Between the Holidays

So, what have we been up to?....traveling again, but without the motorhome.  We took an airplane ride back to see the family back in Minnesota.  At least the weather and lines were endurable, but flying only has one thing going for it: a fast way to go a long distance.

We were able to do some shopping with the granddaughters, and have dinners with a number of friends.  Christmas Eve was spent with part of the family and Christmas Day was spent with more family.  

  

We also got back to a service in our home church in Crystal.  Then there was more time with family on the 26^th as well.  Whew, did we miss meeting with anyone?  All family is special; this is a good time to reconnect with everyone.

We have another ten days or so to catch up with more family and friends here in Arizona before our next NOMADS project starts in January.  Paige’s Mom is staying at Paula’s also and it’s good to spend time with her, Phil, and Elsie as well.  We’ll be quietly celebrating New Year’s Eve here.

The weather in Phoenix has been perfect!  Sunny and in the low 70’s now.  We’re looking forward to our next project in Buckeye, about 40 miles away.

Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas

It is getting closer to the holiday time of year so we’ve been doing more seasonal activities.  Here is what we’ve been up to the past week:

Last Monday we went across town, to Mesa, in order to visit with a hospitalized friend who is not likely to get home for the Holidays.  She is recovering from a medical condition and it was good to see she’s doing well and in good spirits.  We wish her well!

On Wednesday we went to a local church’s seasonal social activity which was a dinner and a wonderful music program.  It had a great variety of musical forms: traditional choir, small group vocal jazz, and audience participation.
On Thursday we drove around the local suburbs to view over a dozen holiday lighting displays with Paula and Tomie after going out to dinner.  This was a fun Christmas activity.  The best were the lights that were synced to music.
On Friday we flew to Minnesota to spend a short time with family and friends.  With the lack of snow up here, it may not LOOK like Christmas, but with family around, it FEELS like it. 
Today was spent with our 4 granddaughters, shopping and cookie baking, two of our traditional and favorite activities.

We expect to be busy with a lot of social activities right through Christmas Day and then some.  We will try to post again before returning to Arizona.

Glendale Glitters

Our past posts have shown some Interior Decorating.  Saturday we viewed some Exterior Decorating by going to the historical Glendale downtown area and wandering around a local festival of lights and activities.

The trees were all decorated with lights, and the streets were full of booths with something for everyone: food booths, petting zoo, carriage rides; even a zip-line. 

The sky looked threatening as we arrived just before dark, and sprinkles started to fall by the time we left.  Here in southern Arizona light sprinkles are considered a major rain event, but it also turned out to be their coldest night this season.  Sunday morning we needed to wait for the defrosters to take the ice off the windshield (we’ve packed away the ice scrapers so far that we can’t find them).

Decorating Differences

In our last post, we showed the start of Paula’s decorating with Dept 56 miniatures (34 buildings plus too many to count assorted people, vehicles, trees, etc.)  Here is a picture of the completed village after 3 nights of setting up:

Although we have limited storage space, we brought a couple of items with us to use as Christmas decorations.  Here is what we have done with them:

Our dashboard –

Our dining room–

 Our hall mirror -

 Our coffee table –

As you can see, we have a much more minimalist style – mostly due to space limitations!

Road Trips

We don’t just sit around all of the time, twice this week we actually went for a couple of drives.  On Black Friday we went sightseeing around the city, and even stopped into one shopping center (but left without buying anything).  On Saturday we got out of town for a longer trip: back to Show Low (just the opposite direction of our arrival) for lunch, then back to Phoenix by way of US60.  Two weeks ago I asked a local person at the RV park which route might be best to get us into Phoenix and she suggested we might prefer the northern route, along the Mogollon Rim and through Payson, if we were towing the car with the motorhome.  The southen route, via US60 through Globe, would be twistier.  

She was right. 

Saturday’s first stop was at a small Visitor’s Center, run by the US Forest Service, just east of Payson.  Thank goodness I had seen its location on a map and was watching for it, because it can be really easy to miss – the visitor’s center that is.  The Rim is really easy to spot: a wall over 2000 ft high x 200 miles long.

We both remembered a lot of the scenes from 2 weeks ago, but it was slightly different going in the opposite direction. 

After lunch we took the southern route, dropping off the rim soon after leaving Show Low, down into the Fort Apache Indian Reservation on our way to the Salt River Canyon.  We had heard that this was similar to the Grand Canyon, but that might be stretching things a bit.

What do you think:

We would recommend that other tourists coming through here should try both of these roads.  Since we have a diesel with an exhaust brake neither road is difficult, but US 60  is twistier, for sure (at least 4 tight switchbacks by the Salt River bridge).

 Today, Sunday, was a quiet day putting up Christmas decorations, both in our motorhome and starting in Paula’s house.

Time to get caught up

Thanksgiving has come and gone, along with Black Friday, so it is high time we got this blog up-to-date.

First off, the recent holiday helps us to think of all the things we have, and all that we can do, and to be thankful for them.  Thanksgiving at Paula and Tom’s place was casual: a buffet-style dinner with some neighbors and family; about a dozen people with food for about 50 people.  In the past, we have usually hosted about twice that many people at our place.  Paige had to learn to let someone else take charge – different; but nice, too!

Another birthday also came and went.  Thanks for the cards and phone calls from family and friends.  It wasn’t any big deal, just another year closer to Medicare.

Our plans are to stay here at Paula and Tom’s place through the end of the year, but to fly back to Minnesota for Christmas with the kids and granddaughters.  Skype, e-mails, and phone calls help, but nothing beats face to face, especially for Christmas.

At this time last year we were both still working for a living.  We’ve been out of the house and living in the motorhome for almost 11 months now, and we still get along.  Now, as buddy Ron says, “every day is a Saturday, except for Sunday”.  Yesterday we did a little sightseeing inside the city (downtown, stadiums, shopping centers, etc) and today we are planning a little road trip to get out of the city and see some countryside for a change.  That should force us to take a few new photos and post them here later.

The New "Normal"

It’s been a quiet week in (not Lake Wobegone) Glendale.  We have been here for a week already, not doing anything dramatic.  Tom left for a race in Baja on Sunday; he is doing support work, not racing anymore after his broken back incident of last June.  We have been helping out around here wherever we can, like picking up some supplies, and dropping off some paperwork for Paula & Tom’s business (they call us their “minions”), plus cleaning our home-on-wheels.  I finally got around to buffing out the hazy headlight covers.  If I’d have known how easy it was, I would have done it sooner.

Last Saturday we turned 20 lbs of potatoes into 13+dozen lefsa, in preparation for Thanksgiving next week.  We were a well oiled machine – Paige prepared the dough and rolled out the lefse, Paula was the flipper, and Bob did his normal job of packaging.  It was a change for us to not make this in our home, but Paula’s kitchen offered lots of room and efficiencies that we didn’t have before.  We were very tired by the end of the session!

Tom had a small building without a floor in it.  He had Fostino (their hired helper) empty this building so that they could put in a wooden floor.  Phil and Bob decided to do this work while Tom is in the Baja at the race.  Phil, Bob, and Fostino have been working part of each day this week getting that work done.  Phil is the brains having been a house builder in Alaska, Bob is the helper, and Fostino has been going with his truck to pick up the materials.  The floor is in and now they are putting up some shelves.  Tom will be surprised to see this completed when he returns home.

Paula has been down with the flu the past couple of days.  It looks like she’s bouncing back now and so this afternoon we started to create lists for the Thanksgiving dinner.  Phil and Elsie, Bob and Paige, along with a few neighbors will be here for the dinner.  Tomie comes home from USC on Tuesday and we’re looking forward to having her around here!

No big plans for the weekend.  The weather here has been absolutely perfect – high 70’s and sunny.  There is a possibility of a little bit of rain this weekend but it can’t be perfect forever, right?