Palm Springs 2009

My cousin Nick and I took our second annual trip to Palm Springs to visit our Aunt Lee and Uncle Joe. This year Juan was able to come down for a day and 3 of Nick's closest friends also made the trip. We had a blast visiting with everyone and enjoying the sunshine. Our days went pretty much like this: breakfast, pool, snack, nap, pool, dinner, pool. We did make it to the Joshua Tree national park this year and went on a beautiful hike. I hauled Malena in our backpack carrier and managed to not fall down and break my neck. I don't have many pics from the trip but will add more as I get them from everyone else who actually took photos.

Nick and Malena playing around

Aunt Lee working on dinner or more likely, slicing up some limes for our rum and cokes!

Cocktails in the pool at night.....doesn't get much better than that!

Stuff

Malena reading to Juan

Malena reading to her baby

Juan and Malena having a moment

Malena 'helping' in the kitchen

Pre-bath time craziness. If you look closely you can see that she is making the airplane noise with her mouth.

Malena gets a pony!

Grandpa Larry made Malena her very own rocking horse. It is absolutely beautiful! Malena fell in love with it and within hours had figured out how to pull herself up on horsey without any help - I think the poor horses tail may have been the 'help'.

Malena giving her new horse some hugs

Grandpa showing her how to make the horse 'go'

Showing off...........

First barrel racking

It was time to rack the barrels of wine I made this year. I think we picked the coldest afternoon possible and spent the entire day outside. Even sampling the wine didn't keep us very warm! Lucky for us Dad and Sally stopped by with Malena and took some pictures for us.

Here the wine is being pushed out of the barrels into a large tank.

A shot of some wine pouring out of a carboy.

Malena and I supervising Juan.


The lees (solids) at the bottom of the barrel.

Grandma Sally and Malena watching me racking the barrels.

No matter what happens with this winemaking project in the future, we have a lot of wine for our friends and family to enjoy!!