A walk around the Saguaro Hotel in Palm Springs

When Hannah invited Mabel and I to Palm Springs for a girls getaway, I started a board on Pinterest of things to do and see there.  While pinning I came across this photo and thought wow!  I mean rainbows and palm trees - what more could you want!?

So, when we stumbled upon this sign

while on our walk one evening I knew we had to go in to check it out.

Pronounced suh-warh-oh, and named after the cactus (like this one here), the Saguaro underwent a make-over in 2011.  Architects Peter Stamberg and Paul Aferiat, known for their bold use of colour drew from 14 vibrant tones found in native desert wildflowers.  You can read all about it here.

But for now, sit back and enjoy the colourful tour from my perspective.  As soon as you step in the door the colours just jump out at you.

 then, walking through the lobby and out into the courtyard the colours just kept coming.

we walked around the perimeter of the courtyard and every angle brought a new colour combination.

 Hannah was a good sport and indulged me the 3 billion photographs I took :)

 Here's what it looks like inside.   I imagine waking up here would instantly make you happy! {unless of course you are hungover, and then I think it might make you nauseous}

Hot hot hot!

Palm Springs has been so hot, but then what can you expect from the desert... luckily this has been our home for the last few days :)

not bad eh?  but now we're both very excited to go home :)  

Palm Springs

Mabel and I are heading out on a mini girls vacation today with Hannah to Palm Springs.  It's going to be an average of 40 (104F) degrees while we're there. Ooh la la!  But luckily there's a pool, that we'll be spending lots of time in :)

It'll be the longest time we've spent away from Bryce, but, it's only 4 days... Hopefully we'll all survive without each other :)

Hope you all have wonderful weekends!

photo

Monterey Aquarium

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything here, but I miss this blog.  I love looking back at stuff we've done, this was a place I have stored so many memories and stories.  So why stop now right?

This past weekend Bryce had a mountain bike race in Monterey, so we decided to make a weekend of it and hit up the Monterey Aquarium while we were down there.  We've lived in California now for almost 5 years and hadn't been.  Now that Mabel is almost 2 (can't believe that!) we figured it was time.

So, we set off in the campervan and headed south.

the way to travel :)

When we arrived this huge tank was the first thing we saw - we stood there for about 20 minutes, just watching it all go by...

 Mabel was amazed by all the fish

 and sharks

 she was most impressed with the huge whale on the ceiling though...

 crab!

 Found this little guy sticking out from behind a rock - ewwk eels!  but his underbite was pretty cute.

 the jellyfish display was very cool, and of course I took a bazillion pictures...

 Hammerhead shark

 Baby sea turtle

 My unexpected favourite though was the puffins.  They had so much charisma it was hard not to be impressed :)

 they were total show-offs too.

 I loved their cool hair do's

 

 the seahorses were amazing also

 Did you know it's the man who gives birth for seahorses?  I like it :)

This is the point where Mabel was done... and the naughty girl kicked in...

 who me?

 so we found a great little French restaurant called Bistro Moulin which was amazing!

 We headed to our campsite after dinner so this little crazy could go to bed... distraction mode fully activated here...

 On Sunday we got up early (way too early...) to get to Bryce's race.

While he raced his bike up and down crazy hills, we leisurely road our bike around on the flats

 I didn't get any shots of him racing as I wasn't about to ride my hefty bike with baby seat up those big hills... but 

here he is is after the race - in need of a nice cold drink!