Happy New Year 2008!

As I've mentioned previously, my husband and children have had the same Christmas break off. I have enjoyed this time with them so much. We've, for the most part, kept to ourselves most of this time and have just enjoyed being a family. On Sunday we decided to leave for California, spur of the moment as we are famous for :) We have talked about seeing the Rose Bowl Parade in person over the past couple of years. We felt this time would be the best opportunity to do that. We began our trip at Joshua Tree National Park. I honestly didn't realize how big it was. It is really a cool place with so many Joshua trees and rock formations and mountains. We spent a day and a half going through the park. We stayed in Twentynine Palms, CA the first night. Apparently the band "U2", while taking there "Joshua Tree" Album cover shot years back, stayed at the "Harmony Motel" in Twentynine Palms also :) My husband gave me this bit of trivia info. We are U2 fans also. The second day after spending most of the day at Joshua Tree we spent in Diamond Bar just outside of LA. We awoke just after 4 AM to get ready to travel 30 minutes to Pasadena for the parade. We didn't know what to expect but knew we didn't want to pay an arm and a leg to view the parade. We found free parking and then walked around just after sunrise to find the best spot to park ourselves. We found a pretty good spot but the parade didn't arrive to us until around 9:30 AM. It was amazing to see all the work and detail put into the floats up close. The flowers were beautiful in person. Once the parade was over we were all ready to head home. We got a bite to eat and headed for home. Glad to be back as we enjoy one final day together before resuming our normal schedule. Thankfully it's only for 2 days then we have the weekend again, yeah!