Palms, People, Paradise

My family has been travelling to Palm Springs since I was a little girl and I used to have a love/hate relationship with it. Now I absolutely love it and have learned to relax and just enjoy 'being' while on holidays.


Brooke told me she wanted to go away and my mom was already in Palm Springs, so I decided it would be fun to join her there and check out Disneyland at the end of the trip (since I am becoming quite the expert).


I love love love the palm trees. Contrasted with blue skies. Watching it transports me to some marvelous paradise, just knowing it will be wonderful and warm outside and that all is well.


The place we stayed had a bunch of different pools so it was fun to check out different ones each day. Read 6 books as well which is always a bonus. Good to get a dent in the book reading. :)


I actually didn't take any pictures during our week there. Well, except for the ones posted here. But they were all taken in a ten minute span and then ten more minutes at the night market one night.


We stocked up on fresh fruit and veggies from the market and feasted to our heart's content. On Valentine's, we even made our own gourmet dinner (we figured the restaurants would be way too busy).

In the mornings and evenings, we enjoyed some intermittent wogging.

All in all, it was a wonderful balanced holiday. Good time to relax, get some good swimming in, go out to some of my fave restaurants down there and just take in the beauty of the mountains and palm trees and greenness that are present in the middle of the desert. Oh, and the shopping as well.


Not a huge shopper, but we went to the outlets and I got some killer deals on a snowjacket, snowpants and a rainjacket from Columbia. 80 bucks all together. Always nice when you can get an originally priced snowjacket (210 dollars) for 30 bucks. So now I feel a little more prepared for winters in Quebec!


And of course, my mom and i had to have an awesome photo shoot. Because she's awesome and so am I. And that makes our photos awesome.


And no visit with brooke is complete without her stealing my camera and taking self-portraits. :)


One night we also went over to my friend Kristen's place. We went to uni together and she's doing her masters in Cali. It was so wonderful to see her again and to connect. She made us a super tasty dinner and we watched the Canucks win. Wooh!


And Palm Springs wouldn't be Palm Springs without the markets. Usually you always see someone you know from back home (saw a few people we knew and had dinner with a couple of them!) I love walking around and looking at all the crazy homemade stuff that's pretty creative. And seeing all the older women whose skin is the darkest shade of brown amongst the wrinkles from far too much sun exposure.





All in all, it was a fantastic trip and just fun to hang out together. Oh and my mom and I got obsessed with Yahtzee and probably played at least 100 games... Probably won't have the chance to go to Palm Springs again soon, but I definitely enjoyed the visit this time around!


Next stop: Disneyland!