Friday 2-21 Family Get Together

Just having fun

We had a super day. It was a little cooler today with a wind. 

Louise and Shirley decided to go to a few thrift stores. Larry and I decided to drive around Tucson to see what has changed in the last thirty years. We drove around downtown and around our old stomping grounds. I was raised in Tucson and lived in the middle of town, near Swan and Broadway. Larry moved to Tucson when he was a teenager and was raised close to Marana, it was interesting to see the changes.

As we were driving around we drove by Bruegger's Bagels. Many years ago in Round Rock there was a Bruegger's Bagels. Sometimes when we were visiting Louise we would stop by and buy a couple of bagels. Then they went away. But here in Tucson there are a lot of them. We stopped in and bought a blueberry bagel and a raisin cinnamon bagel. They didn't seem to be like we remembered but still good.

Last night when we were celebrating Shirley's birthday her old office chair broke so we decided to replace it. On the way to her house we stopped by Office Depot and bought one.

When we got to Shirley's the three dogs were very excited to see us. They all came to the door to say hi. Wendy found out that we weren't Shirley so she ran away and hid. After saying hi Larry started to assemble the chair. While he was doing this Louise and Shirley showed up. We told Shirley the chair was another birthday present. She was very excited about it. Once the chair was assembled Shirley tested it out and Larry did a little adjustment to fit her height. It's a very nice chair.

It was lunchtime so I made everyone a ham sandwich. While we were eating Ray showed up and I made him a sandwich. All three of the dogs were my best friends because I was playing with ham. They also know I'm a sucker and will give them some of ham.

The ham we have been dining on was a bone in ham so after lunch I made ham hock and beans. We visited all afternoon and I played with the dogs.

While we were driving around my sister Alexis called and asked what day was the best to meet up with her and some of the family. We decided 6:00 tonight at Jethro's Cafe and Tavern, which is my brother Greg's place of business. Around 5:00 we started our journey to Jethro's, it's clear on the east side of Tucson. Louise decided not to go with us instead she visited with Ray. It didn't take as long as we expected. People who live in Tucson complain about the traffic. We tell them they don't know what traffic is until you drive down I35.

Alexis apologized that a lot of the family had other plans. My family who were there were Greg and his wife Roxy, Michael and his daughter Katherine and Alexis and Shirley. We had a very nice evening visiting with my family. Greg and Roxy have a very nice restaurant. 

Jethro's entrance

      

Left to right Alexis, me, Shirley, Michael, Catherine, Greg and Roxy

 

Thursday 2-20 Surprising Ma

Happy Birthday Ma

Happy birthday Shirley (Ma).

We woke up at 6:00, it's mighty early for me considering I normally crawl out of bed at 8:00. We got dressed and then we went downstairs to have breakfast. This Super 8 has a good breakfast. Then we put a small cooler together and left the motel. We had told Louise we would pick her up at 8:15. On the way to Louise's motel we stopped by Walmart and did a little grocery shopping. 

Today was Shirley birthday, she loves flowers so we picked up a bouquet of flowers along with some groceries. For lunch we bought a spiral ham with a variety pack of potato chips and Hawaiian onion rolls . For dinner we bought a family size Stouffer Lasagna and a loaf of garlic bread. After shopping we drove to Louise's hotel. Shirley only lives a few miles down the road from our motels. 

We arrived at Shirley's house around 8:30. Larry was calling her on the phone when her two dogs, Pooh Bear and Wendy started to bark. We hadn't told her that we were coming so she was surprised to see us. She was all dressed up to meet her friends at the Senior Center. She called them and told them that she wasn't going to be there because we were in town. Pooh Bear was very friendly but Windy was very shy and hid from us.

Larry and his ma

Shirley and me

Louise, Alice and Pooh Bear

We spent the whole day visiting with her and celebrating her birthday. For lunch we had ham sandwiches and chips. Pooh Bear, Wendy and Alice were happy I was preparing the lunch because they were treated with ham. Around 1:30 Ray, Larry's brother stopped by to visit for an hour or so. Then he went home to rest after working from 6 in the morning. 

While we were sitting around visiting Larry asked me how long it took for the lasagna to bake. I didn't know so I checked the box, it said 1 hour and 40 minutes. I had no idea it would take that long, dinner was a bit late. We baked the lasagna for the time the directions indicated and it wasn't done. I cooked it another half hour. I baked the garlic bread. We didn't eat until 6:30 instead of 5:00. Ray came back for dinner.

After dinner we all gathered in the living room, where Shirley opened her gifts. Louise bought her a few books, few jigsaw puzzles, dish washing soap and a few gift cards. We gave her four different coffees and a couple of gift cards. Ray and his girl friend bought her flowers and some chocolates. After she opened all her gifts we had cake. Before cutting the cake she pretended to blow out 82 candles on the cake. There weren't any candles on the cake at all.

Shirley's Birthday cake

Shirley, Pooh Bear and Wendy

The roses Ray and his girl friends present

The flowers we gave Shirley

Shirley opening her gifts

Shirley enjoying opening her gifts

We visited a little while longer and then we called it a night. We had a super day celebrating Shirley's birthday with her.

Wednesday 2-19 Long Day

Larry and I haven't been back to Tucson in about five years. Tomorrow is Larry's mothers birthday so we decided to surprise her. We invited Louise to come along to Tucson. 

Yesterday, afternoon Louise and Alice showed up to spend the night so we could leave early in the morning. When Louise showed up Larry replaced the air filter and cabin filter in her car. It didn't take him long. For dinner I made bacon sandwiches with the European center cut bacon, along with that we had a can of Mexican style vegetable blend and beans made by Del Monte. After dinner we visited for a few hours before calling it a night.

Louise's car

We got up at 5:00 this morning and were on the road by 5:40. Tucson is over 900 miles from our house. We drove Highway 190 west all the way to I10. Highway 190 was mostly a two lane highway that went through a lot of small towns, by farmfields and ranches. It also went through Brady's downtown and we saw Brady's gorgeous courthouse. At one part they were working on a bridge and it only had one lane so they put a temporary traffic light at the bridge to control traffic. We had to wait but it was only a few minutes. Along the way the time zoned changed to Mountain Time so we gained an hour. As we we drove we saw a couple of bad accidents. One was an 18-Wheeler, the cab was gone and had been on fire. The other one an RV trailer was completely destroyed and was on top of a truck. It looked horrible. We hoped that no one was killed in either one of the accidents. The interstate was backed up going east for miles. We were glad we were going west. We stopped a few times; two times to fill up the car and two times to go to the restroom and to eat. Larry drove all the way, which was 16 hours. I dozed off a few times. Today we got to see a New Mexico/Arizona sunset. The reason I call the sunset a New Mexico/Texas sunset was because when we were watching the sunset we crossed over the Arizona state line. We had a great day. 

The courthouse in Brady

The one-lane traffic light

Watching a truck come through the one lane bridge

The New Mexico/Texas sunset

 

While driving down the road Louise and I played computer games. We did our Event: Klondike Adventure with 20 games. It took us longer than normal to solve the games because the internet would go away but we had fun doing the challenge.

Once we checked in the motel I did 12,000 steps. I missed my goal, which was 15,300. 

              

Tuesday 2-18 Relaxing Day

Relaxing with your best friends

It was cold all day, it never got out of the 50s. There was a little breeze.

Larry started the day out by going back to his dentist so she could remove his temporary crown and replace it with the permanent one. The dentist did not want to deaden the tooth because it would make it more difficult making sure the fit was correct. It was pretty painful but he was able to get through it. I didn't go to bed until late and Larry's appointment was early so I didn't go with him.

Larry read a book and I played my daily challenges and the Two Game Tango Mini Event, 3 games of Free Cell and 3 games of Tri Peaks. I didn't do too well, it took me 19 minutes and 39 seconds. I came in 78th in my group. After I finished my computer games I worked on my annual book. I'm finished writing it but I need to shorten the book so I'm going back through to see what I can get delete.

In the evening I watched an episode of Bones. I did 18,000 steps.

We had a very relaxing day.

    

Monday 2-17 Sundancers Dance

Awesome Day

The day started out overcast along with a little fog and rain. By the afternoon the sun was out and the temperature got up to the high 70s. It was an awesome day.

Larry read, I finished a book yesterday. I did some housework. I did my daily challenges and World Tour of 30 games. 

In the evening we went to Sun City to dance with the Sundancers. We had seven squares for the mainstream tips and five squares for the plus tips. The format tonight was an hour and a half of alternating mainstream and plus tips. After the dance Brad called a half hour of A2, we had two squares. We had a super night of dancing with friends and to Brad.

Square dancing with friends

On the way home we stopped by Murphy and filled up the car. Then we went to Walmart and bought a couple of things. Once we were at home I finished doing my steps of 16,000 steps. Then I watched a few episodes of Bones.

Relaxing in front of the television

We had a super day.

Sunday 2-16 Special Visitors

Our special visitors

We had another beautiful day. We had sunshine with a breeze. It got ups to the low 70s.

While we were waiting for it to warm up Larry looked out the back window and saw a couple of foxes walking in our neighbors backyard behind his fence. We watched them for a little while. They were causally walking along the fence in both the neighbor's yard and our yard. Then they walked around the two empty lots next to our house. Then something spooked them and they ran off. 

After the foxes left we decided to go for a walk. The City of Temple had been working on building a new park called Crossroads. We decided to walk around it. Crossroads Park is a 284-acre complex.The master plan for the park includes over 2 miles of trails and connects to Pepper Creek Trail, that has over 4 miles of trails. The final construction of the park was a 27 hole disc golf course, 4 baseball fields, 4 softball fields, 7 soccer fields, 6 tennis courts, a public playground and a multi-use field. As we walked around we saw the baseball fields, softball fields, tennis courts, disc golf course and playground. The baseball fields all had a screened in area for pitching practice and a playground. The soccer fields weren't completed. They had a very nice concession building with restrooms. We walked for about an hour. It was a pleasant walk because there was a breeze. 

Welcome to Crossroads Park sign

A cool climbing apparatus

A swing at the playground

One of the baseball fields

When we got home there was a couple of packages waiting for us on the porch. Yesterday, Larry went on Amazon and ordered us a couple pairs of ski socks to replace our old ones. My socks are Weierya Ski Socks, they are 86.1% cotton, 12.1% chinlon and 1.7% spandex. Larry's socks are Andake Merino Wool Ski Socks. I'm all set to go snow skiing with all my new equipment. 

Larry's new ski socks

My new ski socks

After lunch Larry went outside to treat for weeds in the gravel and blew out the garage, porches and driveway, While he was doing this I finished reading a book. 

Larry spraying the gravel in the front of the house

Spraying weeds in the back

In the evening we watched three episodes of Bramwell and an episode of Narrowboat. Then I watched a few episodes of Bones.  

Saturday 2-15 Have a Great Day

We started the day out by going to town to donate some of our books to the Temple Library. When we started traveling in the Minnie Larry bought a lot of books on campgrounds and travel to specific states. Now we use our cell phone and computer and go to different sites via the internet to get the information. Larry went through his books and decided to donate them to the library. Every year the library puts two weekends aside to do some fund raising through selling of used books that are donated throughout the year. This year the Mid-Winter Used Book Sale is Feb 26th-29th. We loved this used book sale, we use to go and buy lots of books but today we read almost exclusively on our Kindles.

While we were in town we stopped by Walmart for a couple of things. Then we went home.

In the afternoon I did my Solitaire Event: The World Tour, which had 30 games. It took me four hours and seven minutes to complete them. In my group when I went to bed I was in 12th place. I also did my daily challenges. We watched an episode of GizWiz and our YouTube videos. I did a few loads of laundry. Larry read.

Doing laundry

Reading is fun

In the evening we finished watching the first season of Bramwell and started the second season. Then we watched an episode of Narrowboat. When Larry went to bed I watched a few episodes of Bones. We had a relaxing day.