Back In Arizona

Travel by air is such an incredibly horrible experience these days—packed in sardine cans along with 150 other fish and you have the breeding ground for tons of germs just looking for a host!  Michael was ill within two days of our arrival in Montana and is just now starting to feel better.  I avoided the airplane germs but couldn’t resist hugging/smooching Lora Elizabeth—well, you know what they say about kids—“germ factories” and Lora donated some of her germs leaving me with the worst head cold.

Lonn, Katie, Laci and Lora Elizabeth came over to our house Tuesday just after noon to retrieve us.   After getting the house all buttoned up we headed over to their house to spend the afternoon.  Braving the snowy/icy roads, Lonn had us at the airport in plenty of time to catch our flight—which due to the weather turned into a long wait.  We were to have departed at 7:37pm but it was after 9pm before we taxied down the runway landing us in Mesa just after 11pm.  We grabbed a quick McDonalds and headed out across the desert with me driving—it was a loooong trip home—we were in our driveway right at 2am—ugh!—and asleep shortly therafter. 

We enjoyed some computer time this morning—we both suffered withdrawal while in Montana—we were missing our DSL!  Took a short walk with Emmi not getting too far from my chair after that.  Donna so kindly made us lunch which Barry delivered through the door wearing a gas mask (not really, but I bet he was thinking about it! )  It was delicious Donna!

It is good to be back—the temps are on the cool side but the sun is shining and the ground is not white!

It's Still Winter

Yep, it is still winter in Montana, 8 degrees this morning when I started the coffee and lots of snow on the ground. 

Christmas Day we spent with Lonn and the rest of the family.  The majority of them including baby Lora are under the weather with nasty head colds so it was a quiet but very enjoyable day.

As you can tell, Lora Elizabeth was not up to par--her little cheeks were so red--her Mom wasn't feeling the greatest, either!

Aunt Katie and Uncle Michael were the only healthy ones of the bunch--but hanging out with that little germ factory may change that!  Katie and Michael are practicing--we are looking forward to the birth of their baby in late April!

Lora loved the little rocking horse and even tried to give her baby a ride--

Katie cooked Christmas dinner and the food was fabulous--that girl can cook a turkey and I am not a fan of turkey!  We spent the afternoon visiting, watching Christmas movies and playing cribbage before heading back over the snowy hills to our home.

Saturday we hung out at home--Michael has been under the weather since we got here and "knock on wood" I am still healthy.  I worked with the little quilt most of the day and have made great progress!

Today, Sunday, we came in to visit Nat and to meet our friends Terry and Jill for lunch.  The roads are treacherous--snowy/icy/drifted--makes you think twice about getting out!  Our time in Montana is drawing to a close--by the time you read the next blog we will be back in sunny Arizona!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve--my Dad's birthday--was always celebrated with my grandparents when I was a child.  My Dad was the oldest and only male child and like my little brother (my 6 foot 4 inch only brother) my Dad was special to his mother and she always wanted to make his birthday dinner.  We were allowed to open the grandparent presents at that dinner so it made waiting for Christmas Day morning a little easier.  I have beautiful, fond memories of my younger year Christmas seasons.  

We've been coming and going from our house to town, visiting with Nat--the roads aren't too bad--we are in town at his house today, celebrating Christmas Eve.  I made a wonderful pot roast, garlic mashed potatoes and green peas.  When shopping for groceries in our little not so great local grocery store I found some dinner rolls that have turned out to be delicious--wish I had purchased more!  After I post the blog we will have cherry cheesecake pie for dessert.

A while back I wrote a blog about losing my quilting mo-jo and it hasn't come back--but being in Montana must have piqued my interest again--I cut out and partially pieced a small quilt yesterday--I might even get it finished and quilted before heading back to Arizona.

We have a deer carcass just below our house on the hillside--don't know what happened to the critter but this beautiful bald eagle was dining on the dead dear this morning.  

We wish all our friends and family a wonderful Christmas!!  

Montana

Monday morning early had us back at the airport after an almost sleepless night in our fancy/schmancy hotel room—it might be a new hotel but the bed was awful!  The air conditioner sounded as if a freight train was coming through the room.  We left Mesa right on time arriving in Bozeman, Montana around 10am—our chauffeur, Lonn was waiting. 

The roads are good/bad in places but our driveway was plowed thanks to Lonn.  He dropped us off at home, we turned up the heat and then headed back into Big Timber in our truck.  Nat was anxious to see his, “little black friend,” as he calls Emmi. 

This morning I had the pleasure of going to yoga with my Montana yoga ladies—it was great to see all of them and the yoga was outstanding as usual!  Then it was off to Nat’s again—I had cooked a big pot of vegetable beef soup and his favorite cookies.  The wind is blowing now which means the roads may get even dicier! 

Saw two bald eagles on the way into town.

We are not activating our DSL or landline while home so blog posts may be sporadic.  The Verizon MiFi device we have just barely has a 3G signal at our house—it comes and goes so posting blogs is impossible, especially with photos.  Will post when we come into town.

We wish all our friends and family a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

OK, that's it--when we have settled after the holidays, I am going to work on switching my blog to Word Press--I typed this whole thing in Live Writer and it would not publish, my last one would not publish, either and I had to cut/paste into Blogger.  I'm done.

Great ATV Ride

Do you ever just go ahead and plan something fun although you know you have way too much to do?  Such was my case Saturday—by the time you read this blog we will be back in Montana for the Christmas holiday—we had lots to do in preparation for our Montana trip but chose to join the gang for an ATV ride on Saturday—and a great one it was!  Update—I had pre-scheduled this blog to post for Sunday evening and we headed to the Mesa Gateway airport where Allegiant Air and the Bozeman weather put a hitch in our plans!  Our flight was canceled and we are tucked into a gorgeous, new Courtyard Marriott near the airport—going to try again in the morning.  Such is travel this time of year!

We trailered the ATVs to a OHV staging area off Highway 74 near Lake Pleasant—huge staging area and camping is allowed.  Any size RV (even ours) would fit if you can tolerate the dust and noise—it was a weekend day so the area was probably busier than it would be during the week.  There are miles and miles of trails for dirt bikes, ATVs and jeeps.  The riding was challenging at times!

This is Tom and Sandy coming up one particularly steep/rutted spot.

We rode in the washes and across the ridges with beautiful views—we could even see Lake Pleasant at a distance.

Last year Geri and Larry introduced us to “muffler cooking.”  Wrap food in aluminum foil and place it on the muffler—by lunch time you have a toasted sandwich or a warm hot dog, etc.  Today I made a little aluminum foil trail for some of the tasty leftovers left from Friday night—what a treat to have a warm lunch on a chilly day!!

Brisket, calico beans, wild rice/sausage and tater/tot casserole. 

We will be in Montana for several days—Christmas is coming!

I’ve finally resolved my Live Writer issues but am still not convinced I will continue with this program.  When life settles again after the holidays I am going to explore Word Press a little more.

Another Great ATV Ride

Do you ever just go ahead and plan something fun although you know you have way too much to do?  Such was my case Saturday—by the time you read this blog we will be back in Montana for the Christmas holiday—we had lots to do in preparation for our Montana trip but chose to join the gang for an ATV ride on Saturday—and a great one it was!  Update—I had pre-scheduled this blog to post for Sunday evening and we headed to the Mesa Gateway airport where Allegiant Air and the Bozeman weather put a hitch in our plans!  Our flight was canceled and we are tucked into a gorgeous, new Courtyard Marriott near the airport—going to try again in the morning.  Such is travel this time of year!

We trailered the ATVs to a OHV staging area off Highway 74 near Lake Pleasant—huge staging area and camping is allowed.  Any size RV (even ours) would fit if you can tolerate the dust and noise—it was a weekend day so the area was probably busier than it would be during the week.  There are miles and miles of trails for dirt bikes, ATVs and jeeps.  The riding was challenging at times!

This is Tom and Sandy coming up one particularly steep/rutted spot.

We rode in the washes and across the ridges with beautiful views—we could even see Lake Pleasant at a distance.

Last year Geri and Larry introduced us to “muffler cooking.”  Wrap food in aluminum foil and place it on the muffler—by lunch time you have a toasted sandwich or a warm hot dog, etc.  Today I made a little aluminum foil trail for some of the tasty leftovers left from Friday night—what a treat to have a warm lunch on a chilly day!!

Brisket, calico beans, wild rice/sausage and tater/tot casserole. 

We will be in Montana for several days—Christmas is coming!

I’ve finally resolved my Live Writer issues but am still not convinced I will continue with this program.  When life settles again after the holidays I am going to explore Word Press a little more.

Another Test

Christmas Gathering

Yippee, Live Writer is back!  I uninstalled my previous version and used the link Al provided to download the new Open Live Writer—success!  I tried a test post with a Picasa photo and it worked, so here goes the regular post. And as you can see from the way this blog looks--it didn't work.  I hit publish and received an error message--frustrating--why did it work the first time and not tonight??

Mostly puttering going on around here—Michael in the garage, me in the house.  We’ve taken some nice desert walks and I taught yoga on Thursday.  We went to Wickenburg yesterday and again today as I had an appointment for a hair cut.

The ATV gang gathered tonight at our house for a little Chirstmas gathering—a potluck and wow!!—what great food we had!  

Emmi loves Geri and Larry—the feeling is reciprocated—Emmi even got her own Christmas card tonight!  I think Emmi was hiding from in Larry’s lap from Parker the poodle!

Nancy’s cake was beautiful and delicious!  It was such an enjoyable evening spent with great friends—we missed you Joe and Kathy!

In addition to the fact Live Writer won't publish the blog I also discovered it doesn't alert you to misspelled words as it did before???  

Test Post

Well, let’s see if this works!

Home Again

Well, I see there is nothing new on the Live Writer home front--I've been away for a couple days and wrote my last blog in advance of leaving using Blogger.  I attempted a Live Writer "test post" tonight and got the same error message.  I'm investigating Word Press as I've decided I do still want to continue the blog if for nothing but my own documentation--and I'm not crazy about Blogger after using Live Writer for so long.

Gosh, where did December go???  I just spent a couple days in California--holy, moly--I could not live and commute to a job in all that traffic.  It seemed as if we spent more time sitting in traffic than we did anything else!  We did eat some spectacular food--if you ever find yourself in Burlingame, California have dinner at Cafe Figdro Italian Restaurant--one of the best meals I've ever had and not expensive!  Did a little Christmas shopping and was taken aback by the clerks saying, "would you like a bag for an extra $0.10?"  WHAT, HUH????  Yep, if you want a bag to contain your purchases, you will pay $0.10 for it--sure was glad I was carrying a large handbag!!

My cowboy and little Emmi were sure glad to see me this afternoon--they've been working on a few projects, doing a little walking and enduring some not so Arizona like temperatures.

Christmas will be here before we know it!

Sunset photos taken over last weekend:

Exploring

ATVers who must wear snowmobile pants, heavy jackets, wool caps, etc. should have better sense than to go ATV riding but that's what we did Saturday morning under cloudy, very chilly skies!  Two  unnamed Larry and Tom guys decided we needed to go exploring north of Yarnell.  I think they forgot the elevation gain when you travel up the big hill--there was snow on the surrounding mountains!! (Blogger doesn't have the emotion option like Live Writer so imagine a smiley face!)

The topography certainly changes when you travel north above Yarnell--lots of live oak trees, less cactus and rocks.  

We unloaded the ATVs and spent the day exploring the trails and roads just off the highway.  Some of the trails were questionable--as in, "is this really a trail???"

You can just barely see the rigs hidden in the brush out in front of us. 

By mid afternoon we had all had enough of fighting sticker bushes and dead ends--plus it was still cold and we headed for home--still a great day being outside!

The last cabinet went up Sunday afternoon--and the microwave.  I am so lucky to have such a handy husband--we saved a tremendous amount of money by utilizing these used cabinets and I think they look great!!

We went from a U-Haul truck full of used cabinets

to this

Lighted Christmas Parade

After our Wednesday ride to Black Canyon and arriving back at North Ranch in the dark--we all needed some recovery time!  

Thursday was yoga morning for me--we continue to have a big group in the class, 15-16 people for each session.  Fifteen to sixteen enthusiastic, eager participants!

After yoga the cowboy and I headed to Wickenburg and indulged in some Mexican food before running errands.  At just after 3pm when coming out of Safeway, I remembered the 1:45pm appointment I had at the Congress Clinic--dang it!!!  Back in Congress I called the clinic and was glad to hear them say, "oh, just come on over, we can still get you in."  

Friday morning saw me heading to the Congress Clinic again for a fasting blood draw--I continue to be impressed with that little clinic staffed by two nurse practitioners.  My blood was drawn at 9am and by 2pm, Matt, one of the nurse practitioners was calling me with the results!

Whew, who turned off our heat???  Friday morning dawned cloudy and chilly--it stayed that way all day and the forecast is for more of the same for another week or so.  

Friday evening the ATV gang gathered at the Bar7 for dinner before the Wickenburg lighted Christmas parade.  After dinner we found a spot to watch the parade--or so we thought--the organization of that parade could use some help!  The parade has been happening every year for a long time but last night it seemed as if it was a first time happening--confusing and dangerous!

But--it was still a beautiful parade and little downtown Wickenburg was hopping!!

The last two photos show the Congress Volunteer Fire Department float--it was massive--first the fire engine, then three other lighted floats pulled behind the engine--notice the lighted helicopter--the helicopter pad is located right beside the fire department building in Congress.

Saturday was a very chilly and windy day--we had another adventure--more on that one in the next blog!