The Desert in August!

Ken loves his job so much. Sometimes he comes home and says that he can't believe he gets paid for what he does. He teaches only 9 hours a week and has an assisstant to help with grading. He spends the rest of his time meeting with students and researching and writing.

On top of all of this, BIOLA brings all faculty and their families out to Indian Well (Palm Springs) every other year or so. They provide childcare (the kids had a blast at a luau, carnival, movie night, etc.) and there is usually an excellent speaker. This year they got philosopher Dallas Willard on the theme of rest. I went to hear one of his talks and it was great. Then I rested by the pool or with friends the rest of the time. Did I mention it was at a Hyatt Grand Champions Resort? We spent a lot of time at the pools. Lila and Sky loved the water slide (I went down with Lila).They had a clown doing face painting at one of the childcare sessions!Originally we thought about going to Joshua Tree National Park but then we changed our minds because it was blazing hot and we weren't sure the kids would really enjoy it. So, we went to the Children's Museum of the Desert with our close friends, the Denhams.

Sky's favorite station was the animal care clinic.

Lila liked the sand table outside.This Volkswagon had a few coats of paint on it! Lila, the archaeologist...I thought the pizza parlor was really cool.Lila and Brad also really enjoyed the grocery store area. Even Ken got in on some of the action...All told, we spent about 3 hours there and had a blast. I'm not sure what the point of these ropes was but Brad and Lila spent a lot of time in there.The desert is weird to me and the windmills don't help. I feel like I'm on a different planet. There is a section where you can see windmills for as far as you can see. Weird.