Over the Valentine's Day holiday weekend, Brant's parents came down for a visit that was filled with warm sunshine, new destinations, fun bonding and yummy food!
After a brief visit at our home just shortly after their arrival, we headed east. Our specific destination? The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. The tram is the largest rotating aerial tramway in the world. It's a 12 1/2 minute ride that takes you up, close to the top of San Jacinto Peak at 8,516 feet above sea level. One very cool thing is that the ride begins in the desert, and ends about 30 degrees cooler, in an alpine forest! The floor of the tram car rotates slowly, making two full rotations from start to finish on the line.
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| Here we are, taking the shuttle up from the parking lots to the base station. |
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| Maddie and Grandpa Dale, cuddling while we wait (for about an hour) for our turn up the tramway. It was well worth the wait and the kids really did quite well. It was 86 degrees down there, but we were soon to be greeted with temps in the mid-50's. |
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| Our view from below...it's difficult to even make out the destination at the top! |
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| The tram (and a random boy). |
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| More waiting, but almost there! |
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| I was desperate to keep these kids happy (we were eating lunch at the top, and were all quite hungry at this point). Making silly-selfies on the camera usually buys us some time! ;) |
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| On our way (and safe in Daddy's arms)! |
We made it to the top, enjoyed a nice lunch at the cafe, and then went to explore the views and the alpine forest trails.
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| Hello, Palm Springs! |
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| Checking out the steep view! |
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| My Valentine. |
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| Love birds. |
Exploring the alpine forest was filled with climbing boulders, walking the nature trail, slipping on snow patches and hearing our voices echo across the meadow. It was a haven for all!
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| Sticks and snow! |
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| Where there are things that ascend, he climbs them. |
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| This is how Brant feels, now that his dissertation has been written. |
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| Monkey see, Monkey do. |
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| The air was so clear and crisp! |
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| All 3 of my monkeys! |
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| A happy man, remembering the days when his kids were climbing up boulders...oh, wait. His kids are still climbing up boulders. |
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| When they discovered their walking sticks, things became a lot more fun (and incredibly slow). |
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| The meadow, as the sun was beginning to go behind the mountain peak. |
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| Happy trails, happy hikers. |
The following day was spent close to home, after our outing the day before. We enjoyed a picnic poolside, which was a treat for our Oregonian guests!
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| This girl never misses a chance to be in dress-up clothes! |
On their final day in town, we had the unique chance to connect with Brant's brother, Seth, who was down here on business, fairly close by. We enjoyed brunch together and a brief walk around the town of Redlands.
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| Such a rare coincidence that we are all in SoCal at the same time! |
We had another memorable, special weekend with Grandpa Dale and Grandma Marty! We are excited to see them again in a few months, along with the rest of our extended family members, as we gather to celebrate Brant's graduation!
One last photo...the following weekend, we were happy to get to spend the tail-end of Seth's birthday with him, as he spent the night at our house before beginning his journey back home to Washington. We made an obligatory stop at In n Out for his birthday dinner. :)
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| Happy Birthday, Uncle Seth! |
Having family in town is always so much fun!!
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