I think one of the things that I love most about living in the desert~definitely the thing that makes the 120+ degree summers bearable~is how beautiful the fall, winter and spring are. Friday there was threats of 1/2-1" of rain which didn't show up until last night. We woke up to snow on the mountains that can be viewed out of our bedroom windows. Driving down the main highway towards Palm Springs today, the snow was covering all the peaks. It really hits home how extreme the desert environment is. I've tried to explain to a couple people about how severe the weather can become in just a matters of hours~usually they have a blank and confused look on their face like I'm might actually have finally lost my mind. Not living here, it's hard to understand that when it rains, it usually pours. When it pours, it's so hard that the dry parshed ground can't drink the water fast enough, so we get incredible run off which closes down some of the main roads and floods our washes. Two of our golf courses at work are on one of the washes, so I got a phone call at work Friday morning with a flood advisory that needed to be passed along to keep the golfers safe. This was, of course, as the clouds were clearing and the sun was shining through. Waking up this morning though and seeing the havoc the rain had created through the night, I understood the phone call.
So, needless to say, on top of loving the holidays, it's a pleasure being in the desert this time of year. It's a pleasant 60-75 degrees during the day and 28-40 degrees at night~depending on many variables of course. I love the cold. There's nothing like throwing on a sweater and scarf and enjoying the cold while it lasts.
The boys are all doing well. Lani has some big project that he's been working on with his friends. They're covering the cold war and the projects are all being entered in some history fair for Riverside County. Asking him what he wanted for Christmas this year has been like pulling teeth. Mieke (Pascal's mom) got a very interesting Christmas list email from Lani stating "my mom made me send you this....I hope you enjoyed my email." A little helpful~he made a collage of the 4 things he wanted and attached it to the email. Creative. Because he had no suggestions as to what he wanted from us, we'll be sending him to golf lessons out at PGA WEST so he can get instruction from some of the best in the area. I'm hoping this will keep him busy (as if getting a 4.0 doesn't keep him busy enough). Maybe it's not busy we're looking for here, but happy. I would like to see Lani happy and actually excited about something again.
Marcus has his holiday program on the 19th. His very brave teacher is teaching them jingle bells to be played with bells. We keep asking him how it's going and don't really get a straight answer other than he knows the words (kinda) to the song now. We were getting strange variation of the song at first, but I think he's got it down now. His sense of humor is an ongoing thing too. We were stuck in the drive thru line last night and he was complaining about being thirsty. I said "Marcus, I just ordered you a drink, but as you can see, there are people in front of us that need to be served first. What do you want me to do Marcus? huh?" His answer, "panic." He also informed me that "yep" and "yeah" aren't real words...that you're supposed to say "yes". Thank you for that Marcus.
Junior now has too much time on his hands. When I was in high school I had 2-4 hours of homework every night! Does anyone else remember that, or is it just me? 30 minutes~tops! That seems to be the average if he even has homework. It's amazing to me. Regardless, now that football is over, his grades seem to be going back up. He's starting to talk jobs he'd be interested in when he goes off to college. As much as I want to encourage him to follow his dreams into the NFL, I appreciate that he's starting to realize that his dream will be a very long, difficult and lonely road. I know whatever he decides to do, he'll be great at it. Almost forgot, his big news is that he's going to be "the guy" in his friends quinceanera. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a birthday party thrown for 15-year old girls. The celebrations though have gone a little crazy and are like mini-weddings in regards to cost and extravagance. He'll be wearing a white tux and is learning a waltz with the other 5 couples who are in the celebration. I'm sure I'll have plenty to report back after that experience in January.
So, for now, that's it. Pascal has a new toy, the Nokia N800~a small internet tablet~that for some reason, seems to keep him very happy. He's even planning on driving to Long Beach WITH us this weekend instead of after us...something we don't usually do because our driving drives eachother crazy. He'll be busy playing with his "toy" though, so that frees me up to drive as fast as I want. ;) As long as he's happy, I'm happy.
