I'm Not Intentionally Mocking My Friends in the Midwest

We had an absolutely beautiful afternoon at the beach.

One of Fillip's cousins hosted a post-Chanukah/house warming party at his newly built home in the Malibu hills. Words can't adequately describe the visual impact of stepping into his living room. The great room itself is beautiful, yet simply decorated. Orange is the accent color, but in limited and very effective amounts. Looking through the room is a 180 degree view of the Pacific Ocean, and the nearby mountains. Two of the walls are floor to ceiling glass, that opens by sliding into the adjacent walls, leaving nothing to obstruct the scenery. Often, there is a foggy marine layer down by the beach, even when the local cities are perfectly clear. However, today was perfect. Just perfect.

My boys quickly got overly rambunctious after we arrived, so a bunch of us piled into the golf cart to drive down the beach. I had the joy of spending over an hour on the sand with Hayden, Logan and two of my sweet nieces- 4yrs old and 9 yrs old. Seeing all the kids on the beach made me laugh. The two girls managed to stay really clean, even while digging in the sand. From the moment we got there, my boys looked like we dunked them in a sand pit before even starting to play. Despite the challenge of taking three youngin's to the porta potties, we had a great time. They built (and destroyed) a sand castle, and dug some pretty impressive holes. Nobody fell (very far) from the empty lifeguard tower, or got sand in their eyes. It was probably about 70F, and as clear as can be. We had come prepared for serious cold weather, like down to at least 50F, but stayed in just long sleeve cotton-t's all evening.

When we'd had enough, we called up to the house for someone to pick us up. That was a bit scary actually. The backfacing seat on the cart doesn't have a belt and is a bit slippery. I had Logan on my lap, Hayden next to me, each of them in a vice grip with my foot braced against the side of the cart, and am still surprised I didn't lose anyone as we went up the hill. The kids of course, thought it was great fun to slide and bump along on this great adventure. Once we arrived, we brushed off at least a couple pounds of sand, and never even bothered to put their shoes and socks on. It was that nice out.

We stayed into the evening, watching a stunning sunset over the water. The sky gave us a full display of brilliant yellows, oranges and reds as the inky water gradually darkened from an ashy blue to black.

There have been many times I've lamented the lack of seasons here. Today was not one of those times.