April Flowers

Up north,"April showers bring May flowers," so the song goes. Here, it isn't showers that bring the flowers. It is the heat, and maybe some irrigation. We haven't been hiking in the desert but our morning walks often take us through the neighboring housing development, Montesa. Here are some of what we see.  You can click on each picture to see the flowers better.

I don't know what these bushes/trees are called, but they produce a beautiful display of color.

These three red-flowering plants are a bottle brush, lantana and prickly pear.

This tree has red flowers and some sort of red apple-like fruit.

This may be considered a weed in this yard. It Colorado, we would call this a wild flowers.

The plants produce all colors at this time of year. Here are one in yellow and another in orange.

Time or Money

We have somewhere upward of 1,000 color slides from our early life, even before we were married. But who has a screen and slide projector to look at them today? We sure don't. I have read that we can get a screen and a projector and show the slides, then take pictures of each image with our digital camera. Recently, we joined Costco and they will copy the slides and give us two copies on CDs of the digital images. That sounded like a good idea.

We picked up the small cardboard boxes to each contain the slides in batches of 50 for them to work with. But, when I figured what it would cost--at 22 cents each, 1000 slides would cost $999.78--we started to second guess that method. John went on Amazon.com and found a machine for $99 that would produce digital images from the slides. $99 versus $999 sounded pretty good. This week,I have begun the process.

Here I am, copying slides. Each row in that box contains 100 slides. I am trying to copy 200 a day. Once I got the process down, it goes fairly quickly. I insert one slide at a time, push save, then insert another. It is fun to see pictures of our childhood and of our children when they were young. We have photos of both sons playing in the lawn sprinkler on a hot day, as well as pictures for lots of camping trips with family and friends. We have slides from a trip to California John took as a young boy with his parents and brother. So far, I have copies about 700 slides. When I finish the box of slides you see in the photo, I will copy 150+ slides my parents took when I was young.

After I finish digitizing these slides, we will be able to copy images to CDs and share them with family members who are pictured in them. I am also digitizing old photos and then forwarding the originals to the people seen in them. I also back up all these digital files, keeping 3 separate copies so they aren't lost. Isn't modern technology wonderful?

Construction Begins!

We bought our Arizona winter home in October and at that time signed a contract for the concrete rv pad and driveway and for a workshop to be built next to the house. The concrete was poured in January and we have been anxiously waiting for construction to begin on the workshop. Finally, Monday they started work!

First, the framers started bringing out their tools.

Since the lumber hadn't been delivered yet, they borrowed some from a nearby work site.

Finally, the full lumber load arrived.

By the end of the first day, they had all the studs in place, as well as the supporting beams in.

We are so excited to see this project take place. We plan to stay here until most of the work is done. That way we can answer any questions they have, as well as understand how the room is put together. Neither of us knows much about construction, so we are really enjoying seeing the work progress and learning something in the process.

The crew returned today and this is what our workshop and car port look like at the end of the work day.

Good-bye Lunch

When you live your life traveling from place to place, spending the winter here in Arizona then traveling in our home on wheels the rest of the year, we say, "good-bye for now" regularly. Monday, we had lunch with friends Barbara and Ron as they prepare to travel for the summer. We won't be leaving for a month or so.

Barbara suggested we eat at Rubio's Seafood Restaurant. We had never been there before, but it was a very good idea. I had been hearing about fish tacos for years and doubted I would like them. I was sure wrong there. I loved the salsa verde shrimp taco and will definitely plan to go there again. John had a steak taco plate, but even he liked my shrimp taco.

We probably won't see Ron and Barbara until fall, when we all return to Arizona, but it was good to have one last lunch with them before we part ways for the summer. Don't we all look like we enjoyed our lunches?

Bursting Out All Over

I can't really say we ever really have winter here in the Valley of the Sun, but now spring is bursting out all over. If we were up north, we would see crocus and flowering apple and plum trees. Here, the colors are red, white and yellow.

Well-watered ocotillo have lots of red flowers.

Easter is coming on Sunday and the white Easter lily cactus blooms are spectacular this year. The blooms each only last about 24 hours.

We have never seen so many yellow blossoms on the palo verde trees. Our park and the nearby desert and beautiful.

You really know it is spring when the local water fowl start parading their young around. Did I say water fowl? Yes, though I have no idea where nearby water can be found, except in a pond across busy U S 60 or in the resort next door, where there are golf courses. The nine (I think) baby ducklings were so cute. I spotted them by our tennis court when I headed out for my morning walk.

Appreciation

Last night, we had a good surf and turf dinner in the Canyon Vistas ballroom, courtesy of the Sales Appreciation event for those of us who have purchased houses in Superstition Views. The table decorations were elegant. Notice the open bottles of red and white wine, as well.

We took our plates to the serving line to pick up the steak, shrimp, potatoes, green beans and mushrooms. From there on, the sales and resort staff members served us, refilling our wine glasses and getting more wine when we ran out, clearing the dishes and bringing the dessert. The food was delicious and we really felt appreciated.

We got acquainted with some of our neighbors: Cheryl and Jeff and Theresa and John.

If you are coming through the East Valley of Phoenix and are interested in checking out Superstition Views, let us know. We will give the sales staff your names. If you take a tour, we get some free rent. If you buy here, we get a year's free rent.  We really recommend this place. We have a very nice lot, with on-site full-hookups for our RV right next to our house, nice neighbors and a quiet location. Come check it out.

Fountain Cleaning

Last Saturday was Spring Cleanup Day at Church of the Epiphany. It is always good to spend time getting better acquainted with other parishioners and we enjoy helping spruce things up before Easter. John and I were assigned to the team that cleaned the fountain in the church courtyard.

The first step is to remove all the river rock surrounding the cross in the center of the fountain.

We then removed the screening that covers the iron grate supporting the rocks. Next, it was time to cut new screen wire to fit the grate.

The same screen material is used to protect the pump housing.

John used a shop vac to pick up all the gunk that had accumulated on the bottom during the past six months or so. The gunk is mainly mud and pine needles. I used a hose to wash that stuff off the sides and into piles so he could vacuum it up,

Next the grill and screen were replaced, then the rocks distributed around.

After the fountain was filled with water, I was given the job of turning on the pump.

I hope you can see the water flowing over the large rock platform in this picture.

On another note, remember this picture I posted earlier?

Unfortunately, we think the dove abandoned the nest. Hopefully it was only for a few minutes. This is what we saw the next time we walked along the same path.

Family Activities

Swimming and eating weren't our only activities with our family. Both Kylie and John do workouts with their swim teams and one of Kylie's first questions was, "do you have a place here where I can work out?" We said yes and Monday morning all of us but Eric went there. He did a load of wash for his family.

John helped Kylie set up the chest press machine.

Here, John is helping grandson John use the leg curl machine.

Liz didn't need any help doing her workout.

John and I got a few of our regular exercises in, as well. We usually do weight training three times a week.

The day didn't end when we finished working out. In the afternoon, John and Eric and the grandkids went to the shooting range at Usury Mountain Regional Park to shoot their pistols. It was a new activity for Kylie and Eric, but they turned out to be excellent shots.

The first step was to don eye protection and ear protection.

Here, Eric is helping John shoot one of the guns.

The man shooting next to our family, had an AR-15, a semi-automatic weapon. He offered to let the two young people try it out. Here is Kylie and John shooting it.

It continued to be a busy time after they returned from the shooting range. Kylie, who is not quite 16, is now taller than I am.

Eric is taller than his dad.

We showed them around the resort, including the clip board room where residents learn about resort activities.

And the library here.

I wonder what our parents would think if they could see Kylie, Liz, Eric and me all looking at our iphones?

We had such a good time during their visit. We are glad we will spend time with them again when we go to Colorado in June.