The California-Arizona Christmas – Part I

Just got finished editing some of my photos from our trip over the holidays for my gratitude journal. You know, it’s hard enough sticking to one shot a day for the journal most of the time, but it’s impossible to do so when there is a trip involved! Luckily, I left the “Periodic Table”, “Map of Canada”, and “Contact Information” sheets at the back of the journal, so I now have a few pages for special photos. Here are a few of my faves from the trip. 😉

This is what I woke up to on our first day. 70F and sun at La Quinta Resort in Palm Springs.

The resort is divided into several segments, each with a pool and hot tub surrounded by various gorgeous accommodations.

It was all blue doors, whitewashed walls, Mexican ceramic tiles, terracotta roofs, cactus and palm trees, and pink bougainvillea. Ahh…

The resort was also quite beautifully decorated for the holidays, with tons of twinkle lights, ribbons…

… and several ornamented Christmas trees.

Yes. It was most magical. =)

While we were staying in Palm Springs, we ventured out to various “sights” nearby…

Like the Living Desert (for me, mostly)…

Like Boomers (for the Monkeyboys, mostly)…

And of course, like Legoland (for my husband, mostly I think, though he swears it was for our eldest) 😉 …

We also did a little bit of shopping, and found Monkeyboy Junior Jr. the cutest little dragon hoodie ever!

(Now he is even more ridiculously cute when he wears it with his dragon boots – double “rawr!”)

And even though it wasn’t a “white Christmas” per se, everything was still so festively decorated that it wasn’t hard to get caught up in the holiday spirit.

Aww…

After a few days in Palm Springs, it was time to head toward family visits in Arizona.

With only a few minor hiccups (or episodes of acid reflux, rather), the boys did amazingly well with the long desert drives.

Thanks to various hand-held video games (whatever did *we* do as kids when we went on roadtrips?!)

I especially loved driving at night – with either the sunset creating the most magnificent silhouettes, or the stars shining ever so brightly away from all of the city lights.

We spent the night mid-way in a quaint little place called Blythe…

… and then were on the road again!

Only to arrive at the in-laws trailer at the Mesa Regal RV park, which was also festively decorated – as we saw by golfcart later that night…