Palm Springs

After the Reedley Christmas Parade we headed down to Palm Springs for Dada's half ironman. We left around 9:15 and Clarita was out the second we hit the road. She managed to sleep the entire trip and woke up when we got there around 2:15 AM. Clara was super excited about the hotel (or casa as she called it) and had to sit on the beds and the couch. She went right to sleep and did not wake up until I got up around 8:30 the next morning. It was perfect!

And she's out

Sleeping like a baby...

Friday morning we headed out to Joshua Tree National Park for a little drive. I told Clara not to touch the cactus because they were spiny and would hurt her. She became obsessed with cactus after that. She pointed them out saying, "cactus, no touch, hurt" complete with the sign for hurt. This lasted the entire weekend and I think we saw a million different types of cactus! We didn't have a ton of time so we drove through a little of the park and made a couple of stops so Clarita could run around. She seemed to like it and fell right to sleep on the drive back.

Dada's favorite plant, el ocotillo

Cactus, no touch, hurt!

One of our best friends from Peace Corps, Elizabeth, is absolutely crazy and thinks that Palm Springs is the best place in the world. As a result she flew out from Tennessee to meet us there. She had not met Clarita yet and the two became instant friends! The three of us spent the afternoon together while Dada set up his equipment for the half ironman and went to some talks. It was great catching up with Elizabeth and watching her and Clara play! We had a late dinner after a super late short nap. We found out that waking Clarita up is like waking me up...not a good idea. It took her almost an hour to stop being cranky!

Saturday was the big event. Elizabeth had rented a car so she, Clarita, and I headed out a little later than Dada to catch the beginning of the race. We watched the swim and cheered Dada on (he was eighth out of the water). He lost his chip timer in the water and grabbed someone else's he saw floating around. Unfortunately this meant that we could not use the app to track him as planned since it said he was in the water the entire time.

Clara, Elizabeth, and I headed back to the hotel for breakfast and then walked around at the shops across the street. We headed back to the race around 11:30 and got to see Dada finish. He finished in 5 hours and 14 minutes which is much faster than his first half ironman. We were very proud of him! We let Clarita play on the playground (she insisted on going by herself to the tallest slide) before heading back to the hotel.

Yay Dada!

Elizabeth was insistent that date shakes are the best thing since sliced bread so we headed to a local date farm to check them out. They were pretty delicious, but super sugary. Clarita loved it, but was done after a handful of drinks. The poor little girl got up super early and was running on a half an hour nap. She fell asleep in the car on our way to a tamale festival and was so tired she didn't even wake up when I took her out of the car! We enjoyed the festival although we were too full to eat much. Clara eventually woke up and danced/ran around.

Yum, date shakes!

So tired...

We let her have a short nap while we hung out at the hotel and then went to dinner. Clara loved running around the giant Christmas tree at the shops across the street. She went down as soon as we got back and we spent the night reminiscing and playing games we used to play in Honduras!

Sunday we checked out a local Farmer's market and got some nitrogen ice cream (it's made with liquid nitrogen as the freezing agent) before heading out. Clara fell asleep as soon as we drove off and slept for about an hour and a half. She spent the rest of the drive happily playing in her car seat with a short stop at In 'N Out for dinner. She won't touch Dada's yucky meat burger but she loves Mama's grilled cheese! It was a packed weekend but we had so much fun with Elizabeth! We miss all of our friends from Peace Corps and it is always so wonderful to catch up and have them meet Clarita!