Give Us the 'Bird

Kori and Patrick have a timeshare at Snowbird every year for the last week of April.  They've been going for sometime now and I've just been a rotten sister and never come up to play.  Until this year.  Amy and I packed up her kids and drove up to join the Witmer's for some fun in the snow and an afternoon swim. 

Pat in his snowboarding gear, Logan in his tanooki suit, and Kori just being Kori.

We arrived in the afternoon and ready to eat so we grabbed incredibly delicious sandwiches from the deli at General Grits and ate them on an outdoor patio.  The weather was fantastic-- snow surrounded us on all sides, yet it was comfortably warm. Light jackets or hoodies got the job done just fine. In fact, Ashton was running around with no shoes or jacket, building mini snowmen.  Addison just kept eating snow, regardless of the color.

Sorry, but this picture cracks me up every time I look at it!  He's like a cat, all stretched out on the warm bricks.

See?  Mini snowman.

After lunch we went swimming.  I admit I was a little skeptical of how this would go, seeing as we were up in the snowy Wasatch mountains intending to swim in an outdoor pool.  Thoughts of hypothermia and ear aches may have crossed my mind.  The pool turned out to be... heaven.  Surrounded by the beautiful resort, watching skiers and snowboarders traverse down the mountainside, drenched with bright warm sunlight, in a bathwater-warm swimming pool with my family.  Ahhhhh, it felt amazing.  I think if we'd had more sunscreen and time, we would've stayed for hours.

What a day, what a view! Me, Kori, Ash, and Adds.

It's hazy from the steam coming off the warm pool in the cool air.  I hate it when you feel the urge to wipe down a picture with Windex, especially when such cute niecey and nephies are involved.

What would swimming be without some underwater photography fun?

Cute little family :)  By the looks of it, Logan is already embarrassed to be seen with his parents.

Nothing better than snuggly babies.  I am fairly certain of it.  Nothing.

In the end, we had to get going, a little earlier than I was quite ready for.  Ashton had a soccer game that evening and I'm sure I had something or other on the docket.  But what an incredible afternoon!  We had so much fun, and it was good for the soul to spend some time outdoors with loved ones.  A literal and metaphorical breath of fresh air.  Thanks to Kori and Pat for the invite, can't wait until next April to do it all again!

The crew at the Bird.  Can't wait to go back!

Another Day, Another Desert

Shadow Ridge Villages, the view from our back patio.  Can you blame us for leaving Utah?!?

On Friday, May 13 we set out on our journey to Palm Desert, California to (once again) escape the cold, wet Utah dreariness.  This time I was accompanied by Kori and Clarissa, and their babies Logan and Isabelle, ages 6 months and 7 months respectively.  Our plan was to have a relaxing getaway for some girl time, baby time, and self time.  We decided early on that we would make personal health and wellness the primary focus of our trip, and since we were going sans men, we were able to really hone in on this focus.  For the most part.

We drove to Las Vegas on our first day, stopping in Cedar City to grab a delicious sandwich at the Pastry Pub, say hello to cousins Jenni & Lindsay, and play at the Discovery Park to wear the kiddos out for the last leg of our drive.  Kori hadn't been to Las Vegas since she was a pup so with our limited time and attention span of the babies, I decided our best stops would be at Caesar's Palace and Bellagio. 

See how much Logan loves the Discovery Park?! DO YOU SEE?!?

Bellagio had one of the coolest displays I've seen yet-- all carnival and butterflies.

Trippy butterfly tree.  There was also a butterfly room with live butterflies all over the place. I would like to see how many times I can say butterfly in one caption.  Butterfly, butterfly, butterflies.

Logan was transfixed by the fountains.  Kori was transfixed by Logan's adorableness.

I think Logan is wondering why he's not looking at awesome fountains anymore.

We completed the drive to Palm Desert the next day and it seemed to take FOREVER.  Ugh, we were glad to be done with the car for a while.  I had prepared and packed most of the meals, but left the produce and milk for procuring in California so our first stop was the grocery store.  It was there that we made our most important acquisition-- Tangled.  Kori had never seen it (atrocity!) so I picked it up at Redbox.  This turned out to be the best decision of the week.  As we were constrained by the erratic napping, eating, and fussing habits of the babies, we had a lot of villa time.  So we watched Tangled.  A LOT.  We made an event of watching it all the way through the first time-- I'm sure the sight of 3 grown women crying our faces off at all the Disney magic was something to behold.  After that, we just kind of kept it on a continuous replay, so we could tune in and out at leisure.  At first, we used the kiddos as our scapegoat for watching-- "It will help Logan focus while he's eating" or "Izzy wants to watch it."  But we weren't fooling anyone so in the end, we admitted our enamoration (which is probably not a real word) and watched it as much as we wanted, because we wanted.  Ahhhhh, I love Tangled.  In fact, I miss it.

Flower gleam and glow, let your powers shine!

Since health was a key focus of our trip, all of the meals I packed met strict nutritional guidelines-- AND delicious guidelines.  Every meal was absolutely amazing as well as being packed full of nutrition!  This was our menu for the week:

Yes, I KNOW I look awesome.

Day One:

Dinner: Halibut, whole grain & wild rice, asparagus, spinach

Day Two:

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with low fat cheese and turkey bacon

Lunch:  Turkey-burger lettuce wraps

Dinner: Grilled rosemary chicken, lightly sauteed squash, zucchini, and onions, red & black quinoa with brown rice, and (my favorite) grilled pineapple, and sugar free fat free chocolate fudge pudding (no one could tell the difference!) for dessert.

Day 3:

Breakfast: Greek yogurt, low fat flax & pumpkin seed granola, and strawberries

Lunch: Stir-fry vegetables and chicken fajita style in whole wheat, low fat tortillas and edamame

Dinner:  MEXICAN FOOD!  Come on, you can't go to Southern California and not indulge.

Day 4:

Breakfast:  Cottage cheese and grapefruit

Snacks:  Whole wheat, multi-grain crackers, whole raw unsalted almonds, sun-dried tomato hummus, lowfat string cheese, carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, oranges, and green tea. 

Eating so well, and consistently, felt great.  I am most displeased to admit that I haven't kept it up since our return.  My biggest problem at home isn't overeating-- I tend to eat just once a day, whatever's most convenient to grab.  Not a good habit. 

From the looks of it, Logan's meals were just as exciting as ours!

Since the kiddos were on varied napping and eating schedules, working out daily wasn't quite as easy or feasible as we thought it would be.  We did manage some great pool time and a long power walk, strollers in tow. 

Kori and Logan having the time of their lives!

I loveee my nephypoo :)

Logan and I are all tuckered out from swimming!

Desert power walk!

...Just because he's so cute.

As far as mental wellness goes, this is where we may have missed the mark.  This being her first friend trip without husband and with a baby, Clarissa was a bit stressed and we had a hard time getting her to relax. She also had some freak neck injury that gave her absolutely no peace. We all got lost trying to find downtown Palm Springs one night and ended up spending a couple hours in the car for what should've been no more than a half hour drive. I found we were happiest when we were keeping really busy, but that wasn't always ideal with one kid or the other taking a nap or eating or fussing.  The other thing was that with such a long drive, a 3-night stay is not nearly enough time to unwind.  It seemed we'd just settled in and started to recover from the journey when it was time to pack up and head out again.  Next time I will add on a day or two to the reservation, or just bite the bullet and catch a flight. 

All in all though, it was a wonderful little trip. Our skeptics thought the babies and budget would prove our nemeses, but they couldn't have been more wrong! The babies were amazing and awesome to hang out with for a few days!  I honestly miss having them around, I love the smiles and snuggles.  And since I got our stay for free and we brought in most of the meals, the overall cost was super-ridiculous-low.  We missed our men something fierce, but that served as a nice reminder of why we keep them around :)  Still, if I had a chance at a re-do, I would go back and change some things. The thing about vacations is that as much as you look forward to them and expect perfection, sometimes all the pieces don't quite fit together.  But overall, it was a great getaway with great friends.