I'd rather stay in AZ...

Did I mention that Jackson voluntarily booked a nice hotel for us? Oh. I did. Oh well. It was worth repeating. ;) The hotel was so quiet and the bed was so comfy. I wish every hotel was a J.W. Marriott! 

Our morning view. Yep. God is GOOD.

The walk to the parking lot was even gorgeous

I think maybe Jackson booked this nice place because he knew he was making me climb a mountain while we were in town and sometimes those situations get sticky. We got up early, grabbed coffees at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Cafe (my new favorite- shh...don't tell Starbucks!) and headed to Camelback Mountain to try to summit it again. Last time we turned around as we weren't in shape enough to finish.

Camelback sits in the distance...

WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE DID IT!

The trail we climbed last time was closed so we had to take the rockier one. The word "trail" implies dirt and a forged path. It shouldn't in this case. We basically climbed rocks up the side of a mountain. Because, you know, that's safe.

The view was sure sweet

When you climb you're so focused and excited to accomplish your goal (reaching the top) that you tend to forget that you still have to get down. Getting down from a mountain is sometimes harder than going up. There may have been a tiny (OK, medium-sized) meltdown when we got to the top and I realized that going in reverse was going to be hard and scary. A girl climbing down in front of me actually fell and skidded down the mountain for a bit. She was pretty busted up. Poor thing. I was then even more on edge and the meltdown may or may not have continued. (God bless Jackson. Maybe one day he will learn to just leave me alone when I'm melting down, but after seven years I still have to remind him to get away from me when I'm mid-tantrum from a panic attack. It isn't easy being afraid of heights and having such a sense of adventure, guys.)

Best. Reward. EVER.

Alas, we made it down. All in one piece. We were even still married. Miracles do happen! One of my favorite things about Phoenix is their restaurant selection. They have seriously EVERYTHING. A personal favorite? Tropical Smoothie. YUM! A jetty punch smoothie and king Caesar wrap...nothing better! :) After lunch we hurried back to the hotel to shower and pack before our 2 p.m. extended checkout deadline.

We had less than an hour to make all of this crap fit back into three bags

We had a packing sprint marathon. We finished at 1:59. Amazing. The hotel was kind enough to give us resort keys so that we could still enjoy the property for the rest of the day even though we didn't have a room anymore. I told you I loved the folks at the JW Marriott.

The view from my lounge chair. Obsessed. 

We spent hours at the pool, in the hot tub, enjoying the lazy river (so fun!) and pretending we didn't have to go home that evening. We took a final walk around the resort before heading downtown to get our second Hard Rock Cafe pin of the trip (hooray! Palm Springs and Phoenix- check!!) for my mom's collection. We grabbed some dinner and killed time at a Starbucks before heading to their airport about THREE hours EARLY. That fact is important.

We finally got on our flight and headed for Indianapolis. I slept. Jackson acted as a headrest for me and the large lady next to him. Poor thing. We landed and all was well until we waited and waited and waited for my checked bag to arrive. It didn't. Yep. We paid $25 and arrived THREE HOURS EARLY for our flight and my luggage didn't make the flight. You better believe we got our $25 back.

Where is my bag?! NOT THERE!

Thankfully, my bag was located (something they were not sure about at first since it was not even in the system somehow!) and delivered to our house that evening. Let's talk about how flying would be cheaper if situations like this were avoided. I cannot imagine what it costs the airlines to have courier services like that.

Still cute...just tired.

I made Jackson stop for a "real breakfast" at Cracker Barrel after our redeye. Am I not a catch folks?! I wanted hibernation food! :) We stopped by Susie's and grabbed MacKenzie before finally heading home. 

Finally someone who appreciates unpacking

She enjoys laying on the bed when I unpack. It is really helpful. ;)

New cookie sheets!!

The thing I missed the most this Christmas was baked goods. This should be no surprise based on my body shape. :) I also got new pans for Christmas and wanted to try them out so after our nap we had Christmas rewind complete with leftover noodles (yum!), Lina cookies and homemade hot cocoa. It was wonderful! 

I HATE snow.

It was nice to snuggle in our own bed and have our puppy back. What wasn't nice? Waking up Monday morning to snow and ice. Sweet. I missed it. Not. 

What are friends for?

I made it to work safely only to get taunted via text by Shannon. Punk. :)

It was a wonderful trip and I'm so glad we went. I cannot wait to go to Florida now and experience some warmth again! 

Another day in paradise...

Stop what you're doing and book a trip to Palm Springs. You won't regret it.

We woke up to our amazing view and just basked in it for a bit. Then we got hungry so we headed to the city's top rated breakfast place: Elmer's.

How cute is this place? It reminds me of the Brady Bunch!

The view from the restaurant was just so ugly. We could hardly make ourselves go in. ;)
Go in we did. Jackson got a German pancake that looked a little gross to me. He loved it. I had an excellent omelet. The reviews didn't lead us astray! I love when that happens. 

After breakfast I just had to find the Hotel California. I did some Wikipedia research and found that this hotel isn't the one from the song. The song wasn't even about a real hotel! What a letdown. Two interesting notes: 1. Hotel California was the #1 song the week Jackson was born (yep. 1977. Gulp.) and 2. it was written about Los Angeles' dark side not any particular place. I found this fascinating. Regardless, the Hotel California location in Palm Springs was gorgeous. 

We drove by Frank Sinatra's former home, too. I'd recently read about Frank's affinity in Palm Springs in a book about JFK. Seemingly the two of them were friends and Frank would host JFK when he was in town.

The sign outside of the visitor's center had a lovely backdrop.

Teslas are all the rage in California. They're Americanmade and completely electric. They also are high performance going from 0 to 60 in 4.2 seconds.  And they run a mere $113,770 and have only a 265 mile range per charge.

We departed from Palm Springs to make the long drive to Phoenix. Before we left we stopped for coffee at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf cafe in downtown and got lattes behind Stephen Spielberg. Yep. He's got a home there. He's smart. 

Not smart? Drinking lattes and whole bottles of water before driving through the desert. We had to stop twice to potty! Bathrooms weren't easy to come by so it was quite the adventure finding places to relieve ourselves. Let's just say men have it a lot easier. 

We made to Phoenix just in time to catch the sunset at Hole in the Rock. An aptly named rock formation near the zoo. 

The sunset did not disappoint. We love the stark contrast of the desert and the mountains.
We snapped a quick photo of ourselves IN the mountain. It was so neat! The rocks held in the heat of the day and acted like a warmer on the increasingly chilly evening. 
I, of course, dared Jackson to climb this rock. He obliged. 

But he wasn't convinced and actually for scared. I had to document that. We finished exploring and headed for our resort on the other side of town. 

Jackson actually voluntarily booked a nice hotel for us. Ha! ;) Normally he accidentally lands us in a nice spot. We were surprised to see that Jackson's favorite steakhouse from our time in Denver, The Keg, had a location about a mile from the hotel. Score. Fancy dinner it is. 

Jackson got to have his favorite steak, wine and we shared a dessert. It was a nice day despite the long drive and desert urination adventures! :)

Jax's drums

Make sure you listen for the shoutout early in the video:

Jax on the drums




We love how he just walks away at the end like a true rocker. He's got some rhythm! :)

Palm Springs

We grabbed a quick (free!) breakfast at the hotel in LA before heading out to Palm Springs. The traffic between the two was not fun at all. A two hour drive took us closer to three hours. Boo Hoo.

We booked our Palm Springs hotel at the last minute with our credit reward points so we didn't know what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised when our hotel was actually pretty awesome.

We had another balcony with an excellent view. Palm Springs is a gorgeous place.
The mountains and palm trees were just awesome!
We wanted a good hike so we headed to an Indian reservation's nature trail called Indian Canyons. It was a rattlesnake habitat. I was scared. Jackson mocked me. Typical. 

These little huts were in the bottom of the canyon. Don't they look inviting? Once I checked them for snakes I had to crawl in. 

You're telling me you wouldn't have? Whatever.
I kept telling Jackson they looked like hula skirts and tried to be tall enough to illustrate my point. It didn't work.
THERE we go! Thanks, babe. ;)
We both climbed in one and pretended to be survivors on a deserted island for a moment. Again, that's normal. Right?
I thought this bent tree was awesome so I did a backbend under it. This photo has garnered a lot of response on social media and I'm not sure why. Can't we all do backbends? 

We did the most strenuous hike and when we reached the summit Jackson wanted to scale the rocks. He's half monkey.
Jackson on top of the world. Really. We were pretty high up there.
He then sat down to find his zen. I love when he does that. He's such a nerd. :)
I climbed up, too. Jackson was so proud. 

God sure created a magnificently beautiful planet! 

We hiked back down to the canyon floor

and explored the dried up riverbed. This is an unkept palm tree. Cool, huh? 

These trees has been trimmed but they were still cool.
The park's entrance had a very tight squeeze at one point. It was kind of crazy!
I thought it was so pretty that I got out and snapped a photo. :)

The sun goes down pretty early out here so we only got to hike around for a few hours before nightfall. We got cleaned up (it was super dusty out there!) and headed into town to get dinner. We ate outside (love it!) at one of the best Mexican restaurants ever before discovering that each Thursday the city has a street vendor fair. Score. We walked around, bought a few gifts and drank a fresh squeezed lemonade. Life was good! We enjoyed the evening and then headed back to the hotel to go to bed by 10:30. This time change thing just hasn't stuck yet! 

Christmas in L.A.

We woke up a little late on Christmas morning and sleepily walked out to our balcony and caught this incredible view.
I love city views with mountains in the background. If LA had a 70% population reduction I would consider moving there. Since that won't happen it isn't on my list. No fear, mothers.

Our hotel comped us breakfast. I say it was due to our TripAdvisor status. I have no proof of that. Anyway, I'll take a $28 breakfast buffet for free and ask no questions everyday of the week.
Jackson was happy with the offerings and looked very handsome sitting across the table from me. :)
These blackberries were phenomenal and I ate more than my fair share. I also tried lox and hated it. HATED IT. So gross. They had miso soup and rice out for the Asian guests so I tried that, too. It was pretty good but was an oddity at breakfast for me.
We headed outside and hacked into the lobby's free wifi to FaceTime with MacKenzie. I mean Susie and Kathy. ;) ha! They all had a nice Christmas and MacK was a pretty girl! Isn't the hotel pretty?

We spent some exploring it once we'd talked to MacKenzie. The views from the 17th floor were awesome.
They offered yoga on the helipad a few days a week but not the days we were there. Lame! 

We watched a television special on Candy Spelling moving into a penthouse apartment and were shocked that we are in its shadow at our hotel. She didn't seem to be home. If she was, she didn't wave.

The top two floors of the white building is her place. Poverty is so sad. 

We decided to spend the rest of the morning at the pool as it was 82 degrees and sunny. Loved it. 

Wonderful weather does not make Christmas feel less like Christmas to me. It is my favorite kind of Christmas. 

We walked to an outdoor mall in the afternoon in hopes of finding good food. We didn't. Finding good on Christmas day is always a battle. The movie "Lone Survivor" was released early to select LA and NYC theaters so we booked tickets online and even selected our seats in the theatre (how cool!) in Hollywood. We got there and found an open McDonald's. Merry Christmas to me! ;) We ate quickly and then settled into the theatre to catch the flick. About 5 minutes into the previews the fire alarm started going off. No one moved. It was hard to tell that it wasn't a part of the movie being previewed. Once I realized that it was an alarm and no one was moving I became seized by panic. (Note: I was already a little nervous about seeing a war movie on Christmas Day in Los Angeles. It just seemed like too good of a place for an act of violence to take place and make big news. That theatre shooting in Aurora, CO really scared me.) I started to get up and leave when Jackson pulled me back and said I was safer in my seat than being the first person to escape the theatre. I sat for a second and still NO ONE moved. I felt like the world was in slow motion. So I did what any rational person would do and climbed over the back of my seat and tried to use a handicapped entrance to escape. The handicapped entrance's elevator was broken and we were trapped. Again. At this point a teenage kid stormed into the elevator area and scared the crap of out of me. I'm shocked that I didn't hit him out of sheer terror. Turns out he was just as scared and wanted out, too. We got back into the theatre and heard someone say "false alarm! False alarm!" but I didn't believe them. I wanted out. Now. So I headed to the dimly lit stairs and made my way out. Still NO ONE was moving. The teenage boy, Jackson and I were the only ones heeding the alarm. What the heck, people? As we were exiting the theatre an employee came in and said to evacuate and the place went nuts. Except instead of orderly evacuating people pulled out their smartphones to record the event. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?! Jackson thinks people were orderly. I didn't. I wanted them to move and put down their phones. (Can you tell which one of us listened to many, many 9/11 books and now knows the always heed alarms?) We made it outside with about 4,000 of our closest friends. Thank God, there was not actually a fire or any kind of act of violence. Seemingly just some burnt popcorn. The theatre got the all clear and offered refunds or free passes or both (they handled it pretty well!) so we just got a refund and headed out. My nerves couldn't take going back in. Poor Jackson. I know. He has to deal with my irrational fears. He takes it like a champ. 

Being Christmas Day and all we thought heading to Chinatown would be a good idea as Chinese restaurants are typically open on the holiday. LA's Chinatown was a bust. NYC, London and San Francisco all have awesome ones. LA's was just ghetto and scary. We didn't even stop. We turned around and headed for the Los Angles County Museum of Art to see an exhibit we had seen in movies.  

Urban Light is the name of the piece. It was so cool!
Daylight vs. Nighttime. (That photo isn't mine.)

Once we'd seen the art we were ready for actual food. It'd been a crazy night. We headed back to Beverly Hills and found an Italian restaurant, Il Fornaio, was open. Score!!! 

I had a salad and Jackson had a pizza. Both were much better than McDonald's. ;) We walked around Rodeo Drive for a bit before heading back to the hotel. What a day! We stopped in at the hot tub and enjoyed the views before retiring for the night. What a wild Christmas it was!  We wouldn't have it any other way!!