Thoughts on California fall...

The last few days I have been somewhat conflicted when it comes to weather. October has been as beautiful as ever and by that I mean swimsuit beach weather. There has not been the slightest hint in the air that fall is here. If anything fall has been better for the beach because the beaches are empty since everyone is back in school. It is weird to see people's pictures on facebook wearing jackets and scarves. I usually cannot wait to whip out my fall decorations and have to hold myself back from doing it too early; however, this year, I made myself get them out last weekend, knowing that if I didn't just do it, then I never would because I have a feeling it's not going to start feeling like fall until Christmas.

I found myself reminiscing about things I miss about fall in the past few places we have lived. Utah: driving through the canyons looking at the gorgeous changing leaves and BYU football games. As Kentucky is the most fresh in my mind, there are definite things I miss about fall in Lexington including: An abundance of changing trees and the canopies of leaves over the streets in our neighborhood, football games (more for the experience, not because they were good ;), and especially Keeneland (the atmosphere and beauty).

Just as I was feeling like I was missing out a little bit on fall, we had the PERFECT day today. I woke to overcast skies and wet ground as it had rained a little overnight. We closed the upstairs windows (which we have literally not closed since we moved in) and skylights in the bathrooms (if I ever build a house this feature will be a must-best idea ever) knowing that rain was supposed to be coming. I meet my workout buddy Heidi at 10 every morning to run/workout and around 9:45 this morning, it started downpouring. She moved here from Texas and said that it was Texas style rain at the same time I mentioned it reminded me of Kentucky. The air was a tad bit cold (so I could wear a rain jacket) and although it seems crazy to exercise in the pouring rain, we decided a walk on the beach would be the perfect activity. So I drove (instead of riding my bike like normal) over to her house, and we got barefoot and headed to the sand. The rain had let up a bit, but was still coming down pretty good. I love the look of the sand when it has rained...little perfect circles all over from the droplets.

 View from my bedroom before I headed out. You can't really tell it's raining, but when I opened the slider to try and take a picture that wasn't through glass, it started raining into my room, so I had to settle for a pic through the glass.

 This stream on the beach is not normally there. We were near an area that drained from the roads which produced a massive amount of water heading out to the ocean (which is some spots was sadly kind of disgusting). This spot was relatively clean.

 Found a washed up little sand shark :( He is dead and flipped over but looks like he's smiling :)

 We walked about 2 miles down the beach and when we turned around to return home, the clouds began to part and the sun came out! I love cloud formations and thought this one was especially interesting with the dark clouds and blue sky shining through.

 And I'm not sure what the cause, but there seemed to be an abundance of cool shells today. It could have had something to do with the rain, or possibly that there was no beach combing competition (we were the only ones in sight)...whatever the cause I'm not complaining about finding 2 perfectly intact sand dollars!

I guess the morning felt enough like fall that I decided to make soup for dinner and it actually got a little chilly outside as the sun went down.

Every rainy day should end like this...

We may not have a traditional fall (because the leaves on palm trees don't change colors) but I definitely appreciated my hour of rain, beautiful sunny beach afternoon and perfect sunset with chillier air. And I know I won't be complaining about an nontraditional fall when we are having gorgeous fall-like weather in winter!