie, a chocolate cake and homemade mac n' cheese which are all our favorite dishes), and watch home videos. We LOVE watching home videos together and then laugh and laugh about how cute and silly we were when we were little. It was such a special weekend- very hard when it came time for good byes on Monday morning-but it was amazing how it all worked out and I will forever remember this weekend with my family!

Our lifelong, family friends, the Widmers found out we were in town (well...we ran into Les at the grocery store on Saturday and then the whole family showed up in the backyard on Sunday afternoon). This family is just an extention of ours. We've grown up together, had years of Family Game Nights with them, and even though we're all grown up, and some of us married, we still love eachother like we're one big brood! It was a blessing to get to all see eachother and of course we had to get a picture of the reunion!

Happy Mother's Day to the best mom in the whole world! I love you so much mom!

What we've been up to...

Today we met up with Nate in LA to celebrate his 30th birthday, which was May 1st. I can't believe all that Nate has done and seen in his 30 years of life- he has been around the world and experienced so many amazing things...so glad to be his sister. We all went to church together and then headed to Santa Monica for lunch at The Counter (a cool build-your-own-burger place and I have to mention that Jennifer Love Hewitt was eating right across from us...crazy!!!) and then made a pit stop at the beach to put our feet in the sand. It was a nice day...

Nate's life-long friend John West was with us for the day- he had flown in from Vegas to spend the weekend with Nate. Here's the 4 of us at the beach.

This is a picture of the flowers Jared and I planted a couple weekends ago. I've never been a green thumb, but I decided I want to get into gardening more and this was my first attempt. :) In the middle we have herbs (spearmint and cilantro) and since this picture I've also planted two tomato plants because we go through tomatoes like crazy down here with all the pico de gallo we make. This is all the space we have for now...but someday we would love a house with lots of flowers in the yard and a large garden!

Last weekend Jared and I took a hike/walk into the Loma Linda hills to enjoy the incredible view of where we live. This is a picture of the Loma Linda hospital- which is known around the world. The view was incredible and we talked up here again about how thankful we are to be on this adventure down in Southern California and specifically how thankful we are to be at Loma Linda. This place is pretty amazing...

Jared showing you the city

Me showing you the city. By the way this was at about 8:30 in the morning and on this day it was already about 80 degreees. We had a major heat wave that weekend- 4 days at over 100 degrees...in April

One thing we haven't gotten tired of yet is the palm trees. They are just so pretty and there are so many different kinds. This happens to be the street right before you get to our house.

Jared met Nate for coffee a couple weeks ago in Pasadena. He took a couple pictures on the way and then once he was there because Pasadena is such a pretty place. Of course known for the Rose Bowl, but besides that it has great shopping, eating and the beuatiful back drop of the San Bernardino mountains.

Here they are...roses from the city they are so well known for.

This is City Hall in Pasadena- the architecture here is old fashion Spanish-style-you feel more like you are in Spain than Southern California here.

Here are the brothers at the italian cafe they went to for breakfast and coffee. Nothing like having a morning with your brother over a good cup o' joe!