Cloudy with a chance of... In-N-Out

Matt and I headed out to California last weekend to visit his parents and aunt and uncle (Suzie and Steve) in Palm Desert.  Being the extremely frugal traveler that I am, we found the cheapest way to get out there was to fly into LAX and drive out to where they were staying.  Sounded great in theory!  Next time, I think I'll sacrifice the $$ to land anywhere but LA. :)

Thankfully, we landed after "rush hour" (though, I'm not really sure if that has a beginning or an end in LA) and met an old friend of mine at In-N-Out near the airport.  Heather and I go WAY back - I'm not exactly sure just how long, but long enough to remember that at some point we slid down my parents' basement stairs in a sleeping bag during a slumber party with another friend of ours, chatted and laughed at the bottom of the stairs for hours, and eventually slept at the bottom of those stairs all night.  Yes, we were definitely cool back then!  She moved to Europe after college with her husband, and I don't think I have seen her since our college days - it was great to catch up for a bit now that they're back in the States.  Oh, and while we chatted away, Matt chowed down on a 4x4 animal style at In-N-Out, his first visit ever. Needless to say (for those of you that have been), he LOVED it :)

We drove out to Palm Desert after dinner and got there in just less than 3 hours.  Yikes!  We were excited to get there and enjoy some fun in the sun with his family even though we had read about clouds and rain in the forecast (we were hoping the weathermen were wrong).  Saturday started off well with some blue skies (the resort was gorgeous - I always forget how amazing California is), and we tried to get in time at the pool while we could.  That night brought more clouds and unfortunately, Sunday saw almost a full day of rain.  We spent the day relaxing and catching up and were happy to see the sun come out on Monday (just in time for us to leave, of course!).  We were nervous about the drive back into LA (again, I don't understand how anyone could put up with their traffic!!), but we made it back for our evening flight just in time to see that it was delayed.  :)

Delicious dinner at Tommy Bahamas (with the "grey-haired crowd" as Matt pointed out):

Another amazing dinner at Castelli's, Suzie and Steve's favorite restaurant down there:

Oh, and we of course made one last stop at In-N-Out before we left once we made it to LA on time:

It was a great, albeit brief, trip out to California.  We're always happy to see family and spend time with them, no matter where it is!  I feel blessed to have gotten such a great set of in-laws who have really taken me in as their own  :)

As a sidenote, my folks watched Lincoln (the Stinker for those of you who know us well) while we were away (thankfully!) and Amber picked him up for us on Monday.  He was pretty depressed all weekend (he always knows exactly when we're going on a trip - the minute he sees anything that resembles packing he goes limp and despondent), and when she got him to our house, he immediately ran to our bedroom and hid under the bed.  Knowing how unpredictable our crazy pup is, Amber decided not to go after him, so we told her to just leave him out until we got home.  SO - for the next 7+ hours (thanks to our delayed flight), Matt and I ran through all of the possibilities of destruction that Lincoln could cause while alone in the house.  How many shoes did we leave out?  Were the bathroom doors open?  Did we leave remotes in reach (oh yes, he's chewed up a Comcast remote before)? Would he get bored enough to start taking books off shelves (and oh yes, one day I came home to find 3 paperback books on the floor, some with pages or covers missing...)?  Basically, we know that sometimes our little Stinker can turn into the Tazmanian Devil... so, what did we find when we got home late on Monday night??

Cute little Lincoln sleeping on the floor in front of the door waiting for us to come home.  Not a thing out of place in the house!  He's got serious emotional issues (he was clearly too depressed to even attempt to cause trouble), but can you solve/fix attachment issues in dogs??  Well, we love him regardless!  We keep seeing signs of improvement in him, and hope that doesn't end :)