Palm Desert, CA Vacation!

Last week we went on vacation to Palm Desert, CA! Palm Desert is adjacent to Palm Springs, which is famous (well - from what I read) for being the hangout of all the 1950s celebrities, like Frank Sinantra and Elvis, and it's located about halfway east of L.A. and San Diego, AND it's absolutely beautiful! Jeff, Tyndell, and I were invited to meet Jeff's parents out there for a week's vacation since they could trade their timeshare for a nice resort out there and it would be a fun and different place to see, so that's what we did! I couldn't believe how cool it was out there (though I shouldn't be - we definitely like California, in general) seeing the desert landscape and then these huge rocky snow-ladden mountains. And it was so nice to see something different other than our flat tropical landscape from Florida - I think a new landscape can give you a new perspective on life.

Anyway - these pictures show some of the amazing things that we got to do while out there - we had an absolute blast! The first full day we were there, Saturday, we just took it easy since we were all pretty jet lagged, we decided would be a good day to drive around and just get a lay of the landscape....we also decided to check off a few of Jeff's "Roadside America" obscure destinations and saw some fun statues of Gene Aughtry and Lucille Ball, a palm date garden, a spider made out of a VW beetle, and Sonny Bono's grave. On Sunday, we went to the Living Desert zoo, which was super cool - we saw some cool catus gardens, different animals, an amazing train set, a desert-themed carousel, and Tyndell and Jeff rode a camel together! On Monday morning EARLY, Jeff, Mom A, and I went on a hot air balloon ride over the desert and agricultural areas! It was so beautiful and peaceful and not scary at all like you might think. Very cool experience that we all highly recommend, including the champagne toast at the end! Afterwards when we met back up with Dad A and Tyndell, we visited the Palm Springs Air Museum and saw some really cool planes and vehicles from the WWII era. On Tuesday, we drove over to Anaheim and visited Disneyland! We weren't going to do it at first, but Jeff really wanted to and we were all a little curious to see if it was any different than DisneyWorld, and I have to say, as compared with Magic Kingdom, specifically, it definitely is much cooler. Tyndell seemed confused and overwhelmed by the whole experience, but she definitely loved "It's a Small World" best, and rode it twice! We loved the Yeti on the Matterhorn ride, seeing all the cool Storybookland areas via train, the pretty New Orleans district, and the fun differences on the Pirates of the Carribean ride. On Wednesday, we just took it easy at the pool most of the day to recover the previous long day, and then Thursday, we did the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which was amazing! We took this cable tram up the mountainside and the views up there were incredible! Tyndell got to touch/see snow for the first time and we all got our moutain fix (Tyndell said "I want more snows!" at the end of the day). It was crazy looking one direction and seeing nothing but desert, and then looking the other way and seeing a beautiful mountain with snow. What a great time! I think we hung out at the pool again later that day to relax and then got everything ready for packing and flying home on Friday.

Our resort was beautiful too - lots of pretty pools and golf courses and nice views all around. We had a really nice room and Tyndell got pretty spoiled staying in bed with us and sleeping in with her new friends - Minnie and Diego aka "Diego's Jaguar" from Dora the Explorer. Jeff and I got to go out one night on our own to celebrate our 8-Year Anniversary too and we found this really fun and delicious Hibachi place - they even had grilled tofu! Contrastingly, Mom and Dad A went out one night too to find as much meat as possible hahaha....

Thanks for a great time Mom and Dad! Back to the grind now....

Visiting the NC Tyndells!

A couple of weekends ago, Tyndell, my Mom, and myself went up to NC for a long weekend to visit Paul, Anthe, Nana, Chris, and Drew! It was so fantastic to see everyone and get some Carolina fix out of my system. It had been over a year since we've seen Nana and probably longer since seeing Chris and Drew - in fact, this was the first introduction of Tyndell to the Tyndell cousins. The other fun thing about this trip was that Drew's fiance, Rhiannon, came to visit too so we got to meet her for the first time. This was obviously a very long overdue trip to catch up with my side of the family. Despite the weather being gray and cold a lot of the time we were there, it was so nice to be in the South for a bit....smiley people, accents, big trees, good sweet tea, and obviously, seeing my awesome family that I miss dearly. We had a nice relaxing time and it was precious seeing Nana with Tyndell again, and I am pretty sure that she felt re-energized after our visit. I can't imagine how it must feel being in a "home" in bed all the time. I wish we lived closer so that we could go encourage her more.

Summertime's Calling My Name!

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I should really wait to post these until I post about my previous weekend NC trip to see Nana but I'm trying to be good about catching up on everything before we leave for vacation this coming Friday (yessss!) so this is most efficient. This past Saturday we went out on the boat with our awesome friends Marlis and Bob - it was such a perfect beautiful cloudless day. We went out on the intracoastal just east of West Palm Beach and found the cutest little island to hang out beside. Peanut Island was a bit crowded (rightly so!) so we went a bit further north to Munyan Island, where we saw lots of little fishes, horseshoe crabs, sea cucumbers, and even some stingrays on our way out! It's so fun to see this stuff in the real setting....anyway - we had a blast relaxing for the day on Saturday! Good food and friends! Glad summer is on its way....

Cool Inflatable Bladder

I usually keep this blog pretty light and more about our personal lives but every once in a while I get excited about some of my nerdy work stuff and cannot help but share - I feel really blessed to have a cool job that I enjoy and it hopefully makes a difference in the local environment.

My company got involved in procuring, installing, and maintaining a temporary water inflatable dam on a canal this past month. I've included a picture during the installation (you just float the "balloon" out on the water, hook up to a small diaphragm water pump, and bam!), one on how it looks in final placement, and one of me walking on it (very cool sensation). We installed this feature so that we could increase the water elevation of the canal we were pumping into without changing the existing weir. The dry season has been so harsh on the water needs for a local agricultural district that we've need to assist with some pumping operations and this is a temporary feature that we put into place to help out. Very cool technology. These are the types of things that are being used more and more for disaster relief after hurricanes and earthquakes to dewater locatiosn for inspections, so it was cool to learn about something so relevant to today's news.

Ahrens Invade Getchells Tampa Weekend

A couple of weeks ago, we made the trek over to Tampa to visit our friends, the Getchells, that just transferred there from South Florida. It was so fun to catch up with them and see their daughter reunited with Tyndell again. The Getchells were part of our Pizza Night gang and we hope that Tampa isn't too far to make some regular and periodic visits. The other good part about seeing our dear friends is that they live really close to Busch Gardens! Since we have the dual park pass, we decided to go that weekend while we were visiting and we also did the Sesame Street character lunch which was awesome. Tyndell was kinda teenage girl starstruck - she was just staring intently at a distance but if they got too close, she would freak out and cry. It was so funny and we had a blast. I could have spent all day in the Sesame Street land with her - between the kiddie rides, the characters, and the splash park, we were exhausted afterwards and we got to walk around a let the boys ride some of the roller coasters. Preggo Shelley made me promise I would come back this fall after their second is born this summer to ride the rides with her. Of course we will!!! It was a fantastic weekend!!

Silly Girl

These photos are AMAZING in my opinion. Another awesome outfit and such a fun moment, captured - gotta love the rabbit hat! Tyndell is such a hilarious little one.