bits by pieces. : travelogue ~ palm springs.

We went to Palm Springs the week before Christmas with two of our best couple friends from DC. When we were in DC, we started having "family meals" every month rotating between our three houses and hosting great dinners together. It is one of the things that we miss most about DC. This year was our first "family getaway" and Palm Spring was a perfect pick. We rented this AirBnB, which was a fantastic deal when you split between our three families and the layout was perfect since Sarah and Geoff have 1.5 year old Freddie and Molly and Anthony just had Nora three months ago.

Palm Springs is an AirBnb bonanza. There are so many beautiful houses to rent and if you are planning for a group, they are super affordable especially when you factor in a pool and an open layout for just hanging around the house. We loved it!

Turned out that we ended up with three days of rain (Palm Springs gets on average about 3 days of rain a year and usually in the summer - talk about some bad luck!) - but even in the gray, we loved it. We hung out in the pool, cooked great meals, played with Freddie non-stop and ventured out here and there to explore the area. Here is a quick recap and recommendations in case you are going to go any time soon....

Our view from the pool - not too bad....

I dragged Sarah and Freddie over to the pink door house to check it out...

And this copper door house was right across the street - what a looker.

In the spirit of family dinners, each couple made a dinner and on the last night we all pitched in for a pizza night. We cooked up some good meals....

Molly started it off with Thai - including a pork larb appetizer which was fantastic and pad see-ew to follow...

Ben and I made carne asada and enlisted Molly's cocktail skills to make some killer margaritas...

Sarah capped it off with italian and some fantastic lasagna. And finally, we ended with pizza night...

We also went over to The Saguaro Hotel to check out the infamous color themed pool and to grab a drink at their bar, El Jefe.

Molly, Sarah and I snuck away for an afternoon to the Parker Palm Springs for massages and facials. The Parker was on my short bucket list - it is this awesome boutique hotel and the spa treatments were great...

We took the tram up to check out the incredible desert views...

And we trekked off to Joshua Tree (just about an hour away) where we stopped at this Country Kitchen for a fantastic hole in the wall breakfast and the best pancakes in 2016....(click here to watch Anthony Bourdain's special on it!)

And while we were in Palm Springs, we tapped into the vintage spirit and visited a bunch of consignment stores. No amazing finds, but they are certainly their own culture...

In short, Palm Springs was fantastic. It is an awesome spot for a group vacation and here are some of the restaurants and other spots that I put together for our planning purposes in case you are going any time soon and want to check them out...