We took a road trip out to Palm Springs this past Friday. Bug and I needed some adventure and my mom and my nieces needed a day off from school. Well, my mom isn’t in school but she needed some time off from her full time job of playing Farmville all day. I swear she needs an intervention with that game.

Our first stop was the Cabazon Dinosaurs. I’d never been before so this was a real treat for me. However the wind that almost whipped my head off was not a real treat. I guess a mighty wind is better to deal with than 120 degrees of heat though.

The girls climbed around on the dinosaur claws and then we went inside the giftstore/museum to pet some freaky robot dinosaurs that growled and snarled at us. If the management wanted to, they could really make that tour scary. Add some mood lighting and haunted music and I’d be scared right out of my skin. Thankfully, it’s mostly geared to education with some gospel preaching on the side.

I really like how this museum tour is interactive with dinosaur bones to dig and colored rocks to sluice. The kids had a blast. I think it was worth the five dollar admission even with the wind that tied our hair up in knots.

I think the funnest part is staging crazy photos where the dinosaurs look real. Run Little Bug! Run!

Spring in the desert is always beautiful.

Of course we had to climb up inside the giant t-rex and sit in his mouth for a while. That was pretty fun.

By the time we were done with the dinosaurs we were famished so we drove into town and found a nice spot for a picnic.

Nothing like a yummy avocado sandwich! Except I put sprouts on my sandwich (no one else did) and I came down with food poisoning the next day. So even though this picnic was delightful I’m not remembering it that fondly now that I’ve lost ten pounds violently. But hey I fit my skinny jeans now!

The weather in Palm Springs was beautiful. I’m sure it’s because they have that great big mountain to block all the wind. When we were on the other side of the mountain we were cold and wind blown but as soon as we turned the corner into town there were people all over walking around in shorts and tank tops. Funny how that works.

But that wasn’t the end of our road trip. We had to stop by my favorite favorite thrift store on the way out of town. I had some baby-sitting money burning in my pocket and we had a lot of fun spending it on silly hats and vintage clothes.

Then I went home and got really really sick! I guess things have to balance out and we had too much fun or something. The good news is I’m all better! Phew!

Bug and I just got back from a bible conference that we try to attend every year. It’s something I did with my parents when I was a kid and now I’m finding myself doing as a parent. It’s a very strange journey I’ve been on to get there. I could go into a lot of back story (and I have in the past in ways I’m not proud of so I won’t be linking) but I don’t really want to dwell on that. Just know that this is a something of a struggle for me. I was very happy to be there though.

I did take notes during the meetings too. No, I was not sketching during meeting! I tried very hard NOT to doodle and to listen instead. I’m glad I opened my ears up, even if my heart was wrapped up in protective duct tape. Because my ears heard a lot of things that my heart needed.

So, what I’m trying to say is what you see here in these illos is everything BUT what the conference was about. Not that I’m trying to keep what conference was about secret. I’m not. I have notes. I will share! I just don’t know if I should share here. I know that Christians should expect to be hated for their faith and I should embrace that but I’m scared. Plus, I don’t think preaching from a blog is exactly the best way to help others, even if it’s just scrawled notes from a moleskin. So I’m keeping it private but if you want to know more email me.

In other notes: I did not know that so many meeting people read my blog. It’s a bit unnerving! I feel like I should clean up my language (even though I hardly cuss) and talk a bit less about drinking alcohol (even though I rarely drink) but I guess if you read this blog it’s a bit late for me to go around cleaning things up now. Besides I’m already trying really hard not to be snarky and hurt people’s feelings so if I get any more wholesome I might just write myself out of existence.

What else…. hmmm. How about some photos?

This is Bug asleep on our way to the conference. It was a two hour drive to Burbank (I think. I didn’t time it) and she just couldn’t stay awake. Which is fine except her hair got mussed up a bit. I tried to do her hair everyday (unlike at home where I let her be a raggamuffin everyday) but her hair is so fine it just slips right out of whatever hair-do I’ve done it in and flies away of it’s own accord. Sort of like our human nature. Anyway!

This is my Dad, knitting. He’s a such a sweet old man now. I love how he is aging. I hope I age like him. You know he’s a trucker right? A knitting trucker!!! Ha ha! We all love that about him. He’s working on slippers and trying to perfect the toe that has some problems. If you bought some slippers from him and you have toe-poking-out problems, please contact my Mom so my Dad can fix them! (He doesn’t have internet in his truck yet.)

Here is Bug eating McDonald’s. She wasn’t a fan of conference food. She did like the deserts but unfortunately I have a no-desert policy if you don’t eat your dinner so it was a bit of a struggle for both of us. I thought the food was fine. She starved. And then one day I broke down and walked across the street so she could have a happy meal.

This is me sketching. I love the pictures Bug takes of me. Even if they do capture my bad posture. They give me a glimpse of what I really look like and now I know exactly what my back will look like when I’m 60. I really should straighten up.

I really do dress like this. I don’t care what you think, obviously.

I dress my kid like that too! Actually the only way I got her to wear this cute red dress instead of the thin t-shirt weight pink one that is covered with hearts was to bribe her with matching-mommy tights. Phew! That was a close one. I don’t even know why I packed that silly pink heart dress. I’m so sick of it.

Here is my niece, Rapunzel, the day after conference. We walked to Starbucks together just her and I. Bug stayed with Grandma and bounced on the bed with her cousin SuperChic. Rapunzel is growing up so fast. I just want to squeeze her before the little girl in her is all gone. But she sort of looks little here. Maybe it’s the angle. She is ONLY eleven after all.

Little enough to join in the bouncing when we got back to my mom’s hotel room. What’s the fun in staying in a hotel room if you can’t jump on the bed a little, right?

They bounced themselves silly and then they plopped down and were quiet for one whole minute.

Since we’re going through the pictures one by one, I might as well ramble about this one. That picture on the bottom scared me sooo bad. You don’t see a face there on the right do you? Let me explain.

Bug and I had our own room and I slept fitfully because we happened to be on the same floor as a band from Guatemala who were performing in the Rose Parade. They were great kids except for the fact that the guy next door to us didn’t have a key and had to pound on the door every hour all night long. I’m not even kidding. I guess his buddies slept soundly because they never opened the door right away. What he was doing up all night, I have no idea.

Anyway it’s a good thing the meetings were about how the world will persecute us and how we should be thankful for the good things and the bad things because I think I would have gone out there in my pajamas and given those tuba-playing band members a piece of my mind if I hadn’t have recently decided to take up praying more often. So I prayed and I prayed and only broke down and called security twice. Which did nothing, really.

Later on that night I had a terrible nightmare all about werewolves and vampires and friends who turned into red-eyeballed clawed creatures. I woke up in a sweat and right there on the wall was this creepy photo of a theatre staring back at me. Except instead of buildings and palm trees all I could see was a masked man wearing a fedora and a dead body where the street lights hit the road. I stared at it and stared at it and the face would not go away. In fact the face was so strong I didn’t know why I didn’t see it in the day time. It even seemed like the masked guy was smiling at me with a wicked grin. It creeped me out so bad I almost called my Dad on the phone to come over and sit with me until the nightmare would shake itself free from me.

God works in mysterious ways because just then as I sat in my bed shaking with fear over some silly picture on the wall, the guy in the band next door started to bang again. I have never been so thankful for stupid high school kids who like to stay awake at three in the morning. I don’t know if they were on drugs and I should be thankful for that but their banging comforted me. They didn’t speak English but just knowing that they were there and I could scream out if the masked man in the picture suddenly came to life comforted me.

So that’s my story. Let’s just say I was very glad to wake up one last time and see that the sun was finally up. I stared at that photo in the light and I couldn’t for the life of me see that scary face again. I guess I should have taken a photo of it at night. I did think about doing that at the time but I was too afraid to get up and get my camera because everybody knows if you get out of bed when you have a nightmare, the bony hand under the bed will grab your foot!

This past weekend my niece SuperChic turned seven. In true SuperChic fashion she chose a pink Barbie-themed birthday party. I think visiting Barbie’s mansion this past March made a real impression on her. Or she’s just a typical pink-loving girly-foo-foo sort of girl. Which she is.

However my sister-in-law and I are not really typical pink-loving girly-foo-foo sorts so we planned a pink and black vintage-Barbie-inspired party instead. It was a lot of fun. I have to say even I caught the pink fever (again).

My mom sewed her famous flags in pink and black polka-dots (I wish I had a better photo of them) to match the black polka-dot table cloth she already had. There was finger food and pink drinks in fancy plastic flutes that CC found at the last minute. Pink fun-fur (and one blue) boas for everyone and Red-Vines for sippy straws. The divas in the house gave it their seal of approval.

Just kidding Bethany. You are not a diva.

CC made pink S cookies (SuperChic’s real name starts with S) and Bethany baked some impromptu chocolate cupcakes so I could have my Barbie cake toppers stuck in their frosted skirts.

Let me just take a moment to share something about Bethany. I know I’ve mentioned before that all it takes to get her to bake something is to casually mention that you’ve been hankering for this or that sweet. Well, we’ve taken this game to the next level. It’s taken on Dinner Impossible proportions. Now all I have to do is challenge her to any baking task and she’s off banging cookie sheets before I can say, “I was just kidding!”

Seriously, this girl cannot be stopped. So here was this weekend’s feat: I challenged Bethany to bake something in my mother’s teeny-tiny mobile home kitchen. This is no easy task. First imagine the kitchen: It is small. Maybe three feet across and six feet long with a door on one end and one of those impossibly low and stupid dining counters on the other. There is not one speck of counter space. If you want to mix, cut or work on anything you must do it over the sink, the stove or the trash can.

Next imagine an oven that is half the size of a normal oven. It’s about two steps up from an Easy-Bake oven with an inconsistent thermostat to boot. Then imagine that small oven stuffed with about five cookie sheets that are just stored there because there is nowhere else to keep them. That right there is enough to deter me from baking.

Anyway, before I completely hijack my niece’s birthday post with ramblings about my mom’s Mickey-Mouse sized kitchen I would like to present to you this:

It is a vanilla cake. Made from scratch. I like to call it “Trailer Park Cake” even though my mom does not really live in a trailer park. She just lives in a small mobile home on a cul-de-sac on the somewhat nicer side of the sticks. It’s not a bad place, and the neighbors are nice. One of them loaned us baking powder for this cake, in fact.

Anyway, the cake was delicious.

Perfectly moist, not too sweet with a light glaze on top. Bethany is going to be the end of me and my healthy diet. Phooey! But really? How can I not challenge her like this? This nuance in her personality just boggles and amazes me to no end. Next up I’m going to see if she can make brownies over a campfire.

Back to the birthday party. The reason Bethany baked some chocolate cupcakes is because I had my heart set on using these little vintage-inspired Barbie-doll cupcake toppers. As Bethany is to baking, I am to crafting and graphic design. (Though I’m not claiming to be as masterful as Bethany, just as dedicated.)

I think I thought this cupcake-topper idea up long before the Barbie party was even in planning stages and I may have slightly manipulated the whole event around my vision of little paper Barbie bodices stuck into cupcake skirts. So when the party preparation got underway and it looked like the cupcakes were going to fall by the wayside due to time and budget constraints, you can imagine that I was a little crestfallen. And that is why my dear friend Bethany came to the rescue.

Anyway! Contrary to popular belief, this party is not about me. No small children were harmed during my obsession with a party theme being carried out to the smallest detail! This party was about SuperChic turning seven smashingly. I think she had a blast.

We all did