We are having a great time in Palm Springs.  We are staying at the Palm Canyon Resort.  They have a really great pool with a super fast waterslide and a kiddie waterslide.  The rooms very big.  We have a mountain-side room and our balcony opens up into a great view. 

Poppa and YaYa down the hall with their friends the Milehams.  They had a bit of trouble with their original room (2 bdrm, but only 1 bath).  Yaya was originally told that she had to call an 800# to get the room changed, and this turned out to be difficult.  The resort staff onsite was great and they were able to change rooms, no problems.

Part of the difficulty for YaYa was that the cell phone call kept dropping.  The cell coverage in the rooms is spotty, and the internet access is not free. 

Part of what Toby *really* looks forward to on vacation is to be able to sleep in.  So my job is to keep the kids quiet in the mornings.  Our routine is to eat breakfast and then head down to the pool when it opens at 8a.  We spend an hour+ at the pool while mom gets to gradually wake up.

Roly likes spaghetti

Easter service for Reality was at SBCC’s La Playa Stadium again.  It was a great event attended by all 3 central coast campuses of Reality.  There were about 9,000 people in attendance.  2 of our 3 students attended with us, and Lizer (Venezuela) brought 3 friends. Toby signed again for the band. She is the left most choir member (with the stand) in the pic below.  There are lots of other pics at the Reality website http://www.realitysb.com/easter-2012/

After the service there was a funzone with taco stands, bounce houses, snow cones and cotton candy.  Lucy and Olivia (Korea) enjoyed the cotton candy.

Then there was the traditional lunch / dinner / Egg hunt at Granma Seal’s house.  This was the first one that Roly could hunt for eggs, and he was very interested in the first egg he found.  Not so much in any of the other ones that had been placed low for him to find.

Roly liked riding on the antique dolly.

I had to make a one day trip to Dallas, TX.  There had been major tornadoes and hailstorms the day before which were affecting flights to DFW.  This was the front page of USA Today at the hotel I stayed at.

While I was gone, Poppa came to Carpinteria and stayed over.  According to reports, he made a great breakfast, and I got to have some of his excellent tamales when I returned.  While he was with the family, he created a little garden in our back yard.

I don’t know why anyone would throw away 2 perfectly good children?

For my 39th birthday I received a pair of unwanted presents.  First was a pair of glasses to see at a distance (even though I had laser eye surgery back in 1996) and the second was some pre-cancer spots frozen off of my face and head.  Ugh.

However, I also had a wonderful dinner from my Mom and contributions from many family members towards the purchase of a sea kayak.  After a few weeks of looking on Craig’s List, I found the one I purchased at Costco.  I love the Costco seasonal items.

When I brought it home, I had a few hours of daylight left, so I tried to get Max or Lucy to go with me.  They would have nothing to do with it.  So I asked Marie (a student of ours from France) to go with me.  She was very enthusiastic.  She especially liked the part when we tipped over coming back into the beach.  She told me that if I ever wanted someone to kayak with again, “I am your man!”