Christmas 2009

Christmas this year was quite different than the past 10 in many ways. It was much warmer at 75 deg. vs. the normal 30 and snow in WA. It was not at our house like for the past many years, it was at our trailer, Diana's parent's motorhome where Santa arrived with lots of fun stuff for the girls (recurve bows, archery supplies, compasses, lots of chocolate, etc.). Then it was off to Patrick and Rhonda's house for further festivities, more presents (yes it is a challenge sometimes shoehorning things into the trailer), more food and the inevitable crash at the end of the day. Ahhh, the holidays. Cami and Andi did score some cool new sleeping togs from our friends Kathy and Albert - Penguins Rule!!- . I was stoked, I received all four books in the Bowyer's Bible set and enough scratch to get the few remaining tools I need to make my own archery bow. Looking forward to it (thanks Rhonda). One of the funniest gifts was one of the table gifts during Christmas Eve dinner (traditional mexican food (thanks to Mamacita for that tradition)) was the biker's Do-rag shown here on the two 'bikers' Phil and Pat. The other was Diana's mom Carol's pregnancy test (negative fortunately), but that is another story. Cami and Andi had a fantastic time playing with their cousins Zachary and Samantha, shown here with Diana and the Girls (and Carol, always butting in... ;) )Much fun, laughter and frivolity was had by all. I am sure that that will also be the case as we move on to Joshua Tree National Monument.

Side note: I may make note of this from a place of 'Hmmm, that's interesting..." point of view. It seems that at certain RV parks, not all, but at least half so far, we have been treated as second class because we have young children (no matter how well behaved and quite adorable) and very little grey hair (well, more for me, none for Diana)and are not 'old'. It is interesting that the same people who complain about age discrimination in the workplace or elsewhere don't think twice about discriminating against us because we do not fall into their precoceived notions of what an RV'er should be. It will be interesting to see if that trend holds out. On the other hand, some of our elders around the park have been fantastically friendly and have wanted to adopt the girls, and have been a fount of info. Time will tell