Cruising

Cruising is the best! After a busy two weeks at work, then a wonderful Thanskgiving, we headed for the ocean blue. Everything has been wonderful.

Richard won 500 internet mintues so here I am. Ship internet is always slow.
The food is wonderful, we have lots of pictures to upload later. The weather has been wonderful. and the best part ---we arent at work. In fact we were on board 3 days before a work day even rolled around. No Christmas decorations up. They do that next week.

We are heading back now with 2 sea days. And of course more food. Hope you all are doing great!

It's almost cold

The mornings are nice. I was so tired of the heat. But the temp dives so fast at this time of year. During the day I have windows open, but some mornings I've had to wait a few hours since it was just too chilly. Where are the mid 70's?????? You know that comfortable weather.
And what long pants and jackets did I use to wear ??

Things are busy here as I try to get ready for Thanksgiving. Both my tables are fully opened and ready to set. I hope to do that this weekend. I love walking by and seeing them in holiday mode.

Work is insane. Busier than busy. To break the stress I went out to lunch with Randy yesterday, ah yes it did the trick , much stress released, nice change of pace. Then when I get back my fellow co-worker says oh by the way we just found out mrs Jones has an appt tommorrow that some how fell off the calendar. Ack... firedrill mode again. Fit her in, get her reports lined up, and then get back to the already too busy schedule. It's a good thing vacation is coming up. Oh wait when I go on vacation I have to work harder the 2 weeks before :/

Halloween Fun

Our 1st Halloween in our Chandler house. In our past homes we have had 6-15 trick or treaters, so we found out that in this neighborhood we might have close to 100. Wow need more candy!!!. But we are finally in a neighborhood with lots of kids coming. We love it!

We were both off Friday and had fun getting the front porch ready. Then we camped out in the front living room with the TV and waited for the door bell to ring, and it did at a very steady rate from 6-8pm. Lots of cute kids and costumes. We went thru 1 1/2 big bowls of candy. But before it was gone we scooted off to Randy and Paula's Halloween party.

It was awesome, Lots of great props and decor.

Everyone dressed up and Marc and Pam as Spy Vs Spy won the best original costume. Notice the Dynamite and bomb in their hand. All the food was halloween/Spooky themed and let me tell you although it was quality food, and freshly made the titles and scary presentation made you think twice before indulging.

Everyone had a good time.

Time Flys By

Wow we are seriously into Fall, yet it is still 90 degrees. That kind of robs the full joy of Fall. But Fall for some reason is one of my favorite times of year. I love the crisp air...well that is harder to find in Arizona, the fall colors, pumpkins, Thanksgiving and family time.

Working so many hours makes the days and weeks fly by. I have to really think about getting other things done too.
Then-Can you believe it :

• Last year at this time we sold our house and started packing.
• This coming month Alana will be 5 yrs old
• My sister Mimi now lives close by (instead of Calif.)
• I can work for a company in Tucson right out of my home!

Ok enough eye opening things. Hope you enjoy this time of year too. Now if we could just find a pile of leaves to go kick our way thru!

Free Tickets

Last weekend we got to do alot of free things. I had 2 free tickets to the Home show which we roamed around for a short while. We went to a free wine tasting there, and then part way thru our journey, Laura called and offered us some awesome Diamondback tickets.

Some guy came in their station and handed them off at 3pm and the game was at 5pm. We were lucky to get those, excellent seats and since we were already at the home show , we really didnt need to drive more than 5 miles to Laura's station to pick them up.

It was team photo night so we got a slew of the team's pictures (another freebie) .

Another offer they had going was free Diamondback T-Shirts with a new subscription to the Arizona Newspaper. Since I have been wanting to subscribe we went for that too!

Now and then it is nice to get great offers!
Tonight is OctoberFest, we have been looking forward to this - it should be lots of fun!

Happy Anniversary Don & Stella

We enjoyed a nice dinner at Rigatony's for Don & Stella's 6th anniversary. Ralph and Mimi, Denny and I all went Sunday afternoon. They used gift certificates from Christmas that they had been saving for a special occasion.(Thanks Randy and Paula for that they loved it) It was our 1st time there. The food was great.

Hectic

So much happening, last weekend was busy, a wedding in Tucson..that was nice.

When we came home Lady was gone. oh no! flyers made and a few calls, scan the neighborhood. OK the pound was called. So Randy was nice to retrieve her on Monday, thanks Randy.

Then the internet and phone went out. Ok plan B go to Paradise Bakery to work on free wi/fi. Not too bad ,but I picked the hard chair.
Tuesday morning a quick trip to Mimi's for Secure wi/fi. Made a few trades then came home. The Qwest truck was near our street, ahhh there is the problem. Ok they promise to fix it fast. Good cause I cant work with out it!
Today went much better, but looking forward to the weekend .

Oh and how is it that 95 degrees feels so much better? Wow I can really tell a difference, but 95 is still hot. I'm hoping all the 100's - 115's are gone now. I love Fall and so glad that we can almost see it! Can't wait to put my pumpkins out!!!

Sept 1 and labor day weekend

I love 4 day weekends. Just the though of it made me happy.

So with both of us having 4 days off we decided to paint one the of the bedrooms that still needed painting. The guest room is now a hot chocolate color, mmmm... with a splash of darker chocolate. I love the main color and how it will accent the red, white and blue decor. We've BBQ'ed and went to the church Fireworks - Sat night , quite a nice display. so today is more on the relaxing side.. although Denny , Marc and Randy went hunting this morning, so we were up pretty early. They look pretty good for 4:30 am.

This week is my ING convention, which I always enjoy, well I've only been to one other , but it was still a great time.

August Post I 'm Late! - Peach Picking

.

We had fun peach picking. Alana came and really enjoyed it. Marc and Pam, Randy and Paula, and 2 other friends were also having fun. Here we are being that Farmer couple that look very serious standing next to their pitch fork...OK it was hard to be serious!!!

New In N Out

So therer is a new In N Out 2 miles from where we live. That is great... or maybe not.
I went today for lunch, it is so close and since there are other In N Out's around , it wasn't very crowded.
Wow in Tucson the 1st one , and only one until we left, was a 1 1/2 hr wait for two weeks!!!! Any time of day. Ok well Im sure it was better as time went on. It was good today and fun to see all the new employess with not much to do. They have many extra workers I think so they can learn.

Also tonight , right across the parking is a Chic- Fil -A, that was offering free chicken sandwiches 5- 8 pm , if you brought in your smart shopper card from TV 15. Ok we skipped that one. But it was tempting.
This weekend Im going to Tucson for a Bridal shower and my sweetie is going camping and fishing in the white Mtns with our old Trout group.

Beach vacation and weddings

June 27 , we began our vacation, right on Marc and Randy's birthday. We drove to San Diego , then explored a little, flew to Sacramento the next morning for John Collins wedding. On the way we visited the State Capital, the Railroad museum and a very lovely green park with a little pond in the middle.

The wedding was very nice. I can hardly believe those Collins boys are so grown up. Becky had a ball dancing the night away.

Here is a happy moment for the bride and groom.

Next we flew back to San Diego for our timeshare week. It was cool but that is ok. We relaxed and decompressed very nicely. July 4th was a bit foggy all day, but we went between the green and the sand all day long.

We couldn't see fireworks this year, because the fog was too thick. Oh well , they will be even more special next year.

Garden Veggies are great

We inherited the neatest garden bed, so of course we had to use it!
These carrots came up on their own. They are a little pudgy, but were really sweet. Lately we have pulled out green onions, that Stella was so kind to plant in our 1st weeks here. I planted several other things. We have a cherry tomato plant that is going wild. Which has worked out nice since the tomato scare. We have picked 1 cucumber, I got 2 1/2 okra, which I picked , sauted with some of our onions and tomato. It was yummy. I know none of you like okra, but I do and fresh was really good.
I just picked a quart container of Basil, which I hope to make pesto out of. A green chili plant popped up and it has 2 chili's. The squashes are lagging, they are quite small. The Rosemary and oregano that Marc and Pam gave me for Mother's Day are doing pretty well even in this hot , hot weather.
Oh and by the way when the grapes are ripe everyone gets some! we have tons and ton of them.
By the way in Az when do grapes ripen????? They are very green right now and still small.


Things coming up for us.....the Beach !! The most looked forward to week in the year.

Craig's List Is wonderful

We have had a very successful Memorial Day weekend. We listed our extra bed on Craig's list and Bam...2 hours later it was out of the garage. Then we got things in order , unpacked many, many boxes, and also brought some boxes in the house to get our cars in the garage.

By Monday we had lots of boxes and thought let's try Craig's List again. Bam 10 calls in a hour. Of course the boxes were free so that helped.

BUT the best news is we got 1 car in the garage yesterday and today we had both cars in the garage. That is wonderful, it is getting to hot to let those new cars stay out every day.

More work and more work

Now that the kitchen is done you would think life is easy. Well we are still at work every day (but that is a good thing!!!) And the boxes are still getting unpacked. We have put a good sized dent in un packing them -the garage looks hopeful to park two cars by the end of the month.
We have ordered a spa which needs pretty special electrical...which is taking up more of our time.
I am settling into a good daily routine working from home. But Denny still has very little work at his place of employment... At least they keep paying him, the work load should increase soon.
I had a very , very nice mom's day. I loved the flowers and herbs , and gift card I got. Then we went to see Iron Man , oh I was surprised...it was really good. It also was the 1st time we had been to the movies in many months, so that was good too! We have a nice Harkins theater right in our little corner... Gilbert and the 202 , we call it our little corner cause so many great stores are there and we are so close to them!

Time Flys

Wow , I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted a blog. Life is a crazy pace right now. So what has happened in the last month.?
We have picked cabinets and granite and they have been installed...well the granite comes in two days!!! Right now we have no oven or sink. We tore out the whole kitchen and changed electrical and patched drywall.
Did you hear about the roving refridgerator??? The one that came with the house went to Marc & Pam's, but alas it didn't fit there kitchen opening, so it came back to our house. Then Christi thought it would be good at her house, so we quickly got it there and thought at the last minute , oh her fridge would work well at Marc and Pam's. We played musical refridgerators that night, but in the end everyone was happy. Except maybe Don, who did alot of work and got no refridgerator or anything :(
Next our cabinets came in. They are wonderful!!
And guess what our refridge didn't fit the opening...It is fat & not square, or side level! Ok so tommorrow the cabinet guy will fix the opening so it isn't so narrow.

Dad installed under counter lighting this last Saturday... it was way more work than we thought. But they look great.
I'm glad we aren't moving or remodeling anything else for a long , long time!!!

Our 1st week at work in the Phx area

So we both just finished our 1st week. Mine took a day or so to get used to, even though the work is the same. I have a helper at the office who can gather the printed paperwork and attach it to the clients physical file for Jim's meetings. Only on friday did I have a problem. Everyone had left the office for the day, I had to scan and e-mail a client something he asked for. I couldnt figure out how to send it to him with out using my personal e-mail. So I sent him some info from work e-mail and said I was having difficulty with the anaylsis and would send it to him on monday. What can happen Monday, I'll print the piece, have Emily stick it in the scanner, then from my work e-mail I can send it. I have a printer/scanner here at home, but didnt know how to send it back thru work e-mail.
So for Dad,-- his week went well. The 1st day it only took him 45 min to get to work. We thought it would take an hour. He is reading alot of procedure, but now he is getting to do some actual work. Laura and Alana came to visit him and they got to see his desk and the facility. This small office seems great about Flex hours , so that will be nice. They even gave him a laptop to bring home so there is potential to work from home. That would be awesome...not fighting the traffic one day a week or so.
Today we will look at some new cabinets and granite. I'd like to get that done quickly.
Then the grass is growing and needs mowing....Home Depot Loves us !!!! (we have no mower yet!)

No More Tucson

We live in Chandler now. No longer residents of Tucson. Wow we were there 14 years. Tommorrow I start work from home. I think it will go well, if I can get my desk to feel comfy. I'm using the L shaped desk now and the left side feels confining. My arm chair doesn't fit as well as Denny's did. But My desk is on order and I have a new 19 inch monitor. So i should get distracted with that!

We have a house, so painting comes next

This weekend with Friday off we began painting the new house. When i first walked in to the empty house, I thought Oh I love this house!!! Any way little by little family kept showing up and picked up a brush to help. We had a great time and not to many mishaps.

Everybody got a little chance to paint.


















We were so grateful for all the help. We transformed the masterbedroom from dark blue and light blue to more warm tones of pumkin and pale spice. The white is primer. Then Paula painted the laundry room with a little help from Laura, Alana, and Randy.

Apartment Life

So we are two months into our 3 month stay. for the most part it hasn't been bad. It is temperary.
For parking the car I got the one covered carport spot. But my sweetie has to fend for himself among a few unclaimed spots.
I don't think we had a neighbor by our bedroom wall til recently. But now you can hear this guy snoring right thru the wall. Not really loud , but loud enough. So we are using our projection alarm clock that also comes with nature sounds. So one night we put on the rainforest, one night the summer crickets, we should try the ocean sound we will think we are on vacation.
We don't see too mny of the same people, but in the morning you can hear alot of little doggies barking 'let me out'.

I think we are in a pretty safe area, off the beaten track. We even have a very nice mountain view from the parking lot. The worst seems to be the internet connection. We have DSL and I imagine the phone lines are old. It goes off several times a day.
oh well , it won't be long now!!!
We move in the new house March 1 We are ready!!!!

We found a house

We made a choice as hard as it was!!! We wanted a nice house , a nice neighborhood for a cheap price!! OK , that is impossible. Even in this market. We searched all over the internet. Thru 100+ listings our realtor sent us, looked at around 30 homes. The one we liked the best is on Kempton Rd. We put an offer in and after a few back and forths we came to an agreement. We met them too. They are a nice young growing family. They just had twins 10 weeks ago. They have 2 other children as well.I'll try to post some pics, if I can figure out how.