ROAD TRIP Continued.................

We need to do just a BIT of backtracking from yesterday.

Before the beautiful Sunset......

We went up to Thatcher, which is really only a few miles - maybe 4? - from Safford just to see the new Gila Valley LDS Temple.
 (For those who aren't from around here, that is pronounced "Hee-la".)

It just opened this summer.  We will go back and go inside when we have appropriate clothing - and not on a Saturday because they are pretty busy!  But we wanted to see it.  And maybe you would too....

On Highway 191 out after we left Safford
(taking the Scenic Highway cuz that's the BEST way to travel!)

You come to a town called Morenci.

Now, I know there are a lot of people who don't LIKE openpit mines.... and sometimes they are a bit ugly...

But sometimes, they unearth more of natures beauty....

Case in point?

See the three little dots on the road above the white marshmellow-looking thing on the left?  Those are big, huge, MASSIVE trucks!  The dump beds on them are so huge that a oneton truck could be put in them and have room to spare.  HUGE!

I really wish you could totally capture the breathtaking

colors with a camera..... The colors were so much deeper and richer than they show here...

The small town itself tried to be pretty but it was pretty well dusted with a light reddish gray covering.... I'm sure that's one reason so many who live in those areas end up with lung issues.

And for that, I feel bad.

 I apologize for the blurry shots - the car was moving -

but the colors are still wonderful, aren't they?

And now I must leave for work.....



Stay turned for Part 3!


This way you won't go nuts trying to read a really long blog!


You are welcome!

ROAD TRIP!

ROAD TRIP!

We decided we needed to take a weekend to ourselves so.....

We pulled out the map and decided where in this beautiful AZ

that we now call home would be our destination!

And true to form.....ahem......we had to stop about 1.5 hrs from home!

So this is a shot of just part of the beautiful rock formations around the rest stop!

There were these beautiful flowers along the side of the interstate.

Yep, we stopped!  But I am a law-abiding citizen so we stopped on an off ramp!

Our first destination was to go up to the top of Mt Graham.

We are on the search for another place to camp.

We enjoy Mt Lemmon but the campsites are really steep and a LONNNG way up hills to the 'facilities'....

The picture on the left is the road up to the base of the mountain.

The one on the right is just partway up....the top of

Mt Graham is like 10,000 feet!

We used the Tom-Tom on this trip so we wouldn't get TOO lost...

not really a problem on THIS part of the trip because,

well, there was only one road and it ended up at the top! 

But for giggles, we left Tom-ette on!

This is what she was showing us!  This is just ONE of the major switchbacks on this road! Some corners were only 10 mph and I think that may have been a bit fast! 

See that road down there?  That's where we started....

 I got more pictures going up but I didn't want to bore you! 

Suffice it to say, it was ALL spectacular!

This was one of the campgrounds.  We fell in love!

This is just a covered area - I guess to set up chairs to be out of storms or whatever.... This IS high up so they get lots of rain during the monsoon.  The campground hosts said they got 8" from the storm the week before!

And this is what was behind one of the sites.....

Beautiful, right?  And they said that the week before it was REALLY bubbling and rushing!  But this is fine for me....

A lone quaking aspen at the camp site..... made my hubby a very happy man.  He misses quakies.

Since we didn't bring camping gear, we forced ourselves to continue our journey UP!

Good thing we did! Look at what we found! 

A whole GROVE of quakies!  Be still my Idaho heart...... hubby was getting a bit homesick here at this point...

Can we all just take a moment to appreciate God's handywork?

Are these not beautiful?  I don't know what any of them are but they were all over but this is the only place where I saw them all together in a beautiful group.

Who says you can't put pink, burgandy, orange, yellow and white all together?  God does it!

Continuing on up, we came across this beautiful waterfall.

And we are still in AZ!

I got some video of it and it sounds beautiful but since I can't

get videos to load on here, you will just have to take my word for it!

This is where we ended up.  It's not quite to the top but it was getting late and we didn't bring lunch (dumb, I know!) and the Cheeze-its we had been snacking on weren't cutting it anymore!

This lake is stocked with trout and while we were there visiting with the campground host, he got a bit and pulled in a nice pan-sized trout for dinner!  He said the fishing there is pretty good most all year round - except from December until April when there is snow so they close the road up there. 
Yes, it is green....since they had all the rain then warmer temps, the moss came to the top.  But it was still pretty.  Not big enough for boats, where is just as well because there is NO WAY you could get one up there, I'm thinking!

So we are going to have to go back with our tent, and etc...

along with fishing poles! 

We are so danged excited to have found this place! 

 Only a bit over 3 hours to get there from our home! HEAVEN!

We headed back down the mountain and ate lunch then headed on north towards Showlow AZ...this is the beautiful sunset we drove in to!  Sorry the picture isn't all the clear...we were driving trying to get to town so we could get a motel and settle in for the night.

I will post more later!  The next day was very full! 

Stay tuned for pictures of the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest....not to mention a spectacular open pit copper mine.

  In vivid colors!

But for now....I'll leave you with the beauty of the setting sun....

Good night!

PLAY DATE WITH POPPA

Heidi and her family are back from Chicago!
We are glad - some days they aren't so much.....

They really enjoyed their year-long vacation in Chi-town.

But when they got home, Evan wanted to have a play date with Poppa - just the two of them.

That worked out great because since Poppa drives school bus and school was out......

They got a whole day together!

And this is what they did!

Posing for grammy!

Poppa took pictures for us.... Evan is working on the car that he helped pick out for Poppa for Christmas!

Things have to be just right, ya know....

The box on the couch was from Evan's big boy trains. 

 Poppa's big boy trains were in that green tub and in a couple of

big boxes.  He's been a big boy longer so he has more trains!

His trains were some that he received when he was a boy. 

And they were old then. 

So Evan is very careful with Poppa's trains. 

He understands.......

He and Poppa had to clean the old tracks so they would make better contact.  Evan pulled his weight! 

Poppa was so proud of him.

And sometimes they come off the track and

you have to put them back on.

I came home from work and found track all over my house!

They had so much fun! 

Monsoon is FINALLY here! 7-31-10

This was the sky looking towards where we live about noon.

. 

This is a beautiful sight!

This is what happened!

(Sorry - I've never added a video to my blog before. 
It wouldn't load and I can't delete it!  Now what?   HELP)

Well, if that had WORKED you could have seen what it looks like when it rains and all the water in our yard!  If anyone can help me figure out how to load it, let me know!

And I probably sound like a dork on here but all this lovely rain really makes me happy!

And then we get THIS!

  This is the wash down the street from where we live.

  Normally it is very dry and dusty.

Then we get RAIN! 

Lots and LOTS of rain!
Beautiful lovely rain!

And then we have water in the washes - and on the roads....

Yep, this road is closed!  This water is about a foot deep on the road. 

(See the baracades at the top of the picture? 

We need those so folks don't think it's shallow and "I can make THAT!" and then become a statistic!)

I was standing by a sign that says "If the water is to this sign it is 1 ft deep in the middle" 

(or something to that effect)

That's how I know! 

I didn't walk out into it because

DUH

Fast running water, folks!

They had to do about SEVEN swift water rescues last night.

I didn't want to be one today!

I went around the 'block' and shot this looking east up the Pantano Wash.

This was really deep here!  And fast.

This was on the other side of the bridge looking west.

We live up on the left of the picture.... You can't see the rooftops because of the trees.

(If you click on the picture you can see roof tops that LOOK really close to the water but it is deceptive.)

But we are there!  It is higher ground so we aren't in any real danger.

We hope!

We are so excited to have rain and pray it continues. 

We had a really bad monsoon last year - ie - not much rail.

So BRING IT ON!

We need it!

One of these days I'll get a shot of the washes as they are most of the year

You'll be really surprised!

The trouble the LIST Caused!

Wow, who knew I would cause grief for my dear husband by posting his list! 

 Did I not mention that it was a HONEY DO list?

And NOT the DADDY DO list?

hmmmmmm

So our youngest daughter posted on Facebook that maybe she needed to get a new daddy

cuz she wasn't on his list! 

 And at a family dinner Tuesday night

(when our oldest was in town for a quick trip and I was sick so wasn't there to defend myself........)

My poor hubby was bombarded! 

"None of MY stuff was on your list!"

"You did Brie's fan but my faucet outside is still leaking."

"My porch light is out and it's too high for me to change it and I don't have a ladder!"

"My deadbolt is broken!"

"Better hurry and get Kim and Katie's stuff done before we get back.

I'm sure WE will have stuff that needs done too!"

etc etc etc....

So, I owe my husband an apology for posting his list on my stupid blog! 

Sorry...

He wasn't really mad when he said stupid blog, right?

Anyhoo.....

Brie - who isn't a BLOOD daughter but, what the heck!  -

(She's our oldest daughter's sis-in-law, so that's close enough to get on a daddy do list)

SHE gave him a gift card to HOME DEPOT!  He helped her hubby install a ceiling fan in her home office.

When OUR girls started giving him a lot of grief, he just waved the gift card in the air

and went about feeding our youngest grandson! 

Not saying that the girls have to pay him but...sometimes wheels get greased! 

Not really girls, you don't have to pay daddy.....he just likes to tease! 

Let him play with the grandkids

and give them icecream when their mom's say they don't need more....he'll be ok.

I guess I don't help any.....

I add to the list without even trying!

A couple of days ago.....actually Wednesday......which WAS a couple of days, wasn't it???

Me:  Ya know what I was thinking?

Hubby:  Oh oh, no, now what?

Me:  I was thinking, if we took down part of the AZ room, ya know, to here? (indicating about 1/2 of it)

And then we can have the rest of it as a covered patio. 

Hubby: Ok

Me: Yea!  And we can put the lawn furniture (we inherited a nice table and 4 chairs)

 under it and put misters up and really enjoy our yard!

Hubby: Ya we could.  (Notice lack of enthusiasm here.)

Me:  Well, since the floorboards are rotting out and we have to replace the floor anyway on here

(who uses particle board on a patio floor anyway?!?!  Idiots, that's who....I'm just sayin'!)

It would only take half as much lumber, right?

Hubby: Right.  (He's starting to warm up to the idea now...)

Me:  So, it's just a suggestion, ya know?  We can talk about it more.

I'm not stupid, ya know!  I haven't been married to this man for 40+ years without learning something about negotiation!)

Hubby:  Well, it will have to wait a bit until I can get to it.

Me:  Fine, I was just thinking about it....it can wait a while. (insert grin here!)

So, yesterday, I get home from work and I find that he has started on it!  YEA ME!

SIGH......

then life happens again!  Always that way, isn't it?

We were all tucked away snug in our bed - 11:45 - our DOORBELL rings!

WHAT???

The dogs are barking their freaking heads off!

WAS THAT REALLY THE DOORBELL?

So we jumped out of bed, grabbed robes, etc and went to see who it was. 

ME? I'm super brave, so I open the bathroom window that is close to the front door to see who is there while hubby gets his sweatpants on....... 

Don't know who the guy was but he says....

"You have a really bad water leak somewhere.  The water has flooded your whole yard and is running out into the street and into the wash!"

CRAP!

Yep, there it was....our very own lake....in the middle of the night.....in the middle of our freakin yard!

Seems a board tipped over, hit the timer on our drip system which caused it to rupture! 

I mean, seriously exploded off the water line! 

Water gushing out like a side-ways geyser!

It wasn't pretty folks, let me just tell you!

Plus, remember, it's the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!

Hubby goes out the back door, turns of the water line and says

"Hope I have a plug that will fit that line.  Otherwise you aren't going to get a shower in the morning."

WHAT!  I live in AZ!  I HAVE to have a shower!

Lucky for me, my packrat hubby had a plug that fit! 

 (No more griping about all that crap in his shop that he HAD to move down here from Idaho!)

Put that sucker on, turned the water back on,

had a dish of Rocky Road icecream as a reward for a good nights work,

and we went back to bed!

SIGH..... So, when I get home tonight, I will take pictures of the mess! 

We had boxes of canning jars that were under the porch stacked in the yard.....

they aren't stacked anymore..they tipped over.

So now we have MUDDY WET cardboard boxes full of canning jars in my yard!

And boxes of Christmas decos that may have also been damaged by the lake....

And he can't do anything right now because it is so stinking muddy that if he tried to work out there, he'd be sunk to his knees!  And we'd have even more mess with all the holes in our yard.

So, I don't know what he is doing today.........

Maybe working on the daddy do list?

Maybe not.

Byebye!

THE LIST!

Hubby is off for 7 weeks because of school being out (he's a bus driver), so he wrote this list of things he wants to get done during this time 'off'.  You can't see very well, but he has speedometer, gutter, water system (added to my drip system) and closet crossed off.  You'd think by now (he's been off for abt 3 wks now) he'd have most of that done, right?

Well, guess what, life happens!

Yes it does!

He was sleeping in Friday AM (had trouble sleeping during the night) so I left him sound asleep as I went to work.  He deserved it!  He's been getting up at 6 AM so he could do stuff outside before the triple-digits hit.

So what happens on his ONE day of sleeping in this vacation?

Lots of racket and then bang, the swamp cooler ceases to exist!

NOT good if you are anywhere but here in AZ?

A REALLY bad thing!

So after going out to see what happened, he came back in, ate breakfast and started his day!

On the roof.  Temperature was only supposed to get up to 90 or so which is an improvement but that came with predicted 30+ mph wind!  Wanna be on a roof in that kind of wind?  Me either!

But he did.  The really fun part for him?  Chucking all the broken nasty swamp cooler off the roof and onto the ground!  When I got home, this is what I found.....

Now admit it!  Some of that rust is actually quite pretty, isn't it? 

NOT!

(But some of it is pretty interesting, right?)

Yes, I'm weird!  Let's move on, shall we?

See, when we bought this place 2 years ago this month, he said that we would be really lucky if the cooler made it through THAT summer!  And it did..... with the same prediction for the NEXT summer. 

And for this year too!

Kept on cranking out the cool!

And lovely pieces of rust through the vents every time it came on.  Albeit small pieces!

But when this sucker blew, it blew BIG time! 

As in BIG chunks of rust all over the house - under every vent!

Lovely! 

But he cleaned it almost all up!  Yep, he's a keeper!

On Memorial Day, a friend at the family BBQ (she's family, in a round about way) told us she was getting central air!  She was so excited to get rid of her swamp cooler!  We asked her what she was going to do with it (never pass up an opportunity!) now that she didn't need it.  Well, she was going to sell it.

So we bought it!

We picked it up on Thursday evening -- yep, the night before the total blowout!

How's THAT for timing!

So, this is what he has been doing today......

Yep, I'm pretty sure he's going to be happy I put THIS on there!  But I stood out there for like 5 minutes and this is all he did!  We was hooking up wires, water lines, something!

This is how it looked about 30 minutes ago.

He says he's about done...just has to make sure the water line is working, check on something else,

 (did you know men mumble when the don't think we women are going to understand anyway?

  Yes, they do!)

 then put the rest of it together! 

 I keep making him come in for water.... but it is cool for AZ in June (currently 83) and the wind is blowing a bit so he doesn't think he needs to as much! 

What EVER!  I'm mean......  I'll admit it!

So, now see why his list isn't done?  And this isn't the only thing that has sidetracked him. 

Bet he'll be glad when he goes back to work!

Oh dear.....he came in for water and when I asked him how it was going,

 he said it wasn't fitting quite right so he has to 'figure it out'.......

THAT'S not a good thing.................

So pray for us!  We will need this finished by Monday, when the temps are supposed to be upper 90's!

Collin and the STATE Chess Tournament

Collin is a chess geek!  Yep, he's in Chess Club!  At the ripe old age of 6 and in kindergarden!

And then the club went to state tournaments.  Lucky for all of us, it was here this year!

So, of course, we had to go watch him.

This was a planning meeting - him and daddy.  They thought that maybe the kid he played in the round before maybe made two moves at once so Terry is helping him figure out how to score his card so he could make sure it was all equal.

I think Collin was more excited about getting his own can of Dr Pepper!

  

This was a SERIOUS thing, folks.  There were 563 participants!  K-12

There were chess tables set up ALL OVER the hotel - all the conference rooms! 

These were just for K-1.  I can't remember for sure but I think there were like 8 ?? rows of tables - all for the little kids!  It was ridiculous!  And there were like 10 boards set up in each row?  Crazy!

Here's Collin, all ready with his score card and his board....where's his opponet?  NOOOO where to be seen.  See the glass of water?  She brought that to the table, sat for a minute, put her head on the table like she didn't feel good then got up and went to her mom.  Turns out, she didn't want to play any more!  But Collin had to sit there, watching all the other kids playing while he waited for someone to determine if it was a forfeit or if she was going to come back and play.  She didn't so we didn't get to see him play!  Darn it!

I can't remember what the final results were - he had 4 matches on Saturday and 3 on Sunday.  But his team did well - they each got a participation trophy and Collin got a ribbon!  He was really excited.

We are really proud of him. 

(I wasn't there for the awards ceremony but this is a shot Terry took with his phone.  I should have left the camera with him!  The shot is really blurry but Collin is down in front!  Looking so proud!

But seriously?  Just between us?  Chess is one B.O.R.I.N.G. game! 

 All day long in a hotel lobby?

At age 6?

Who thinks up these things!?

Birds!

We had a nest up in the corner of our back patio. 

I climbed up (on a ladder) to get a picture  on a Saturday evening.  They were soooo cute!

Then Kimi said I was going to make them blind with my flash!  So that's all I took of them.

The next week, I looked and I could only see three and they had feathers and everything! 

When I climbed up to get a closer look, they took off!  They scared me so bad I nearly fell off the ladder.

And ladders are NOT my favorite thing to be on when birds fly at me!  I assume the other two had already flown away.  The next day, we saw one on the tree by the fence in back of our place and momma was feeding him.  Guess I scared them off!  Dang it!  The nest looks sad up there. 

All alone.... empty.

And filled with birdy poop!  Ewwww.....momma wasn't a very good housekeeper!

Easter

We had a fun Easter.  Even though Heidi and crew weren't here and Lawson and Phoebe were recouping from their Chicago trip.  We had a brunch here this year then Collin got to hunt Easter eggs.  He wanted to hide them then look for them.  We convinced him that wasn't how it worked and he had to stay in the house and away from windows while WE hid the eggs!  Silly kid!  He was pretty lonesome, doing this all alone......

We hid one in the green plants - a green one, of course!  It took him and Poppa looking to find it!
(Sorry this is in the middle of the pictures!  I have tried everything I could think of to get the words
UNDER the pictures!) Thanks Heidi!  It helped....... :)

Poppa is evil!  He has been the first to feed Liam all sorts of new stuff.  A cookie when he was just a few weeks old, pieces of popcorn, etc etc.  You get the idea.

Sooooo who gets to be the first to give him the first Peep?  You guessed it!

Poppa

Yep, he liked it!  Of course!  Who doesn't like Peeps?

After naps, we went over to Uncle Jason's parents home for a WONDERFUL dinner and another egg hunt.  Only this time, one of Aunt Kimi and Uncle Jason's friends and their kids were there....so Collin got to hunt eggs again but with other kids.  I think he had more fun doing that!

Collin was so busy running around, I didn't get a picture of him.  But these are the two little girls where were there.  They were so cute!  The youngest tried to wear her basket like a backpack!  It was cute. 

Then Jason's mom, Barb, came out with a big bottle of bubbles and a long bubble wand. 

And then I got distracted and forgot to get pictures of kids! 

These are sooooo cool!

The bubbles were HUGE and so beautiful!  And so relaxing for Barb and I! 

Who can resist bubbles blowing in the wind? 

If I had photoshop, maybe I could have figured out how to get the power lines out of the picture!

So we had a fun Easter with most of our family!  We hope you did too!