BNP Paribas Open 2014

This was my 2nd year heading out to the desert for a little R&R and Rafa stalking (my favorite!)  This year I had one of my good friends from college come with me.  We would hang out with tennis players in the morning at breakfast.  We seemed to be on the same schedule for the lobby as Stan most days. (Stan Wawrinka)  We would then either shop, spa, or catch a practice mid-day and then head out for the matches in the evening!  This year a 2nd large stadium was added with delightful new restaurants such as Nobu.  It was a wonderful long weekend and the weather was perfect.  It is my little guilty pleasure to watch and take photos of Rafa every year and this year I actually got within reaching distance of him.  Being that I am slightly obsessed, I pretty much had no idea what to do when he was 2 feet away from me.  Sadly a glance and a photo is all I got, but I'll take it! I did enjoy watching more of the matches this year as I am getting into tennis more.  I enjoy watching other players and it has made an impact in my house.  Now everyone in my house either plays tennis, is taking lessons, or is about to this summer!  It is a great sport and my dream is to get to go watch it in Europe one of these years!  Possibly even the French Open!

First match against Stepanek

 

Your welcome, ladies.  Fernando Verdasco

Practice

The Joker

 Federer Practice

 Andy Murray breakfast bound.

Ski Week 2014

Every year we not only have a spring break, but also a winter break.  AKA Ski Week.  We usually don't do much this week as we are not skiers, but we decided to use our Disney passes an make a weekend out of it.  We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel which was a first for us.  It made it nice to be able to stay and not deal with the hassle of driving home.  Especially since we stayed for fireworks!  The kids also enjoyed the pool.  Since we were there for 2 days we enjoyed a little of each park.  We saw some of the new princess shows at Disneyland and enjoyed seeing Sophia and riding the Mater ride at CA Adventure.  Disney is always fun and every time we got we try an do something new!

Golden State Feis - San Francisco

This past weekend we traveled to San Fran for an Irish dance competition.  This would be Sarah's 1st time competing as a preliminary champion.  I think we both had a lot of nerves going into this.  Although I knew she could hold her own in the competition, you never know how good everyone else is going to be and you want the whole experience to be a positive one.  Thankfully, she did very well and ended up placing 3rd out of 7.  So we were both very happy and it made for a fun weekend with lots of smiles!  She also placed 3rd in her Treble Reel special.  So very exciting to have completed the 1st prelim and now we look to the future and try to go after that 1st win.  In Irish dancing she needs to win 2 times in prelim in order to move up to open champion.  Open champion is the highest level you can go in Irish dancing. 

San Fran is such a wonderful city and it is even more spectacular when the weather is great.  We had a wonderful weekend and had so much fun seeing the sights!  Here are some pics from the weekend.

 

Pier 39 - They love the carousel and shopping for "junk"!  I love the food.  Crab was had for dinner.

 

Our view of Union Square from the hotel room.

The Golden Gate bridge is my favorite.  We drove across it to get some photos and have lunch at Sam's in Tiburon and then we did a boat cruise to view it from the water.

Boudin Sourdough bread

Ghiradelli hot fudge sundae.  My salty caramel hot cocoa was great too!

Spring Break - Palm Desert

When trying to plan spring break we decided that the #1 most important thing that the kids would like to do is swim.  Since it didn't make much sense to travel 1000's of miles just so they could splash in a pool, we decided to just go here in our own backyard - Palm Springs.  Technically Palm Desert.  To me, the whole area is Palm Springs. Indian Wells, La Quinta, Palm Desert, etc... We also decided that since we rarely get to travel with friends that we would try to make this a get together with other families, as well.  So we ended up with about 4 other families, chose the JW Marriott in Palm Desert, and called it a long weekend! 

The kids (and there were a lot of them) loved the pool time, the evening "dive in" movies, the little boats that took you around the property, and the buffet!  The adults liked that the kids were happy (and the buffet).  We also happen to be there over Easter weekend, so they had a big celebration on Easter morning with a big egg hunt and the Easter bunny jumping out of an airplane.

View from our room

In addition to our weekend in Palm Springs, we also enjoyed a few extra fun days in and around L.A.  Of course there was a Disney day and we also visited the Natural History Museum.