T-ball

We spent the day with Lara and the grandkids. It started out early at 8 with t-ball photos, then the game at 10 in between a stop at McDonalds for breakfast. Ken took photos at the game and I took photos at the photo shoot, so this is Jack's official photo for his baseball card. After the game it was time to celebrate Lucas' 2nd birthday. Lucas just loves playing with balls and cars so his birthday cake was a baseball. Mike decorated it with bits of red licorace for the seems. We gave Lucas a car from the movie Cars. We played indoors with the toys and watched some Pink Panther cartoons while Ken and Lara went to Costo.

Ken and I are still fighting our colds, I hope we don't pass it along to the kids.

Valley of Fire

We went to the Valley of Fire State Park today, it is about an hour north east of Vegas. It is a beautiful place. We should have packed a picnic, the granola bars weren't enough today and we should have started earlier. We did only one little hike, there were many petroglyphs along the trail.

There were wildflowers too.

Some of the prickly pears were blooming.

Tomorrow we go to Jack's T-ball game and a birthday party for Lucas who is now 2.

This morning I called Cheryl to wish her a Happy Birthday, she said it was only 38 back home.

This is a little short today, I am tired and Ken is waiting for the Internet devise.

The visit

Yesterday, I was up early like 4 am as the construction site next door started work then. You can see the building site in my last blog entry. This morning wasn't quite as early or noisy. But I now have a little sinus congestion maybe it's all the dust. Ken is still fighting his. Yesterday the kids came over and saw our home on wheels, Boo was the only socialable cat.

It was a hard day for Lara as she put her cat Jake, 18, down. Chloe said Jake is now in heaven with the other cats.

We went over to Sam's Town yesterday for breakfast at the McDonald's there and we will go over and try the restaurant breakfast today. We have a coupon booklet for Sam's which they gave us when we checked in. Our neighbor visited a little and told us he gets compted his site rent. He told us to ask for a card, but we don't gamble much, we only put in $3 yesterday morning so it problaby won't help us.

Made it to Vegas

We left Williams around 10:30 this morning, we had to let the batteries charge up so we could raise the jacks. Ken just doesn't know what is going on with our electric system. At least the motorhome started so we could charge things up. Here's some of the scenery on the way to Laughlin, NV. There were some wildflowers along the way and the Joshua trees (I think they are Joshua) were blooming too. Hopefully we will get out to get some photos of them.

We got to Vegas around 3. Poor Boo was car sick and I had to clean up his carrier, I guess we should look into dramine for cats. Here we are parked at Sam's Town Casino RV, it was almost full and I'm sure it will be by the end of the week ,we were lucky to get in. We did see other RV parks nearby we'll have to check them out next time. We are here for two weeks.

Here's Grandpa with Chloe, Jack and Lucas. They are watching the movie Bee, it was good. Lara made dinner for us, Mike works, I believe, 1 to midnite at the Las Vegas Review Journal so he was at work. Ken is tired and still suffering from sinus so he hit the sack early.

On the road

We have left AJ not without problems, the battery was dead so we couldn't get the motorhome started. With the help of nice nieghbors with a charger we got on the way around 11 am. We made it to Williams AZ around 3:30, we are staying the nite at the Canyon Gateway RV park, it has rocky sites but the people are nice. We will head out for Vegas in the morning. Ken still is under the weather, hope he is feeling better tomorrow. I can tell he is tired and not well when he forgets which buttons to push to get things going although it has been a long time since we were on the road. We didn't extend all our slides tonight, just the bedroom so it feels tight. It may get down close to freezing tonight too but it is nice right now.

Here is a photo taken while we were driving to Flagstaff, pretty huh! We had a nice Easter with my Mom. She made too much food, so she packed up half of it for us to take.

The orange blossoms were spreading their fragrance though the air in Mesa, such a beautiful smell. Spring and the orange blossoms nothing better!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter

From 4catsandus

It's going to be a beautiful and warm weekend, almost 90 degrees here in AJ, AZ. We will be having Easter dinner with my Mom. She has decided to fix dinner rather than going out.

Ken is having sinus problems, I thought AZ was to help sinus but it may be allergy related.
Here are a few of the dogs of Meridian RV park, click on photo to enlarge. There is a cat there too, we have seen several cats on leashs, I bet our cats would like to get out and visit with the dogs! Ha! Ha!

Yesterday, we visited the Phoenix Desert Botancial Garden, they had a butterfly house too (here til May). So we have photos of flying flowers too. (We saw a western swallowtail fly over the motorhome this morning.)

Last nite, we used the washer/dryer in our motorhome for the first time. We've been having sewer gas sepping in and Ken thought it was coming up through the washers drain pipe as it didn't have any water in it to stop it. I hope it took care of the problem. The washer shimmies the motorhome when it is in spin, but the cats weren't afraid as I thought they might. In fact, the washer is quiet and uses very little water but does take a long time to do a very small load.

We hope you all have a nice Easter and the bunny is good to you all!

Happy Birthday to Cloe who is 4 today and a happy Birthday to Elaine whose birthday is on Easter!!!!

Sun Screen

Today we had a sun screen made up for the front windsheild of the motorhome. The guy comes out to measure and sew it up right here in the park. We can see out but you can't see in but I think we will still need the curtains closed to keep out the hot sun out down here.
Ken played golf this morning, the last time with the park guys. I stayed and waited for the sunscreen guy. Mom surprised me and brought me some breakfast and we sat out and watched him work. That was nice of her!
Tonight Madamma Butterfly is on PBS and I'm sort of listening to it now. It is my BF favorite opera. The lieutent is cute. It has very sparse staging.
We've been watching about all the bad weather going on in the midwest, it doesn't sound good with flooding and snow. When will it straighten out?

Work day

It was cleaning day today,Ken washed down the motorhome, I did some cleaning inside and the did the laundary. I thought the moon was beautiful tonight so here it is for you.

Spring is here!! It was 80 here, I hope it was a beautiful day for you too.

It's warm again

We got out yesterday to see if the flowers were still blooming after the cold and windy weekend. Ken decided to drive up to the end of Idaho road to see the view from there. Here it is. There's beautiful views everywhere here in AJ. We walked up the trail there for bit but decided to go to Bulldog trail where the poppies are instead. At Bulldog the poppies were still blooming a little worn but still pretty. We found 4 new flowers to take photos of too. They are tiny things so Ken gets the photo and he got them in detail too with all their little fuzzies. Too bad you don't get to enjoy his photos!!

We have only 5 days left here and we have had so much fun hiking and photographing the flowers this year I hate to leave. The cactus ought to be beautiful too when they bloom later in April. We checked out a few other parks yesterday for next year and so far this park seems to fit us well it's a little high but it is clean and roomy and we really don't use the amenities except for hiking and golf.

I see Ken turned on our heating system last night instead of reling on our electric heater. He got the electric bill Mon. and thought it a little high, they charge $20 every mo to deliver the electric to you the total bill was $65.

Awake, thou wintry earth

Fling off they sadness!

Fair vernal flowers; laugh forth

Your ancient gladness.

Thomas Blackburn

spring around the corner

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king

Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring.

Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing.

Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

Thomas Nash Here are a few of the wildflowers we have captured in photos (click on photo to enlarge).

We haven't been out the last couple of days, as it is a little cooler, and we had a few rain drops yesterday and this morning. I had breakfast this morning with Mom and her friends and Ken played golf with the park golfers. We then went out for Corned Beef and Cabbage in celebration of St Paddy's Day, Mom and I enjoyed it Ken had BLT.

Our steps we learned had drained our main battery so Ken had to charge it up, live and learn with these motorhomes.

We also decided to get new sheets for our Sleep Number bed, ours kept pulling up, so we found that sheets now are made with deeper corners for the big mattresses. I haven't put them on yet.

Happy St. Paddy's Day

It's not quite the 17th yet but I'd like to wish everyone a fun and safe St. Patrick's Day. The weather is changing for the weekend, windy, cooler and maybe some rain. Ken is trying to find out why our steps aren't working this morning. Hopefully, he will figure it out and it is something simple.
I sent for the CD of the song New Soul, from the Apple commercial and it has only 2 songs on it, what a disappointment that was but I have the song.
I can't believe we have only a week left here, time sure flies. I believe we will head to Vegas next to visit grandkids.
Ponderment fodder
Did you ever notice: The Roman Numerals for forty (40) are "XL".

More flowers

I would like to welcome two new readers to my blog, hope you enjoy keeping up with our adventures and misadventures ( I'll post a few more pics of grandpa).
Not all flowers in the desert are yellow, I took these photos on the Bulldog Trail north of AJ you can see the Superstitions on the other side of these boulders. (We hiked up and over those boulders). :)

Here is Grandpa taking his photos.

We now have my Mom connected with the internet, hope she enjoys it.

Ponderment Fodder

Did you ever notice: when you put the 2 words "The" and "IRS" together it spells "Theirs"?

Silly Mtn

Just another beautiful day here in AJ, temp was 84. A good day for a little hike and see some flowers. Silly Mtn is just covered with these brittlebrush flowers plus some globe mallow and lupines.

Here's tonight's sunset!

I am glad I can still share these beautiful sights with you all as Sat. I dropped my camera and a small piece broke off holding the batteries in, so it is now held together with duct tape. The miracle tape!!

Park Dog show

Yesterday there was a dog show in the park, we happened to be around and took a few photos. Here's one of the cuties.

Today, Ken was a little under the weather, altho the weather was perfect, so I walked over to another park and checked out their art show. Wow, what nice work they had! Makes me want to pull out my watercolors and give some of my photos a try. Later, I did laundary and I had live entertainment to listen to. The park had a program and dinner, so I got in on the entertainment, she was quite good sounded a little like Patsy Cline. Ken is much better tonight so we plan on playing golf tomorrow with the park. Mom needs alittle more instruction on her computer so we will help her with that also.

Peralta Trail

Another gorgeous day in AJ, temp 74. Ken wanted to hike the Peralta Trail, he wanted to see Weavers Needle up close and we did. I upgraded my hike comfort from easy to moderate to do this trail, I wanted to quit a couple of times since I don't like heights and narrow rocky trails but I made it. It took us 3 hours to get up to see the Needle and 2 hours to hike down.

We saw a couple of new wildflowers on this trail but the poppies were few. I enjoy the flowers it makes a hike worth while.

I'll see how sore my muscles will be tomorrow.

Another Birthday Wish

Aging seems to be the only way to live a long time!I would like to give a special person a special birthday wish

On this her 95th

Happy Birthday Mimi

Birthday

It was a little cooler this morning, Ken even started up the electric heater for a bit, but it reached 73 and was a beautiful day.

It was my mother's birthday today, so we took her out to lunch at the restaurant over looking Saguaro Lake. She was given a free strawberry sundae for her birthday! I think I had most of it though.

We took a drive to see the wildflowers and we stopped at one of the off road drives to take a few photos.

We then checked out the McDowell Casino and drove through Fountain Hills.

I gave her some books written by Maud Lovelace an author who grew up in the Mankato area. i hope she had a nice day, we did.

Out hiking

We had cooler day today and a little windier but temp was 76. We hit a few golf balls the course was busy so we couldn't get on. They are always busy till the end of March and we don't plan ahead to make a tee time. We are sometimes lucky to walk on but not today. I would rather hike and look for wildflowers anyway. We can always play golf but the wildflower display is rare. So headed up to the end of Meridian to the trailhead there and took off.

This is the top of one of the saddles. Of course, most of the poppies were not by the trail!!

Going down, I'm getting better at this hiking.

Yesterday, we spent the day with Mom, breakfast and arts and craft show at Sunland then a ride to Superior. We went over downloading her photos on her computer with her then went to Organ Stop Pizza, we went early and got a front row seat.

A Happy Birthday to Ken's Grandson Jack!!!