Dustin's Spring Comcert

Dustin had his spring concert and he did great. He was afraid he wouldn't do well because he miss so many classes due to our trip. They sounded awesome. The concert had all ages playing, (4th-12th grade) it was the best school concert I had been to. The high school chamber orchestra had just won 1 place in a competition against Washington, Oregon, California and Idaho. So we were listening to very talented kids.



Dustin has been asked to play in a concert for his school. He will be playing with the older students. So he has to learn harder songs...keeps him out of trouble.
I no longer need earplugs when he practices. Things just keep getting better and better.

That's all she wrote...
Diane

Happy 10th Birthday Dustin!!

Dustin is in double digits!!
I can't believe that Dustin is 10 years old already. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that he can home from the hospital.

I asked Dustin what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday and he said "Mom you're busy you don't need to make a cake". That's what I love about Dustin he is very thoughtful of other people. Well, because I had nothing better to do (ha ha) I decided to make him a sword cake, that should be easy..just a handle and a blade. After spending several hours I finally had a cake that I liked. You know me I have to put too much detail into a simple cake.
Dustin got a sword (reproduction) as a birthday present, this inspired us to redo Dustin's bedroom. I will put up pictures when it is finished. We are painting, remodeling furniture, and getting rid of 10 years worth of toys...maybe 8 years of toys most of the stuff in his room has not been played with for a long time. This has turned into a huge project.






I didn't want the boys fighting with real swords so I also got them play ones...Oh the battles that have been fought.

Lot's of fun.








That's all she wrote..
Diane

Fun in the sun day 5,6 and 7

Palm Springs....

Mom and Dad wanted us to experience the tram ride up Mt. San Jacinto from the Coachella Valley. It is a 2.5 mile ride up some very rugged cliffs. The cars rotate so you get a 360 degree view all the way.









It was a very beautiful ride. The tram was built in 1963 the main reason was to get people out of the heat in the desert and to colder air in the mountains, were they could enjoy hiking etc...






It was very interesting you leave the valley were it was in the high 70's and desert, mostly sand, rock and a few cactus. As you road up, the plant life changed, more bushes and grass. Then at the top you are in a alpine forest and snow. At the top the elevation is 8515 feet.










Looking down at Palm Springs.











The next day Dave and kids wanted to spend the day at the pool. The condo has a beautiful pool or pools. They have water slides, two hot tubs, one under a waterfall, a in pool volleyball area, a lovely place to just relax.






Dad, Mom and me decided to go exploring, we noticed that the Indian Canyons were about 2 miles from the condo. so went to check them out. We were sure glad we did.

>Indian Canyon is really a group of 5 canyons in the Santa Rosa Mountains. It is located in the Auga Caliente Indian Reservation. Andreas Canyon first, if you decided to go on this hike take the path on the right, with it's 150 species of plants and native Washingtonia Palm trees it is breathtaking. You hike along a creek, there are so many plants you feel like you are in a jungle. As you walk along you can see the mortars in the rock were the Indian women ground the corn. I would recommend this short hike to anyone who likes to take pictures, watch birds and lizards. It is only about a mile but took us a over an hour as we couldn't stop taking pictures.

These are the mortars where the corn was ground.



























Then we drove up to the trading post and had our lunch. They had hummingbird feeders hanging out by the Info desk, I never seen so many hummer eating at the same time in my life.



A view across the desert.




Palm Canyon


We then took the Palm Canyon hike this is a 14 mile hike....we only went a couple miles then can back. As person could send a couple days just hiking up here. It is so different that the we take through the Pacific Northwest forest.. Palm trees instead of cedars, I really felt like I was hiking in some jungle in South America. Enjoy the Photo's




Some of these Palms date back hundreds of years. The ones that look black are burnt . They are fire resistant so if the tops don't get burnt off they will continue to live. The last fire here was in 1980. This is looking up the Palms.



It's amazing that a place so pretty is tucked away the these mountains.

Now it is time for us to fly back home. Back to reality. That all she wrote.. Diane

Fun in the sun day 4

Day 4..we were sad because Donna and Jim needed to go home. After taking them to the airport in the morning, we came back to the hotel and had a little bible study. Packed up our stuff and left our wonderful hotel. One nice thing about our hotel is they had 1:00 check out so we didn't have to hurry to fast. It had rain over night and the snails came out to eat the flowers.. they were everywhere! See how many you can find in this photo.



All I know if these were my flowers I would be having a fit....where is the slug bait...I wouldn't be taking pictures that's for sure!!



Dustin is really into Knights and anything to do with sword fighting. So for his Birthday we took him to Medieval Times . He was so excited..we couldn't of found anything he would of liked more. We all had a really great time... It was a Medieval play that included real horses, medieval weapons, sword fighting, jousting. And lets not forget dinner...a little different eating with your hands. Deanna had saved a plastic fork to take with her but some how it didn't make it there...wonder how that happened. I think everyone felt it was well worth the cost.
The knights...we cheered for the Black and White Knight...he won a couple of battles but ended up dead in the end..so sad:[






Sir Dustin and Lady Fern and Sir B.O.B.










After the show we drove to Palm Springs for the rest of our vacation. They had a bad wind storm during the afternoon. We saw downed palm trees, lots of palm fronds on the ground. The power had been out so the condo had some problems with having rooms ready....It took along time to get checked in. By 9:30 we had gone grocery shopping and came back and made pizza for dinner so all ended well. It was amazing the town of Palm Springs had the mess from the storm all cleaned up by the next morning. Everything looked fresh and clean.

That all she wrote...
Diane

Fun in the sun .....day 3

Day 3 brought to you by the flowers of Disneyland. When we started out Saturday morning I told Deanna our photo theme for the day was the flowers of Disneyland. It is fun to have a theme, it makes you notice things in a different way. Here are some of the pictures Deanna took. She did a awesome job.















She is getting the hang of her new camera.....


These were the flowers in Fantasy Land.


















What a life for a sparrow living at Disneyland. Never a shortage of people to feed you.


The rest of the family gave up on Disneyland at about 1:30 we went back to the hotel. I think the pool had more of a draw then the lines at the park. After lunch Deanna and I went back and continued our photo search. The next picture shows the crowd. You can see why they were happier to stay and relax by the pool. But we had a good time in spite of all the people.




The next few pictures are my interpetation of the flowers at Disneyland.















It was so nice to see flowers....
instead of dead brown frozen
flowers, like we have at home.



We found a Mexican Restaurant and had dinner there. And yes, you can find places that aren't crowed, we enjoyed a great meal in a beautiful spot.


This was the view
we had from the
restaurant.





After dinner, we rode Splash Mountain again, only this time we put on our rain gear so we would be splash proof.. It worked pretty well....the first ride went well, so we decided to go again. The second time was going great, we splashed down the big drop then our log stopped...we waited and waited then a voice came over the load speaker and said"keep your arms and feet in the log at all times...a cast member will be with you shortly" We heard this repeated about 20 times...30 minutes later a cast member came and helped us get out of our log, which was very tricky as we had about 2 foot jump from a tipsy log over the water. We had to wait there, in the ride, while they evacuated the other logs for another 30 minutes. Then we walked through the rest of the ride . It was really weird being "in" the ride, walking next to the animated animals. Deanna thinks they are really creepy when you are in the log so found it very disturbing walking next to them. We asked why the ride stopped and had to evacuated and all he would say was "Oh, did you get wet on the ride." We still don't know what happened.
But it was a experience. Not sure bad or good..well interesting.

That's all she wrote..
Diane