Heat, Water and New Cousins

We went to Palm Springs for vacay, three days of 108 degrees. We're home now and I feel like we live in Alaska. It's FREEZING here. In the car when we got there and the heat was so strong when you opened your door it muscled its way in, steamrolling you and daring you to find it easy to breathe. I spent most of my time trying to find a shorter way to the pool, and reliving summers in Hilton Head with my gramma, where the grass was short and spongey and tiny frogs lived in her pool. When we first got there (I keep coming back to that) I did not want to get out of the car. I wanted to stay there in the coolness with my chocolate covered popcorn my friend Julia gave me. The popcorn is my evil new friend, and the reason none of my pants fit right now. The popcorn did not want me to leave the car either. What if it melted? So I sat in there reading and eating until I felt sick, which was about 5 minutes. Then Opper Family steamrolled over me, and I was forced to go upstairs and immediately get into my bathing suit and immediately find a pool. The next day we did the water park, which is way better than anything in LA because there are way less people FROM LA in it. It's like Hurricane Harbor's little brother. Small and dinky, perfect for us. The kids forced me on scary raft rides, and even Lilly went up on some of the high up slides. The girl has balls of a samarai. She got in the wave pool, and she didn't want to be to the SIDE of the waves. She wanted to be right "where the bubbles are," she said, and she swam directly into the eye of the wave storm. She has the biggest, most excited smile, and that daredevil excited smile made my bathing suit saggy bottom worth the whole experience. She just loves everything. She charges forth. We also spent a lot of time in the lazy river, floating around and around, just floating. There were moments I remember how feeling relaxed felt. It took alot of rounds to find it, but there it was, floating right along with us, with nothing else to do. Just to see Lilly's little fingers, to float along with her. We ate lots of ice cream, and played word games at night with the family, and the older kids got to go out and play tennis and ride bikes after dark in the little condo community. I figure they were protected by the stifling blanket of heat, who could murder them in that heat, only Frosty the Snowman could think clearly. On the way home today we stopped at a hospital in LA to see Barry's niece who had given birth conveniently on our way home, so we got to see a few hours old new baby boy cousin, and cram in a little room staring at him. Then the rest of the way home Emma demanded that we have a new baby because she wanted one to carry around. New babies are so great - I wish we could have one that stayed about 5 months old forever, too. Tomorrow the outdoor tumbling theater, and our summer continues. It's hard to be out of town and see how great it is to be in a town with one road. Not all these cars and traffic and people. I do like the open spaces.