Saguaro Lake - Phoenix, AZ.

Saturday was a nice day here in the desert. We booked a reservation to board a boat that does a 90 minute tour of Saguaro lake. The Captain narrates as you putter along so you get a story behind what it is you're looking at. It was very informative.


The views of the lake are breathtaking. Steep cliffs pushing upward towards the sky as if trying to grasp the sun. It's magnificent!


One of the mountain views we had was of a peak called "Four Peaks". It's the mountain range that's actually shown on the AZ license plate. We did not know this until the captain told us. We learned something very important that day.


The tour of the lake allowed us to see for the first time nesting Bald Eagles on the face of a cliff. It was spectacular as they looked at us taking photos of them. It truly is a sight to see.


It was a great tour and we'd recommend it to anyone.

Of course a trip wouldn't be complete without a photo of us together.

What we've been up to....

Well, to update everyone on what we've been doing - we moved again.
We're in Scottsdale, AZ very near Westworld.
We're in a great house and we actually hung a few pictures on the walls, we feel that comfortable here!
And the dogs love it!
As you can see, Muncie is totally relaxed!


Phoebe can't stop smiling!


One of the many cool features of this place is the fact that it has an area in the back that is like astro-turf. No mowing, no watering and it's always Green.

It's Awesome!
In order to get our bearings in our new neck of the woods, we wandered out today and took some great pictures of a place called Greasewood Flat.

They have Fabulous burgers and a really neat Old West vibe with old wooden buggies and other old items scattered around.


And we found a small shopping area that had a center courtyard. Very neat!


Then we traveled over to Old Town and wandered around there. Thanks to a friend of ours, we found the LOVE sculpture again.

You Break It, You Buy It

Everyone knows the saying, "You Break It, You Bought It".

Well, tonight, we traveled to Target for a few essentials for the home and to get some dog treats.

In the pet treat/toy aisle, DW was scanning for the right treats for Phoebe when DH decided to see how well a duck/sling shot toy worked.

DW launched it down the aisle and it flew about 10 feet before crashing to the ground and breaking free of it's packaging!

There was another customer in the aisle with us and she giggled quite a bit when DW asked DH if we just bought a duck. DH just said "Yup, I think so."

And we giggled about it the whole way out of the store! Muncie loves his new duck!

Strawberries!!

DW has been trying so hard to grow strawberries from the little plant she bought 2 months ago and has finally been rewarded!

DW asked DH if he would like to have the first strawberry. He wisely declined.
DW bit into the strawberry and her sour taste buds Still hurt!
Of course we'll keep trying!
The next one should be ready to try in a couple of days!
:-)

Latest Update

Hi to all! We hope everyone is doing well! DH is back from Florida! Yay!
He's finally back on Arizona time - that 3 hour time change wasn't fun!

So what have we been doing?
First, trying to keep the pool clean! LOL!

But seriously, it's been VERY windy here and there's some kind of tree just on the other side of the wall that is really annoying! If it's not shedding it's tiny leaves, it's shedding it's little yellow flowers!
We know, we're getting lots of sympathy right about now......
:-)

Today we decided to head back over to the Scottsdale Gun Club for some target shooting.





If you want a specific weapon, I'm sure they have it.
Is this a sign of what's to come????

It's always interesting to see 10 year old kids shooting weapons! But safety is the key and we love the fact that between each shooter is double pane of bullet proof glass!

Today, we shared a couple of targets, alternating shots between us.

Another fun afternoon!!

Happy Easter!

We just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter and provide an update of life in Phoenix/West Palm Beach!
DH is still in Florida, where he's been for the last 2+weeks and won't return home for another 5 days. All of the preparation for the latest auction has paid off and the auction went well! Today, Speed Channel even continued broadcasting 45 minutes later than originally scheduled!

Now that Easter is here, DW decided to continue the tradition of coloring Easter eggs, so tonight that's what was on the agenda. Here's the before picture.
/

And here is our very own Easter basket!


Happy Easter everyone!

Thunder in the Desert - Air show - 2009

We attended an airshow this last weekend and it was INCREDIBLE!
The (AIRFORCE) Thunderbirds put on an amazing show and the static plane displays were at your fingertips.

DH has always had a hidden fantasy to take flying lessons and soar the skies. Although he hasn't had that chance yet, he still loves to attend and hear the full throttle of a Jet flying low overhead. It's kind of his "FIX" for relaxation.

Here's a video DH shot of the Thunderbirds. This is a slow flying jet that is going as slow as it possibly can. It's amazing to see such a super sonic plane just about ready to fall out of the sky.

2009 Air Show - Thunderbirds - Phoenix, AZ.


Below is a video DH took showing two planes doing a crossing maneuver. INCREDIBLE they don't hit each other!

2009 Air Show - Thunderbirds - Phoenix


We had a great time attending. Below you'll find some photos of our day. Enjoy!


DW when we first arrived on base. "LUKE AIRFORCE BASE" that is. DW was greeted with "yes ma'am" and DH with "yes sir". It was really great to see some respect from the youth of today. It's funny how safe one feels as you walk around.

It was pushing close to 90 degrees while we were walking around. If you notice in the above photo, everyone is sitting in the shadows of the plane. This happened with every aircraft on the base. DH found it funny because the outline of the shadow was followed precisely. We ended up taking shelter behind a beer truck so we could eat our lunch.... Guess we understand the reason. LOL!

No trip would be complete without DH making friends with the local authority.....

DW has always had a thing for men in uniform... So of course we had to have a photo taken.

All in all, we were very impressed with the quality and number of aircraft. We will definitely attend again in the future.

Birds!

Last weekend, DH decided to see what would happen if we replaced our hummingbird feeder with a regular bird feeder.
DW loved the hummingbird feeder but had become frustrated when it seemed to be leaking/broken. Well, it turns out it was a bird that actually damaged the humming bird feeder!
DW was enjoying some quiet time on the patio late one afternoon when she spied a sparrow type bird hanging upside down on the hummingbird feeder sticking it's beak into a seam on the bottom. It was trying to suck the red sugar water but actually ended up somehow spilling a lot of it on the ground below. That attracted ants.
So enough's enough!
Here's our new bird feeder and a young mourning dove that's begun hanging around the backyard.

As you can see below, it didn't take long for the word to spread among the bird population! There are brown speckled ones, red breasted ones, doves and many others not shown here. It's really neat to see all of them!


Our dogs love harassing the birds that land either on the feeder or on the ground looking for seeds.
I wasn't able to catch Muncie being himself but here's Phoebe.
She's the mini-lioness, laying in the shadows, waiting for the a victim. Stalking, lurking, licking her chops. Little does she know, if she were actually able to catch one of these birds, they'd probably kick her $#%@!

JUST FIX IT!

(For those of you who watch SNL, you'll get the title of this blog.)

Tonight, DH had the perfect opportunity to be a handyman.

DW discovered a water leak under the sink after running the rather old garbage disposal. Upon closer inspection, we found that a ball bearing from inside around the edge of the spinning wheel had actually busted through the container! (You can see the hole near the center of the picture.)
That would have been tough to explain in the ER! Like they'd believe one of us had been standing in front of the garbage disposal and ended up with a BB in our leg!

Anyway, DH quickly removed the old disposal and off we went to our local Ace Hardware for some help. The guys there are so helpful and soon hooked us up with a replacement garbage disposal.

Back home we came and, after some swearing, pounding of wrenches and general frustration, DH successfully installed the new disposal.

And boy does it work like a charm! It's Awesome!! Thank you!!

Now IT"S FIXED!!!

A spaghetti dinner with friends

Saturday evening was full of food, wine, laughter and friends.

DH made his home made Spaghetti dinner (with meatballs!) for his co-workers/friends.



Our friends showed up with bottles of wine, appetizers, salad, and french garlic cheese bread.

It was really good to have a house full of people!

Everyone ate till they couldn't get one more bit of food in their bellies!

Well, that is till the Coconut Cream Pie was brought out! Man were we stuffed!

The evening went off without a hitch and we and everyone else enjoyed it immensely!

We can't wait to do it again!

Flower Power

With all of the things going on in the world and in our lives, we decided to take a moment and smell the flowers.

These are all found in our backyard or front yard. (We aren't sure of the names of all of them, we just like how colorful they are.)

Tom has decided to quit his job and become a Professional Flower Photographer. He has a snazzy straw hat and we're working to find him a piece of straw to gnaw on. :-)

Weekend Update

To celebrate a friends' birthday, Saturday night we traveled to a restaurant that was a combination of Old West style and Claim Jumpers portions!

This was the place!



This was the type of old restaurant that started as one small room, then as time went on, individual rooms were added on so the floors between the rooms were unlevel. It could be a bit difficult to navigate if someone was to have one too many! But the 6 of us all behaved and thoroughly enjoyed our dinner. DH and DW decided to order 2 different entrees to share. The Atlantic Cod and Crispy Chicken arrived!

We found out that when we were told it was a "whole" chicken, it Really was a Whole Chicken! What flavor! And the cod was flakier than any other fish we'd had!
After a Wonderful meal and Great conversation, this was our parting view of the Horny Toad -


It was a great, relaxing evening with good friends!

Today, we had 3 friends over for a bbq. We were able to relax on the patio in wonderful 85 degree weather. After burgers and hot dogs from the grill, we discovered a visitor trying to break into the house! Here he is checking to make sure the coast is clear!


Here's a Great example of an Arizona sunset taken from our house.