As I have said a few times, most of the time the sky is so blue in Arizona, but today is one of those days where blue sky is hard to find. I know those of you in MN that put up with gray after gray after gray are not shedding any tears for us here….after all we do get at least a peak at the sun. Not to long for you in MN before the blue skies come back and the sun will great you each day.
BYH
So if you read my past posts you know about my new saying that I am still trying to figure out how to use – “Bless Your Heart” and you all know the story behind it. This is my BYH update for today….
My friend from CHR, Michelle, was traveling in Dallas last week and saw this (don’t you love it!!) and thought of me — see how the BYH is spreading across the US!! Thanks for thinking of me, Michelle!
So in trying to spread BYH to the masses…LOL…this week I was talking to a woman on the phone back in Minneapolis placing an order. She told me that I had such a nice friendly voice and said sometimes people were not so nice on the phone. So I preceded to tell her about BYH, and she laughed and said I cannot wait to use it on my next really crabby customer on the phone. The beauty of that phase is that people may not understand the full implication of it, and it is even more beautiful on the phone because they cannot see your facial expressions!! So remember if you are ordering something from someone on the phone in Minneapolis and she ends the conversation with BYH, you know you crabby that day!!
Phoenix
This past weekend we were in the Phoenix area for 4 days, actually Tempe. We rented an AirBNB house which worked out great since it was about the same cost as a hotel, but we had the full house that was pet friendly and we could keep Max at the house while we ran errands or went to the gatherings we had planned.
Friday we went to dinner with Dave and Karen Hanson. They had lived at Woodsong our summer place from a few years back. Like us they stayed there for the summer. Turns out they actually sold their place at Woodsong in September and will be staying in AZ full time now. I thought I got a picture at dinner, but I messed that up…but this is David standing in their backyard — they have a grapefruit tree and then this amazing orange tree!! Doesn’t that just look great!! They are coming in season right now, so Dave said they will soon pick the tree fully and then can or freeze orange juice from the tree. The grapefruit they just try to give away as much as they can!!
Saturday was the Carefree winter gathering. Our summer place in Big Lake (Carefree) always has a winter gathering in AZ, and also in FL. We went to the AZ one last year and then again this year. It is always fun to see our summer friends in the middle of the winter. And since MN was having quite the snow storm that weekend, there were a lot of sharing pictures from back home and all the snow. Here is the group — the MC tells great jokes and in the summer he does a comedy show that is a full fundraiser for the park!
Saturday night we had one of our old neighbors from Brooklyn Park come over and have a good visit. We had not seen Michele Liggett in over 25 years. We tried to arrange a dinner with her last year when we were in Phoenix, but it just did not work. So when I knew when we were going there this year, Michele was the first person I contacted to hopefully give her a selection of days that would work out for her. Michele and her sister, Monica, were like our extended kids when we lived in Brooklyn Park. We took quite a few adventures with them in one of the many family vans we owned. We would usually head out some place Saturday mornings and come back late in the day. State Parks were one of our favorite destinations and hopefully all of the kids had some great memories from those days. This is Michele, with David and of course, Max!
Sunday we met Carol and Tom Dreon for a later breakfast. We bought our place in Big Lake (501) from Carol and Tom so we do keep in touch with them since we purchased the place. Of course, in Big Lake when we tell people where we live there, we often hear “Carol and Tom’s place”…so people still think of Carol and Tom. It was fun to catch up with them — Carol and I are also friends on Facebook so we kind of keep in the loop with each other via social media and texts!
Back at the house we rented, you may or may not know, when we lived in Corcoran we had an in ground pool. Max loved to go swimming in that pool and often would purposely push one of his balls over the edge so he could have an excuse to jump in and swim to get the ball. Well, the pool here was too cold for us to enjoy and I thought as I saw the signs to make sure to keep an eye on your kids, I thought they should add dogs to that sign too. I had to keep telling him NOT to jump in the pool!
MN Snow
I know those of you in MN had a weekend of snow and cold!! Jaxen is going to start his own company shoveling sidewalks in St. Louis Park!!
But he is also sure to supervise the St. Louis Park plow drivers to make sure they are doing their job as good as he would expect!
I know many of the adults decided to prepare by going grocery shopping in advance of this big Snowmagedon to make sure you did not run out of any supplies during the long weekend. Erin and Emily also kept busy — Emily playing cards with Bella the dog and Erin whipping up a great cake for dessert for their snowed in meal.
And Jermar and Jaxen enjoying a basketball game together.
Sounds like the storm was not quite as bad as everyone expected!
Animals
I am trying to observe different animals that I see around here. I have written a few things about the Javelinas already. But I did buy a Birds of Arizona book and am trying to identify the unique ones I see. Today I saw what I believe is a Red-Naped Sapsucker. I even took out the binoculars so I could compare what I was seeing to what was in the book and I am 90% sure that is what I saw. Such fun to see the colors of this bird!!
One Last Word
So there is a certain someone that I share this adventurous life with that told me today he was just catching up on my blog and was thinking that he hardly saw that he was mentioned….except when I talked about his crazy obsession with the GPS!! 🙂 He probably should be thankful that I don’t pick on him more. But David is the one that can make me laugh and we do when we experience something crazy…you know…where it seems funny after it is all over. He did tell me that he found some spelling errors in my blog – I told him that he needs to keep reading backwards and found the blog where I told everyone of my readers that I often just type letting the words flow and may not catch incorrect words or spelling errors and that is just part of the delight of reading my blog!! LOL He understands that now. 🙂 But I would not be on this journey without him — we certainly have our good days and our bad days, but hopefully the good outweigh that bad! We would not have 3 beautiful children and 4 fantastic grandchildren, and by way of our children, 2 wonderful DIL’s and 1 great SIL without each other together through this journey. So David, I hope this lets you know that I love you to the moon and back and if I did not pick on you, you would not know how much I love you.
TIFN
Dandy Ventures 