The Ides of March

I had my decade birthday in February and this month it was Hanna's turn for her decade birthday.  For the past couple of months we have been gearing-up to spend the weekend at the Mojave Desert with friends.  As we got closer to the trip, the morning sickness and general nausea seemed to be getting worse, so we unfortunately had to call the trip off just three days prior to our scheduled departure.  200 miles of offroading, tent camping and several days away without any services just wasn't going to work.  We both really wanted to go to the desert and celebrate Hanna's birthday, so I booked a very last-minute trip for us to Palm Springs.  We stayed two nights at the Westin Mission Hills Golf Resort and Spa in Rancho Mirage, and one night at the Aqua Soleil in Palm Desert (which was only because we couldn't get that first night at the Mission Hills Resort). 

We drove down Thursday morning and arrived in Palm Desert late afternoon, checked into our hotel, then headed to a local Thai restaurant for dinner.  We spent most of the evening relaxing by the pool and spa.  The following morning we had breakfast at the Aqua Soleil's restaurant and drove to the edge of town to hike on the bluffs on the Bump 'n Grind trail.  It was hot, with the temperatures in the mid to high-80s, which didn't help with Hanna's nausea.  We turned back, now setting our sites on relaxing by the pool at the Westin Resort.  And speaking of pools, Palm Springs seems like such an unsustainable place to me--from our vantage on the hike we could see Palm Spring's thousands of acres of the greenest, lushest grass with nearly every home containing a swimming pool in the backyard, and yet, outside of the developed area it is nothing but dry desert sand.  With the extremely dry year we've had so far this season, the northern California reservoirs are critically low, with mandatory water conservation in most areas of Sacramento.  Meanwhile, Pyramid Reservoir near L.A. was brimming (98% full, to be exact), the miles of golf courses were irrigated every night and we literally saw not one sign encouraging water conservation of any type in Palm Springs.  Seems crazy, but whatever.

We loved the pool so much that we found ourselves ordering food pool-side to be delivered to our cabana; not even the high prices were enough to get us to leave our spot.  The Westin is beautiful--the grounds are surrounded by water features, rock ledges, waterfalls and lush landscaping.  We had a really nice dinner at the resort's Pinzimini Italian restaurant on Hanna's birthday.  Overall, the trip was really relaxing.  

Westin main entrance

The resort pool

The golf course in the middle of the desert, next to the resort.

House-wise, a couple of minor projects this month.  The neighbor behind me split the cost of a new backyard fence with me.  We hired a guy that did Hanna's parent's fence, using steel posts and redwood fence boards.  The new steel fence posts are square with a flange on each side, so a fence builder can box the metal post in wood to conceal it. 

My friend Stuart helped me one afternoon install a 240V outlet in my garage for charging the Nissan Leaf electric car.  It drops the charge time from 17 hours to 3 hours.  

Finally, Hanna and I got in a day on the slopes while there's still snow.  The ski season has been terrible this year due to the drought.  We skiied at Diamond Peak on the Nevada side of Tahoe.  Views of Lake Tahoe are excellent and it's always fun to ski a new resort.

We have a bathroom remodel that starts this week...more on that later.

New future addition to the family

We have some exciting news to share; Hanna is 13 weeks pregnant!  The new world of parenting should bring us a lot of fun and exciting new challenges in our lives.  Due date is September 18.