Breathing Pretty

So I just got back from a glorious weekend in Palm Springs.

These are my peeps. Aren't they gorgeous?

Well - Indian Wells to be be precise. Its a little bit past Palm Springs but just as cool.

Another dahhhh-ling friend of mine, Lauren (in the navy), had a birthday this week and when we were contemplating birthday celebrationess a few things were mentioned. She lives in Phoenix and has this international job type thing so she was in Hong Kong for my birthday but since we'd both be in the same hemisphere for hers, we decided to make a whoop-de-doo about it.

I suggested me coming out to Phoenix where she lives. My amazing cousin Rich (the shorter red head) and his equally amazing and lovable wife Janelle (bright blue shirt) are out there, I wouldn't mind going a'tall. But I got a vehement NO at that idea because, and I quote Lauren "I HATE Phoenix". She went to school in DC, I'd hate Phoenix too if I was coming from that.

So we decided to meet half way in Palm Springs, find a pool and a smoothie and a magazine and lounge as extravagantly as possible.

We were excited and the only thing that could perfect the idea would be the addition of Rich and Janelle and, of course, Patrick, if he wasn't jet setting himself.

We were determined to have a grand time, and let me tell ya - we did.

Laur scored us this amazing room at this Italian inspired resort called MiraMonte . It was just amazing with all theses sprawling gardens and fountains everywhere and I thought it was quite fitting because Lauren and I have a pact. If neither one of us isn't at least dating someone we think we can marry by the time she turns 30 (that's in 2 years) we're going to move to Italy and chase Italian men till it gets boring. Mom said we wouldn't have to do much chasing, and she's right. We're pretty dang gorgeous.

I was going to drive out Friday night after work and so I went home and finished packing, drove into Hollywood to get the Patrick-miester, we grabbed some veggie burgers at Astro Burger (which I HIGHLY recommend btw. Corner of Melrose and Gower) and headed out into the great brown open.

Patrick intended on working on the way out but Patrick is one of those few people in my life that I can just pour out whatever I'm thinking in my brain and not only does he get it, keep up, understand my ridiculous connections, but he appreciates it all so when I actually get time with him I just start ohmygoodnesssoIjustlistenedtothefinancialreport andthey'resayingitstheendofthefreemarketand theladyatChevronthoughtmynewglasseslookedlikeSarahPalin's andIinstantlylikedherlessandandandandandand-ing
So he didn't get much work done at all but we had fun.

We got through traffic and to Indian Wells by 10. That's kind of late but it didn't matter because the whole goal was to get there before Lauren, Rich and Janelle did and we DID! HA! But only by like a minute and 20 seconds. It was fantastic. We were both in the car circle at the same time and had this big reunion through car windows with Rich's foot still on the break and about 3 other carloads of people just watching and waiting. We were ecstatic to see each other. Lauren is basically getting adopted into our family. Shes bff with all of us and she loves us as much so it works out really well.

For those who read this blog but haven't heard me describe Rich or Janelle to you, lemme give you a snap shot -

Rich is what would happen if a Jedi Knight a Ninja Turtle, Robin Williams and the best kind of Missionary all ran at each other really fast. Essentially he's one of the funniest people on the planet but made completely out of love. I seriously don't know why he isn't fantastically famous. He's just a brilliant and physically expressive guy. A purple belt in ninjitzu and a lot of energy usually leads there. He's awesome. Most of my memories growing up with him are wrestling matches or playing Cloverball. Clover was the name of their very stupid dog. It's a very regular thing to be in an intense spiritual conversation with him and he'll just take a step back, never breaking eye contact or missing a syllable, do some crazy karate combination and just come back like nothing happened. That's Rich in a paragraph.

His wife Janelle is just as much made of love but the quiet kind. She's what would happen if April from the Ninja Turtles, R2D2, Jean Grey, and Marjory Hinkley all ran at each other really fast. I love her. Lovelovelovelove her. I'm SOOO glad Rich brought her into the circle. I met her for the first time in front of the temple on their wedding day and had absolutely no qualms about it or her. This is how buff she is; on her way down to the temple in Mesa from Tucson the night before she got into a horrific car accident, Like, she flipped her car. A couple of times. Broke every window. Everything flew. Wedding dress, shoes, temple recommend. She got whisked off to the ER but was fine, everything got recovered and she was at the temple, on time and ready for pictures the next day.

That's my family *puff* :D

So the first thing that happened once we got to the room was Rich dove in, found some of the bathrobes and took in the luggage like so.

Rich brought Rockband and we played till about 3am.

I brought tennis rackets, Patrick brought his laptop and rapier wit, and Laur brought this ambrosial trail mix from Trader Joe's "Nuts over Raspberry and Chocolate". She, Patrick and I killed the bag in about 10 minutes and I went out today and bought a bag for me and one to send to my best friend. It's that good.

The next morning we were properly introduced to the resort and I realized that it wasn't just plesant and comfortable, it was gorgeous. We all drove in at night so we didn't see the amazing scenery. When Lauren and I were at the pool I just couldn't stop starring.

We went and had lunch at this fantastic place called Pierro's Acqua Pazza at this grouping of shops and restaurants called The River. It was huge and essentially surrounded by this gorgeous moat. That's where the first picture was from. A river. Well, "river". In the middle of the desert. With fantastic curry chicken. And your favorite people. Can life get better?

After that we went outlet shopping and had dinner at this euphoric wood fired pizza/tapas place at El Paseo called Sammy's Woodfired Pizza. I highly recommend that too.

When we were getting ready to go Rich was showing us his version of this new Xbox 360 game Castle Crashers.



Yup. That is a 30 second representation of the entire weekend.

I can't tell you how refreshed and relaxed I am and how much of a love of pool side dining I've developed and how riveting The Economist is and how grateful I am for my family and the fact that they're my best friends too.

It's just what I needed and I'll definitely be back.