Sunshine & Palm Trees

You’d think with all the spare time on their hands, a community like Rancho Casa Blanca would have great internet access. But they don’t. I guess the folks here are too busy enjoying the ~75’F weather, playing golf & tennis, swimming, and just taking it easy.

We had a hectic trip down. What was supposed to be a direct flight from Portland to Orange County, with a 10 minute trip to the hotel, turned into another LAX nightmare! Yes, even though I swore in October I wouldn’t do LAX again, we didn’t have a choice this time. They cancelled our flight to OC, then sent us to LA. It took 1h55m to fly to LAX, then 2h30m to get from LAX to our hotel. The shuttles were overbooked, the loaned carseat (from Alaska Airlines) had a broken buckle, Jordan’s carseat didn’t fit in the shuttle van, there were other people to drop off on the way, well, you get the picture.

Anyway, on Wednesday morning Devon took off for work in his office, while Avery, Jordan, & I recovered from our hectic Tuesday night by sleeping for a couple more hours (yeah!). Then Grandpa Earl picked us up & brought us out here to the desert: Indio, California. Since arriving we’ve mostly tried to keep up with Avery. Put-put golf, swimming, & running around in shorts in the sun.

I only packed one pair of shorts, so while I was out doing a little shopping yesterday I decided to get another pair. Virtually impossible! Despite the gloriously summer weather, all the stores are full of winter clothes, including puffy snow-type jackets & boots. I had to repeat myself 3 times to every sales clerk, as they looked at me in astonishment. Shorts? Why would we have shorts? It’s the middle of winter. It was crazy. I finally found some on a clearance rack at the 3rd store I went to. At least they were cheap.

Jordan seems to have a pretty bad cold. I considered the ER last night, but she slept all night from 10:30pm to 7:00am, and is much better today, so I’m hoping we’re through the worst of it. Avery & I are planning to go to Disneyland tomorrow, so I hope Jordan’s well enough to leave with grandma & grandpa for the day. Despite all the mucous, they seem to be in heaven with their girls around.

Avery’s quotes of the trip (so far):
There sure are alotta people here, eh!
This is a fast one, eh!

You can take the girl out of Canada, but you can’t take the Canada out of the girl. I just hope she gets over the fact that we’re going to Disneyland, not Canada – which is where she says she really wants to go.