Random

It is amazing to me how much free time I have when the kids are not in school. We are not walking to school to drop Lexi off and then returning (by car) to drop AJ off 3 hours later. I'm not walking to school to pick AJ up and then waiting there another 30 minutes for Lexi to be released. We have the pleasure of sleeping in, eating a late breakfast, eating lunch whenever we get hungry, watching movies, playing games and generally doing nothing until dinner time with a round-about bedtime in tow. It is a nice stress-free life without near as much yelling and threats about being late. I'm not looking forward to the end of break. Of course, it may have something to do with Larry taking 3 weeks off of work too. It is much easier to parent when more than one adult is involved, especially when one parent is more like a big teenage brother playing LEGOs and video games with his younger siblings. Now I know why people choose to have lots of kids, because at some point along the line you have built in baby-sitters while you sit around eating bon-bons and watching instant download movies on Netflix. But then again, I'm not sure I would trust AJ to watch the dog much less a younger sibling.

Anyhoo, on a completely different note, we have been experiencing some crazy weather here. At least crazy for us because we are new to the area. Apparently, El Paso is known as the Sun City because the sun shines here on average 302 days per year. I have to agree with this one because even when it rains, you find the sun shining through. Another little known and rarely referenced fact is that the city should be named the Windy City. I'm not intentionally slighting the great city of Chicago, who has the same average wind speed as just about every other major city, but we seem to be living in a VERY windy city. It is not unusual for us to have windy days with gusts in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 mph and even reaching or exceeding 60 mph. That my friend is WINDY. You know it is a bad day when you look out the window and see all your patio furniture (sans table) pushed against the rock fence. There are days when the grill even decides it wants a change of scenery. It is a wonder the swamp cooler is still tightly affixed to the roof considering the scary owl (who unsuccessfully keeps the pigeons from roosting on our roof) lost its head last week. However, it did provide hours of entertainment for the kids as they pretended to have a pet owl in the house. Although, in the owl's defense, he really isn't that scary in person and shouldn't take his failure to heart as I think it is more a design flaw than a weakness in job performance. I won't ban him to the Island of Misfit Owls, but I'm not really sure he is going to get his head back anytime soon. Maybe Larry can put him back together and he can become our yard ornament kind of like the wooden bears tourist insist on buying to remind them of their visit to a quaint mountain getaway. He can remind us of our windy "visit" to the Sun City. Something I will always cherish in my Top Places to Live When Forced by the Army to Move memories. Just call me sentimental.

On another random note, it snowed last night. See the evidence here.

And here.

It also snowed on December 9th, but it didn't reach our lower elevation.