Hey all!  I’m officially back on the East Coast today and back to blogging on my regular schedule.  So first up, let me say thank you to everyone’s kind words on this post.  I really appreciate your support.  It can be difficult to put yourself out there and I felt that resonated with a lot of you.  I truly love the blogging community and the support we lend one another (and just to be clear, the non-bloggers are awesome too!).  I will keep calm and blog on!

Coming back from a ten-day vacation is so tough but looking back at all the fun things we did will help me get through the rest of this week!  I wanted to share some of the highlights from my trip but because we went to like a thousand places and did so many things, I’m going to break them up a bit by California region.  So grab your road map and join me for a little California travel excursion to . . . PALM SPRINGS!

You got a little taste of Palm Springs from Friday’s Food and Fitness but I wanted to flesh out some of the details.  Our entire trip was actually planned around the Palm Springs portion.  The Hubs’ cousin got married there and it was the kickoff to our Cali Road Trip.  I’ve never been to Palm Springs before and I absolutely loved it!  I am a huge fan of colors, prints and retro-modern design and Palm Springs just embodies those things.  

Because this trip was with the Hubs’ entire family, we decided it would be more economical to rent a house.  I previewed a few photos of the house but I have to share some more because it was beyond belief.  It was called Hollywood Glamour and let me tell you, it lived up to its name.  I don’t want to overload you with photos here but if you want to see more of this four bed/four bath house, check out my Google + photo album. It’s worth it, I promise.  

And if you think the house we rented was cool, you should see the house where Pete’s cousin got married.  It was located on the side of one of the mountains and overlooked Palm Springs.  The views were stunning and so was the bride! 

Palm Springs is actually a great place to be active because it is hot and dry with 350 days of sunshine.  Tennis and golf are both really popular pastimes but unfortunately we did not manage to fit golf in, what with all that pool time we had to squeeze in!

We had planned to visit the Joshua Tree National Park but because of the government shutdown we were unable to go through with our plans.  So disappointing.  We did, however, take an aerial tramway up to the top of one of the mountains surrounding Palm Springs, which had amazing views of the surrounding mountains and the valley of Palm Springs.  Plus the hiking at sunset was incredible and I couldn’t resist breaking out some yoga poses!

Palm Springs utterly obsessed with old Hollywood glamour.  They have even erected this 3-story high statute of Marilyn Monroe in the middle of Palm Springs.  Not quite sure what this is all about but I loved it anyway!

Ok I think that is enough of a photo bomb for one day.  If you are interested in seeing more photos, check them out here!

Readers, have you ever been to Palm Springs?  What’s one of the quirkiest places you’ve ever been?  Ever seen a larger-than-life statute of someone?