Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Well, here it is our first Christmas away from friends and family. We won't lie, it was tough!! We got through it with phone calls and web cams and it was nice to see and hear familiar voices again.
Most of you will laugh to hear we went and found a pizza place for our holiday meal. It was a place called Famous Ray's.
We've never eaten there before and drove past an open grocery store and found the pizza place only because numerous cars were parked in the parking lot. Come to find out the owners were transplanted from the New York area. It was extremely difficult to understand them because their East Coast Accent was thick. The pizza was awesome & we enjoyed ourselves.

We were able to get the Infamous Grinch from Truman Ave in Owatonna, MN erected and let him check out the new digs. Let's just say he enjoyed the weather!

Also the Penguin had scoped out his area and claimed his squatting rights. He made a fabulous addition to our festive Christmas decor and the neighbors loved it!
We hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas and we miss you all!

P.S. Santa stopped by and dropped off a shiny new present!

Too Close For Comfort!!

The pictures below tell the tale of a hot air balloon that came extremely close to our house. The balloon was so close to the ground that DW could hear the people talking, see them waving to those on the ground and hear the "whoosh" as the pilot turned on the burner. Our dog Muncie, did NOT appreciate the balloon so close and barked at it while Phoebe, "the Princess", did not consider it important enough to acknowledge.



We see these hot air balloons at least 3 times per week from our back patio, but have never seen them so close to our house.
We can just imagine the view that those inside the gondola get while enjoying the ride! Maybe Santa made an early delivery?

Update 12-22-07

Merry Christmas!! Here it is another weekend and DH was working at West World again.
DW brought DH lunch today & DH gave DW the latest tour of the site in his golf cart. Today we were lucky enough to see how one of the big car tents gets put up. AMAZING to see.
DH asked the supervisor (Mike) if it's dangerous setting these up? Mike said it's VERY dangerous. If a gust of wind were to hit, everyone under the tent would scatter. Basically he said it's like shaking the dirt off a rug.
Once the waves start rippling across the tent, the poles get strewn and tossed about as if you threw a box of matchsticks in the air.
Luckily today was a calm day and nobody got hurt.

We also were treated to something both of us have never seen, a full on Polo match that was indescribable. West World has two Polo fields. When Barrett-Jackson has the auction, the tents you see above are actually set-up on one of them.
It was simply amazing to see the grace and skill of both the jockey and horse work together as one. Something we will never forget.

We wish each and everyone of you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Update 12-17-07

Well, here it is, another week under DH's belt at Barrett-Jackson. DH worked both Saturday and Sunday in preparation of the up-coming auction. Without going into much detail, here are some current photos of the site progress.
The additional tenting that gets added to the main tent is just about finished as you can see below.

The site is transforming quickly. The office is now relocated to the auction site. The tents are up on the Polo fields where a majority of the cars being auctioned are kept. These are the photos shown below.

As time permits, DH will take photos when he can and post them on here for all to see.
DH is having the time of his life while learning many new things! DH can hardly believe the logistics involved behind the scenes to pull this auction off! Incredible!!!
We hope all are doing well and we miss all of you.

Update 12-09-2007

Hey everyone, we apologize for the lapse in postings.
It has been crazy busy here! DH has started his new job and is loving every minute of it. It's crazy to see behind the scenes of the greatest collector car auction in the world.
DH has been working crazy hours and YES weekends if you can believe it!

Here is an aerial photo showing the site as it was last year. In the upper left corner with all the tents is the actual auction site. All cars you see are from the people that attend the auction, not the cars that cross the auction block.
Saturday, DW brought lunch to DH at Westworld and DH gave her the tour of the site as it is today.
Here are some photos showing the progress. Granted the auction is now only 34 day's away. DH anticipates his hours getting longer and longer.
Not to worry though, this has been a dream for DH for many many years. His dream has come true and he is absorbing everything he can.

Here is a photo showing the main tent where the cars cross the auction block. The tent color has changed this year because a weather system came through and destroyed parts of the shell after last years auction. If you try and relate the photo from the photo above, this replaces the tent that had the American flag on it.

This is the view of the mountains from the auction site. Granted, this was taken early in the morning on Saturday when we had rain moving across the area.
YES, it does rain here in AZ!
DH has seen this with full sun and it's absolutely breath taking.

Here is a current photo of the main tent as it sits right now. Many more additions of tenting will be added in the up-coming days.
This is where it all happens. Hard to believe the auction is just a few weeks away.
I can't wait to see it all come together and hear the famous last words: Sold, Sold, Sold!
What an adventure!!!

Turkey Day!

Well here it is, our first Arizona Thanksgiving. It was a GREAT success! Our friends Dale and Sherri arrived early Thursday morning about 2:30 a.m. because the plane leaving MSP had an "unscheduled maintenance problem". It was so great to see familiar faces again!
DH & DW had gone to a local grocery store that was offering a full Thanksgiving dinner for 6 people that you could order to pick up the day before. We ordered our dinner so we didn't have to take a whole day of our guest's short vacation preparing the meal. We know this was taking a chance, but it turned out wonderfully. Here is a photo of our delightful meal.

We gobbled up our fix'ens and had some wonderful wine and conversation catching up on the hometown gossip! It was great to hear familiar names and places.
Friday, we traveled to our favorite people watching place, Kierland Commons in Scottsdale, to allow Dale & Sherri to see how the "other half" in Arizona live. Dale & Sherri say they come from the town of Mayberry and were amazed to see the surroundings.
Here's a photo of Dale & Sherri in front of a Rolls Royce. It was one of many "EXPENSIVE" vehicles that are present in the area. We also ran across a Lamborghini and a very nice Bentley.

We walked around the area and checked out a few of the shops. One shop we walked into had a fabulous Christmas tree that DH & DW had to have a photo with. We thought it was beautiful.
With Christmas right around the corner, this tree was a reminder to us of how important friends and family are. Thanks again Dale & Sherri, for it was your love and support and the same from many others that allowed us to chase our dreams. We thank all of you!

While walking around, we ran across a sharp dressed "IMPORTANT" lady who was dressed to the hilt. She had a Teacup Maltese named Coco Chanel. Now, how many people do you know who name a dog after a brand name!!?? She was a very friendly lady and her dog was adorable! DH asked if DW could have her photo taken with Coco and the lady said absolutely! She set her bag down, the dog jumped out and DW was handed the dog. The dog is 2 years old and 2 1/2 pounds! Here is the photo.

We returned home after our adventure and relaxed. At one point, someone asked where is our laptop? DH explained that he's tried numerous times to get our wireless network working with no success. Dale being the true friend he is said "I can get that working for you".
Well, we are posting our blog from the comfort of our living room because of Dale's knowledge of networking. Here is a photo of Dale working his magic and "hooking" us up. Thanks again Dale! It works FANTASTIC!

Dale and Sherri left for the airport this afternoon and we are so bummed they had to leave. We had so much fun with them!!
Our spare bedroom is once again available for reservations. EVERYONE is welcome to visit and our door is always open. As they say on Motel 6, "we'll leave a light on for ya".
We miss all of you!

Sold, Sold, Sold!

http://www.barrett-jackson.com/
A quick blog post. DH was offered a position within the Barrett-Jackson Auction Company this evening and has accepted the position. Further details will follow soon.

Boogaty, Bootagy, Bootagy, Let's Go Racing!!

In honor of Veteran's Day and our love of racing, we attended the 2nd to the last race of the NASCAR season at Phoenix International Raceway (from this point on - PIR).
Tom drove us along with our good friends, Tony and Scott, to PIR for the event. The gates opened at 8:00 a.m., race time was 1:30, and we arrrived at 8:30 in order to stake out our "spot on the hill". Tony and Scott sat in the stands but we wanted the full experience of the hill that we had heard about.

We went our separate ways and found a great spot between turns 3 and 4. We laid down our stadium blanket, grabbed our water bottles and settled in for the wait. We were amazed to see the number of people that had already staked out their spots by setting up their portable gazebos.

The hill has terraced levels of flat ground that you are able to set up your mini camp. People around us were way more prepared than us! We forgot to bring our grill!
The hillside filled up and the nice people next to us offered us water, snacks and general good chatting!
We watched 2 planes, 1 blimp and 2 helicopters circle the stadium for hours, we thought sometimes coming too close to each other for comfort! (Air traffic controllers nightmare!)

We have heard that NASCAR is the most popular sport in America today & we truly believe it. We were just about to the "HILL" when we heard what sounded like several helicopters approaching. We looked off to the right and saw the 5 helipads. It about took your breath away seeing them fly in!


In honor of Veteran's Day, the track had a sky diver jump into the infield with an American flag,

all the while, Lee Greenwood's song, "Proud to be an American" was playing. The national anthem was wonderfully played on a trumpet and then 4 jets from Davis Monthan Airforce Base did the flyby. Talk about goosebumps!!!
We heard the words "Gentleman, Start Your Engines" and the race began!
Now, DW is a die hard fan of #8, Dale Jr, and unfortunately, he had a wreck by himself 1/3 of the way into the race. Below is a photo of his semi leaving the infield before the race finished.

The drivers were really on their game today and at one point, drove 100 laps without a caution flag!
Fortunately, there was not "The Big One" and the few minor wrecks were individual drivers and didn't result in major damage to any of the vehicles or injury to the drivers.
We both agree that this was an Amazing experience and are thankful for the opportunity. Our goal earlier this year was to be able to make this race. And we did it!
This experience was priceless!

"Halloween" AZ Style

Happy Halloween everyone!

Tonight was a great night for all the kids in the neighborhood. They managed to reap us of 3 HUGE bags of candy in about an hour and a half. Seemed tonight DH & DW saw more trick or treaters here in one night than DH had seen at the Truman address up north. DW even said it was crazy! We could have doubled our candy purchase and it still wouldn't have been enough!
Our neighbors across the street decided a haunted backyard was in order. From the sounds of it, success they did achieve. Kids were everywhere. It was fun. Family and friends sent pictures of everyone's costumes and we reflected on who had stopped by on a regular basis up'nordth! DW was even able to use our web cam to see her family's kids real time. Pretty awesome. Here are a few photos of how our house was decorated. DH was playing his own Halloween music "Recorded" and a strobe light flashing to add to the affect. He managed to scare a few little ones into not approaching our door. "EVIL GRIN"

Our wonderful "hosts" Munci & Phoebe even decided they would participate in this years spooktacular festivities by dressing up. You can see by the photo below they are to DIE for!

"TRICKED OUT TRUCK"

Today we took a quick ride to the local mall to wander around. We arrived at the mall and noticed a truck show was going on in one corner of the parking lot. It was mostly Hispanic owned "low-rider" vehicles with Hydraulics to raise and lower the car.
We came across this one and it was amazing. We thought we'd share it with you. The paint job on this truck was SMOKEN HOT!
DH wasn't impressed however that it was a Scion. Most of the trucks here were Scions???? Is there something I'm missing here???? We're not knocking the Scion because we've never personally driven one. I'm sure it has it's pros and cons like any vehicle, but a SCION?? C'mon! What happened to the old chebby's??? We guess this is a sub-culture here in the area. Still very impressive what they did with it......... (sigh!)

Pumpkins "BEWARE"

After the adventures of the swap meet and zoo, we stopped at a local grocery store to pick up a few essentials and couldn't resist buying pumpkins to carve for the up-coming holiday. Halloween is DH & DW's favorite holiday other than Christmas. This year we thought we could try our hand at carving pumpkins professional-like. We both thought that it couldn't be that hard. Little did we know.............

We had previously bought a "pumpkin carving kit" that included stencils to carve intricate designs. We gave it a go!!!!
Below is a photo of DW getting her hands full of the Orange guts of our newly slaughtered friends. "BOO" She looks like she is enjoying herself.

The photo below shows DH so focused he didn't even realize DW was taking a photo! The intricate designs made you take your time to ensure that each design would turn out perfectly. We had a great time "MASTERING" our pumpkin carving abilities.



After 2 hours of brow furrowing and little chatter between us, we ended up with the following designs.



The "Comedy-Tragedy" pumpkin is the work of DW. "NICE"
The "Pirate Ship" is the work of DH. "NICE"
We can't wait for Halloween to display our Artistic masterpieces for all the trick-or-treaters to see! DH & DW are still wondering how the hell we pulled that off? We are already searching for the next Pumpkin carving possibilities for next year. It was a blast!!

"WILDLIFE WORLD ZOO"

We went exploring today and found a swap meet in Goodyear, AZ. We walked around for a couple of hours looking at the things for sale. We didn't find anything we HAD to have so we called it a day there.
We were on our way home when DH punched in Local Attractions on the GPS unit and it pulled up a zoo. Of course we were only a few miles away and thought what the heck. Little did we know!!

More like "WILDLIFE WORLD POO"!
The price to get in was around $17.00 a person. We questioned spending that amount when DH noticed a small sign taped to the ticket office that read "Half Price Today Only". Well, we thought what the heck and started our "Poo", or we mean "Zoo" tour. The parking lot and the entire zoo walking area was dirt. It made for an interesting tour. We will try to be as nice as we can regarding this Zoo, but it had Bird poop on EVERYTHING! You had to be careful as you looked up at the animals because you never knew what bird was flying above you!
The first thing we ran across was a Duck Butt. "Duck Butts drive me Nuts" was a bumper sticker we had seen here in AZ. We HAD to get a photo. Too Funny!

DH laughed when he took the following picture and mentioned that this blog post was going to be about the birds and the bees of Poo, or ummmm, Zoo life. DH said that every time he goes to a Zoo, he seems to see things with the animals that just makes him question to visit another Zoo again.
Today was no exception. We happened across the Penguin exhibit and ahhhhh, YEP, penguin lovin'. They actually have penguins outside in AZ. We never would have thought.......... Aren't they cute little buggers? "Ya you betcha"! (Sorry for the bad Steve Irwin impression combined with "Minnesota slang".


We had to stop and say a quick hello to the family. Very typical reaction we received

The Zoo had a very nice display of local and non-local animals.
All of the buildings that we went into to view fish, snakes, bats etc all smelled a little "FUNKY"! With a little TLC this place could be a Gem in the desert. Below are a few more photos of the local inhabitants.

"Santa Ana winds Devastation"

We were rattled awake this morning @ (2:00 a.m.) by devastating winds. We looked out our upstairs window to the backyard below in total disbelief.
We ran downstairs and proceeded out our patio door and were just AMAZED at what was happening! The winds must have been blowing 60 miles an hour or better! You couldn't stand in one place without being jostled about by the wind.
Our backyard retreat was all but destroyed. We have experienced wind like this with a thunderstorm back home, but never with clear skies and no storms anywhere in the area. The street lights had an Erie effect to them because the dust was thick in the night air. It was totally bizarre!
The gazebo was destroyed, the patio chairs were tossed around like matchsticks and the glass patio table had been tipped over and pushed off the patio.
Here are some photos of what we awoke to this morning 8:00 a.m.

We have experienced some gusty winds here and thought to keep the gazebo from shifting, we had hung our 70 lb wind chime from the inside center hook. You can see it in the picture above. We've never heard the wind chime as loud as it was last night. Even after the gazebo tipped, the wind chime hung on!

The patio table had tipped even more but amazingly, the glass top did not break! The leg supports had completely come apart from the glass so the only thing keeping the table from breaking was the umbrella stand.

The winds were still blowing very hard this morning. Here is a photo showing Phoebe and Munci. You can see by the looks of them, it is windy!

Guess we have some clean-up to take care of this afternoon. It's a shame, we loved that gazebo.