Thursday, December 28, 2006

S-S-S-N-N-N-O-O-O-W-W-W!!!!!

Dec. 28
HUH? SNOW??? In Tuscon? Yup...it is snowing right now! And it's cold! BRRRR However, at our elevation (3,100 ft) the snow isn't sticking, but at 500 feet higher it is...which is the ridge across the valley from us. We have had snow off and on all last night and today, and it started with thunder, lightning, snow??!! Yesterday our high was 75 degrees, dew point at 9% and humidity at 6%....and today we have 43 degrees, rain and snow. Welcome to Tucson in the winter!! WE are really enjoying the rain/snow .. and we have stayed in most of the day -- didn't want to get in the snow plow's way! :-) haha....I bet there isn't a snow plow in this town!

We had a nice Christmas...Jennifer, Dick and Lano were here. The weather was perfect on Christmas day, 70 degrees and sunny. On the Saturday before Lano, Jennifer and I went to Mesa to the "Swap Meet"....> to do some last minute shopping. As we were heading towards Mesa from Tucson we saw what looked like smoke towards Mesa. But, no, not smoke but good old fashion FOG! HUH??? FOG??? In Phoenix??? Does NOT compute. And it was c-c-c-o-o-o-l-l-l-d-d-d! 43 degrees while walking around the swap meet...we made it through 2 aisles, then gave up, we were too cold! Whooses...yup...that's us!

Jennifer left for home on Tuesday; Dick and Lano left Wednesday. I now have two very pouty dogs. They had so much fun playing with Buddy (Dick and Lano's dog) and Dick spent most of his time while here throwing the B-a-l-l for them; and if he wasn't Jennifer was. So, needless to say, they are now looking at me to play with them ALL OF THE TIME! Right now Beau has his head on my lap and Schuster is next to me looking at me with his sad eyes...ob brother! There will be no B-a-l-l playing outside today!

Al is fighting pneumonia again. HE has been feeling rotten for about a week, but didn't want to go to the doctor. Finally I made an appointment and took him yesterday. Doctor said it is a very light case of pneumonia, we caught it in time, however, Al is to rest and do nothing for 10 days to two weeks. The doctor hasn't prescibed an antibiotic yet for him as he wants to see the results of the chest xray that was done yesterday and because Al is on so many medications, he wants to wait to prescribe the antibiotic. More fun to be had!

Dec. 29 HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNIFER....



I didn't post this yesterday..I tried to get a photo of the snow on the mountains behind us....however, you see what I got!















There was no snow today, however, it was still cold. And the cloud layer hadn't changed much...still backed up against the mountains. We are suppose to be on a warming trend starting tomorrow...we will see.

As the year ends and I reflect on the year, all of the good times, bad times and times in between -- and decided it has been a good year for us. My health has been fairly good, AL's has been just okay. We have lost family members this year; Al's brother and two of my aunts; and we have gained no new babies this year. However, next year that will change...I know of one on the way right now but I have been sworn to keep quiet for a while (do you have any idea how hard that is for me???) Let's just say I won't be the true gramma, but darn if I won't spoil that baby anyway...if I can get the real gramma out of the way for 30 seconds or more! Congratulations to you-know-who-you are!

We pray for peace in 2007; happiness and good health for all; and for all of you to live life to the fullest....this isn't a dress rehearsal, this is the only shot you get at life, give it your all!

PROSIT NEUJAHR! HAUOLI MAKAHIKI HOU!! MASAGANANG BAYUNG BANUA! FELIZ ANO -NUEVO! GELUKKIG NIEUWJAAR! KIORTAME PIVDLUARITIO! KENOURIOS CHRONOS!

NO MATTER WHAT LANGUAGE...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

It's beginning to look like Christmas......finally

Dec, 19 Tucson



Juanito helps decorate the house!





It's finally beginning to look like Christmas around our house! The cards are mailed, and we are getting a lot of cards from friends and family, and we really enjoy that. Last Sunday we (we, as in, Cortney and I...Al disappeared) got the tree up and some lights on the outside of the house up. Cortney was my Santa's helper this year or I still would be struggling with the tree.
Now, you have to
understand that a few years ago we decided to go with a "fake" tree that was prelit...no more hassle with lights on the tree! Uh huh! It took the three of us (with a couple of cats and dogs thrown in to "help") to get that $%^&*() tree lit! You have to make sure all the "connections" are "connected" to the proper "connection"! I needed an electrical engineer to help put this thing up! FINALLY, I walked away and AL and Cortney got it together. Had I stayed around the tree would have been in little tiny pieces...I have no patience for that kind of nonsense! You see, my theory is, you plug it in and turn it on and it lights up! PERIOD! No hassle, no struggle!

Jennifer comes in on Thursday; friends from Yuma come in on Friday, so by Saturday our house will be full. Bruce, HOlly and Cortney will be here Christmas eve; and Christmas day will just be the five of us. A nice, small dinner of prime rib is planned. I haven't made the peanut butter fudge yet, nor the chocolate fudge; however, that activity is planned for Friday so Jennifer can help!!!

Our weather has turned a bit cool. Matter of fact, it tried to rain on us today and yesterday we got an actual drop or two of rain on the windshield of the car!! Now, I know, you people in the Pacific NW don't understand this at all, but rain around here is exciting! We also had some high winds on Saturday...I thought we were gonna' get blown off this hill top that we live on! Of course, we had nothing to compare to what Seattle had last week. WOW...I had to check and see if the State of Washington was still on the map...went on Google Earth to make sure!

We want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful 2007.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

And the wheels on the train go round and round

We are home from LA...had a good trip. Here are the last few days of our lives.....

Wed Dec 6
After a very fitfull night of sleep in our hotel in Long Beach (lots of noise, a couple of what sounded like gun shots and I was done sleeping) we headed to Jo’s cousin Linda’s in Newport Beach for a visit. Linda took us to a nice restaurant (I can not remember the name!!) for lunch in Balboa. We were right on the water and besides having wonderful food the view was great as well. All to soon it was time for us to head back to Palmdale. We fought our way through LA traffic all the way up to Palmdale, it took us almost 3 hours! UGH!

Good friend Glennie Wilburn and Billie and Dan met us for dinner in Palmdale at Fresco II. We have ate there before and it has never disappointed us. We had a short, but great visit with Glennie. She is such a neat person and we always enjoy her company.

Thurs Dec 7 PEARL HARBOR DAY

After lazing around the house most of the morning, we wroamed around Lancaster for a while…going by our old house, which looks great. I still miss that house! If we were to ever build a house (which, by the way, won’t ever happen…too much work and stress) we would build it like this house. We still have the plans for it tucked away.

This evening we went with Billie and Dan to the LA County Sheriff, Altadena Station, Christmas party. We really had a great time meeting Billie’s (SGT GRAHEK) co-workers and we even got out on the dance floor for a couple of dances! Neither of us knew if we could dance anymore and we found out we could!

Fri Dec 8

Melanie (Jo’s oldest daughter) called today…she has really had one heck of a week…you know the kind, if it could go wrong, it did go wrong. She started out the week having problems at work, then found out her car insurance had been cancelled due to a mistake by the insurance company. She was involved in a car accident a couple of years ago (rear ended while she was at a stop sign) and has been waiting forever for her settlement. Her lawyer has been dragging his feet, despite her attempts to push him along. I would have changed lawyers, but she was giving him the benefit of the doubt. Well, as it turns out, he is now among the missing….just up and left. So new she gets to start with a new attorney. Fortunately, her new attorney is in the same firm and knows of the case. What a mess. I just hope she gets her settlement soon….tooooo much has happened to this family in the past year. They need a break!

After battling LA traffic one more time, we are currently (2:30 PM) sitting on Amtrak waiting to depart for Tucson. It is warm today and of course, I am dressed for cold…this trip I was completely off in my clothing. When we left Tucson it was cold and my brain was locked on cold, so I brought warm clothes….when we arrived in LA it was warm and I really could have used some cooler clothes.

Dec 9
This train actually had round wheels. I am convinced the train on the way to LA had square wheels it was such a rough wride, however, this trip was very smooth and we were on time in Tucson at 2:30 a.m. Home by 3:30 a.m.; go to bed immediately, get up at 9:30 a.m. and head for Gila Bend to pickup dogs. We met our Yuma friends there and were greeted by two very happy to see us dogs!

Dec 10
Had a great time with friends Jude and Roger Hubbell today. They took us to see a local production of Cabaret, then dinner at their house. What a great day for us!

Dec.11
It was "get the Christmas cards done" day! I am really behind this year! Maybe I should just wait until next year to do cards? NOT...I love sending and getting xmas cards. So from 10:00 a.m to 10:00 p.m. I did cards. Now, I made most of my cards, so it took a bit longer, but all 195 cards are signed, sealed and ready to mail tomorrow. WHEW!

Dec. 12
CARDS ARE IN THE MAIL! It really is hard to imagine it is xmas...the weather is beautiful! Spent the day doing our xmas shopping for grand children, etc. DONE! Hey, I am really getting a handle on this! EXCEPT, our house is not decorated...it could be July if you looked at our house.

Dec. 13
Still not decorated....not a xmas decoration one at the house yet. We are having our carpets cleaned on Friday...so Saturday I will start decorating inside. Outside? Well, maybe no lights this year.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

WRIDIN' THE WRAILS WEST

We are once again on the wroad...this time on Amtrak to Southern California. We had a voucher from Amtrak that expired on Dec. 8, so we decided to take a trip. You know, that is so unlike us...NOT! We left Tucson at 0-dark-30 (1:30 a.m.) on the Sunset Limited heading west. Now, Amtrak surprised us...it is usually late by an hour or more (which, for Amtrak is on time) however, this time it was only 17 minutes late. Good thing we didn't count on it being late by an hour or more! We had a sleeper roomette (big enough for 2 seats, which convert to one bed and a bunk, which, by the way, it is a little tough for me to sandwich myself into! And the "roomette" is very small...)and we did manage a little sleep on our way to Los Angeles. The rails between Tucson and LA are in pretty bad shape, so we more or less, "bounced" our way west! We arrived at Union Station in LA only an hour late. Now, this is amazing for Amtrak; they don't own the rails and have to pull on to a siding to let most of the freights pass! Union Station is an place to see. It has been renovated and it is in beautiful condition...just like it was when trains were the only way to travel! We picked up our rental car and headed north to Acton to see Billie and Dan.

After arriving at Billie and Dan's we were so tired from the trip, we were in bed by 7:30 p.m. I think that is the first time in years we have been in bed that early...and we slept a full 12 hours! WOW...I can't remember the last time we did that. Guess our bodies were telling us something!

Saturday we all went into Lancaster and had lunch, then came back home and Billie and Dan fixed a wonderful turkey dinner. Boy, that was really good. YUM! Dan brined the turkey before he baked it and it was super good. Billie made the rest of the wonderful dinner....green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots....all the yummy stuff. And carrot cake for dessert. We were stuffed!

Sunday Al and I headed to Glendora to visit my brother Johnny for a couple of days. We took Hwy 2 "over the top", which means we drove the Angeles Crest Highway over the San Gabriel mountains instead of "going around" which means down Hwy 14, around the mountains and then back on the other side of the mountains (still with me?) on 210 Freeway to Glendora. It was a pretty drive and a beautiful day. When I was a kid growing up in this area, going over Angeles Crest was the ONLY way to go to Lancaster without packing an overnight bag!!! I learned to drive in the mountains on this wroad as well! After a stop at "The Hat" for a great pastrami sandwich,(if you like pastrami sandwiches, this is must stop if you are in the LA area) we arrived at Johnnys in time to watch a little football before we went out to dinner. My 2 nephews, Steven and Michael and my niece Taryn joined us for dinner. It is so fun to know these kids as adults now....I just want to know when they grew up and how they did this without my permission! All three are good, responsible adults and we are very proud of them.

Monday was my day to visit aunts and cousins. Well, I tried to at least. I got to have a wonderful visit with my cousin Patty and my Aunt Nell. It was so nice to be able to sit down and just visit and rehash old times. I can remember my parents doing this and I used to think "I will never do that!" ... well, all I can say is never say never...I really enjoy this! Does this mean I am getting old? Probably, but I had a wonderful time anyway. I wanted to see my Aunt Mae, however, she had a doctor appointment that day, so I couldn't.

It was strange not going to see my Aunt Martha and my Aunt Millie....that was always a big reason for coming to LA..to see them. Since they both have died in the last 5 months, it was a strange feeling for me -- I realized how much I miss them.

We had dinner with my brother and family. Julie fixed her wonderful eye of round (Cuban style) and her fablous cuban black beans and rice...needless to say, we stuffed oursevles once again! We waddled back to the hotel last night, both groaning and saying "we won't eat for another day or two we are sooooo full"...WRONG.

Side note here, there are horrible brush fires burning in the area. One near Ventura that is threatening 3000 homes and one near Fontana that we can smell the smoke. And it is very, very windy...good ole Santa Ana winds. I remember all of this from when I was a child....it scared me then and it scares me now.

Tuesday was really a fun day for me. My brother and I decided we wanted to go haunt a cemetary. Now, not just any cemetary, but Rose Hills in Whittier. We wanted to go visit our grandparents, aunts, uncles and my brother's brother-in-law. So that is waht we did...but it really turned into a "treasure hunt" for us. First of all, Rose Hills is HUGE -- matter of fact, it is the single largest memorial park in the world, over 1,500 acres. This was like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. I had a very vague idea of where our grandparents were buried, but that was it. After a visit to the administation office, where a very nice lady looked up all of the sites and gave us directions as to where to find our loved ones, and also told us if we had any trouble locating the grave sites we could call Security for assistance, we set off, armed with the directions and both my brother and I saying, this shouldn't be hard! HA! As we found out at the very first stop...it was a bit harder than we anticipated. We finally found the first grave, after a very long search. The next one was as difficult as the first. We were in the right "garden" but could NOT locate our Uncle. After a call to his daughter, we finally found him. Now, both my brother and I thought this adventure would only take us a couple of hours....we had just used 2 hours looking for 2 graves...at this rate we were going to be there the rest of the day and night (not something we wanted to do!) Plus it was about 80 degrees outside and we were walking up and down hills and rows and rows of graves. The next two were easier to find, so with this building our confidence a bit, we decided to take a break and go find something to eat. Al, in the mean time, is just waiting for us to find the grave and then on to the next one, he would get out and walk and try to help us, but he was as lost as we were. He was so patient with us. After lunch we went in search of the remaining loved ones. We found one of our uncles right off! HEY, we are getting pretty good at this. Now for the last 3 graves, our grandparents and our aunt that died before I was born. We found them with minimal effort....and it was only 1:30 p.m. We both were glad we did this, it had been on our "to do" list for many years.

We left my brothers and headed to Long Beach for the evening to have dinner some good Boeing friends. It was so good to visit with Eva & Bill and Donna. And Donna brought her grand daughter Natalie along...I was shocked! The last time we her saw was 7 years ago...it sure doesn't take children to grow up! Natalie is 13 and is turning into a very pretty young lady. We had a great visit, it is always so much fun to see these people. I wish we all could see each other more frequently, but I am also very thankful for the time we do get to spend with them. Eva, Bill and Donna just never change, they are still the wonderful people we have known over the years.

Bill and Eva Davey








Donna Bearden and grand daughter Natalie






Stay tuned for more of our adventures when we "wride the wrails" home on Friday.

Followers