Spring Break

In my excitement to have my 3 precious grandkiddies and their mom fly out here for 2 1/2 weeks I made up this song that we're singing around here (to the tune of Here We Round the Mulberry Bush)

Annie and Jake and Juliette

We haven't seen them yet

Very soon they will get

To come to California

Sawyer and his Nannie Joy

Love these little girls and boy

Very soon they'll all enjoy

Their trip to California

Jordan will join us for part of the time. Although we have great things planned the beauty of this place is that when all else fails you can go the beach. The Carlsbad Calendula festival is in full bloom and we hope to make it down there. We have a day trip to Disneyland for when Jordan's here. We have a few days planned up in NorCal to see the Gallachers, my folks. and hopefully Eli and for Brittany to see the Storeys. I'm hoping we'll make it over to the little petting zoo in San Juan. Plus we'll have Easter together. Yum Yum... ham, funeral potatoes, and blueberry jello. And I have a secret surprise for one Friday night for the grown-ups. (It's NOT a sporting venue).

I haven't had a spring break vacation for many years. Two years ago Britt and Jord and family went to Mexico with some friends. It seemed like everyone was going to Mexico that spring. I wanted to get in the spirit of Spring Break in Mexico so I got dressed up and took this picture on self-timer and sent it to them. If you can't join 'em in person, join 'em via the internet. Fortunately, this spring we'll be together. I think we'll have tacos to celebrate! Ole!

This picture kills me

Joyce's Four Wonders of Her World

There are some things so grand that when you see them they stay in your mind forever. Undefinable colors, the ones you might have never seen before and might not ever see again, truly visual masterpieces from The Creator, are part of my "Joyce's Four Wonders of Her World". Up until last week I only had two "Wonders" that were on my list of all-time unparalleled beauty, the kind of beauty that takes your breath away, brings tears to yours eyes, and if you weren't driving or flying, would drop you to your knees in gratitude and wonder. But after my last little roadtrip from SoCal to NorCal I've added two more. I wrote about No. 4 on Facebook a few days ago and I did take a few iphone shots of which I'll post one below. (It does absolutely NO credit to the experience, but it's a little reminder for me.) The others you'll just have to use your imagination to join me in my reverie.

1. a summer sunset while driving out of the desert mountains overlooking Bakersfield in the distance. Brittany and I were on a roadtrip from Texas to Utah with a little detour to Granite Bay, CA. As we started to reach the top of the last mountain we noticed that the sun was beginning to set but not in any way either of us had ever seen before. As we began our descent we witnessed THE most spectacular display of pink, rose, magenta, fuscia, lilac, violet, and deep purple that I've ever seen in my life. Each time, just when we thought it couldn't get any better it did. The sunset seemed to play out every spectrum of pinks and purples imaginable. And because we were at a place where almost all we saw was sky, it was as if the entire world was aglow in royal colors. So many sunsets include various hues of red. But I don't remember any red in this one.

2. a circular flyover above Paris before landing on an early Sunday morning. I think it was about 7:30 am and I was flying from Munich to Houston with a plane change at Charles deGaulle Airport. The pilot, I believe routinely just for the sheer pleasure of all the passengers, made a sweeping circle above the city so we could experience la vie en rose from the air, but as I looked down from my airplane window I was awestruck that everything I saw was Gold! The buildings, the river, the parks, and especially, La Tour Eiffel, were radiating gold from the bottom to the top. It was just one of those very magical moments in time when the morning sunlight was so perfect as it lit up the City of Lights. This image was so emblazened in my mind that I can see it now just as beautifully as I did then, and I don't even have to close my eyes to see it. It's a place I go to often in my mind when I want to get away, even for just un petit moment.


3. a sea of grass while exiting the Grapevine from LA heading north up I-5. When I drove to Northern California the last Saturday afternoon in February the day was dark, dreary and cold. The Grapevine itself was draped in heavy storm clouds and I drove through periodic torrential rainstorms. As I descended the Grapevine I could see white snowy mountaintops to my right and sun in the future, albeit the time was going on 5:30 so the sun was beginning to set in the west. However, what I couldn't quite comprehend at first was what appeared to be a sea or lake on both sides of the freeway at the bottom of the hill. I kept thinking, "What's this? When did I ever drive across a lake here before?" My mind couldn't make sense of what my eyes were seeing. There before me was the most incredible expanse of a color I'd never seen before...it was blue, it was green, it was emerald, it was turquoise, it was seagreen, it was all those colors mixed up together and painted across the flat landscape. I kept looking off to the mountain range on the right to try to correct my eyesight, and then I'd see this amazing color sweep up the side of the mountain. As I got closer and closer the color settled back in to a more traditional Spring Green for the crops that were growing there. But for at least 5-10 minutes I saw the most beautiful blue-green I've ever seen. You know how when you get pure inspiration but you can't always put it into words. That's what the color was like. Indescribable.

4. Six rainbows while returning from this very same roadtrip last week heading back south on the I-5. Just when I thought I'd never see the above mentioned color again our Creator had another explosive colorfest in store for me. This time, someplace south of Patterson, between 5-5:30pm as the rain clouds were wrapping up and the sun was trying to shine through, as some of the clouds were gray and some were pure white, as the setting sun was fast approaching the lush green hillside and preparing to tuck itself behind them, I saw six rainbows. Huge massive arcs in the sky. They didn't just sort of show one side or the other, they didn't just sort of dance around a bit and then tease me by hiding, they were brilliantly stretched out across the California central valley, one after the other after the other, like an amazing fireworks display of rainbows. One reached up so high into the sky that as it peaked amidst the blue atmsophere it was as though it was saying, "Look here, Joyce, above the rain and gray and dismal day, there's sun and light and hope!" These clouds didn't just have silver linings. They were lined in prisms. Glorious prisms. And then I saw what I thought I'd never see again. Somewhere on the blue spectrum of the rainbow, before the purple, and after the green, was the amazing color of the imagined sea I'd witnessed as mentioned above in number 3. The next time you see a rainbow look for that color on the blue band. That's pretty close to what I'm talking about.

ps. As a fun little treat and an added surprise, by the time I started down the other side of the Grapevine it was 8:00 pm and inky dark when a huge lustrous full moon darted out from behind some clouds, just long enough to wink and smile at me, and then slipped back into his hiding place.