Another one off the bucket list!

 It was a great summer.  The time flew by and looking back we accomplished a lot.  I worked part time in a grocery store  (I guess I did not learn my lesson the first time I did that).  However it did give me a ton of exercise and either strengthened or killed my back - jury is still out on that! 
We managed to visit with our family a lot which was fantastic.  I got in quite a few walks in the woods which is always something I love to do.  I even got to be in on a secret location of a rare orchid found in the boreal forest near Prince Albert - how cool is that?
We had a very successful gardening season at Kylie's house despite having to cover due to June frosts.  It was also very dry which led to a number of forest fires a couple of hours north of us as well as very smoky air. 
It was really cool to see Glen and Maureen, Ruth and Wayne and Brad and Clare - these are all friends we met in Mesa.
And most exciting of all Kylie and Kyle got engaged while on their trip to New Mexico and Colorado.  We are very pleased with both of their choices of partners and look forward to planning a wedding with them (if they ever decide what they are going to do  - LOL  hint hint)

We spent a few days in Estevan visiting with family before leaving Canada on October 22/15.  We saw most of  Don's family, some of whom we had not seen for quite some time so we were super happy about that. Also visited with my mom and dad and youngest sister.  Also Kylie and Kyle came for the weekend so they could visit everyone as well.  The days flew by and we spent a few fun hours playing scrabble, delivering flyers for my nephew, goofing off, eating and just generally having a great time.
We went through the port at Noonan and stayed in Miles City, Montana the first night.  The next two nights we stayed in Livingston, Montana.  It is such a pretty area and we stayed here as it is close to drive for a day trip into Yellowstone.  The first day we went to a pretty park for a walk after all the sitting we had been doing the last 2 days.

 There were lots of geese and ducks.  I couldn't believe my luck to see a number of these beautiful little wood ducks.

And some beautiful mountains too.
While driving through Montana we saw a lot of corn and sugar beet crops.

They pile the sugar beets in huge piles after harvesting.  I assume trucks come and pick them up to take for processing. There are also a lot of cattle in this area.  We saw a lot of cows out grazing.  We went past a totally grass fed beef farm as well.  Hopefully we will see these more and more.
And today we went to Yellowstone.  We left as soon as it got light out this morning and had a really great day.  It was right around the 0 C mark when we left and there was a wind so it was chilly on the ears.  The thought crossed my mind to bring my ear muffs but I was not smart enough to act on it. Also at over 7000 elevation it isn't to toasty this time of year.   Luckily you can drive the loops there and see most everything you would want to see.  Of course, we did not get any hiking in nor did we have much time to spend in the visitors centers.  There was so much information and wonderful displays available to see.

Yellowstone is quite amazing.  The scenery is like nothing you would see anywhere, or even imagine. There are all kinds of different hydrothermal features.  But yet, it has scenery that you would see in many different areas as well, such as pastures and waterfalls.  Its like the park that has EVERYTHING!

This was called fountain paint pots geysers.  It was very thick (like paint) and the bubbles looked really cool.

this pond was really quite deep and such a pretty blue.  Look at all the minerals around the outside of the pool of water.  There was steam everywhere throughout the park.  Coming up from little holes in a field to huge geysers.

 The minerals made for some interesting designs in the water.  Also as the landscape changes due to the steam, water and minerals there are lots of old dead trees which make it interesting.   This park has also had a number of fires and they let nature do the re- seeding.  There are some part of the forest that is only 10 years old and some that are 25 years old.  Very interesting contrast.

 Of course no trip to Yellowstone would be complete without seeing Old Faithful.

This is the mud volcano.  That is one big pool of bubbling mud

 this was called dragons mouth.  It was a very good name for it as you could hear the roar of the steam coming out.  Sometimes as we were standing there it spewed out so much steam you couldn't see anything.  this area was also pretty smelly 

In this area there were tons of old dead trees.  A series of earthquakes in 1978 shook the area.  The trees all managed to survive the shaking but the ground super heated to 200F and cooked the roots.

 These two waterfalls were just beautiful.  The top one has a lot of travertine banks from the limestone deposited by the mineral springs.

This was along the Yellowstone River, the little island had a smooth covering of ash??

 I mostly saw this guy from the back.  I have  a number of pictures of his butt as a matter of fact.  He was walking along parallel to us as we drove along the road and I was having a hard time getting a good picture.  All of a sudden he sort of turned towards us and looked me in the eye and took a step forward, which is when I rolled up the window and missed a possible great shot.  He was scary looking tho!  LOL  I thought it was a black bear and Don said he thought it was a grizzly.  I sort of think he is right.

There were lots of bison all over the park as well as elk, antelope and deer.

The mammoth hot springs was just amazing to see.  It sort of looked like an ice sculpture.  Amazingly the water runs all the way down and then just seems to disappear into the ground.

It was a great day and I am super glad we got to go to Yellowstone!  Following are some videos - I have a lot to learn about taking videos  :)

 

No wonder we are tired . . .

It has been nearly 2  months since my last blog and I thought I would try and do a quick recap just so I can keep track of what we have been up to and when.  I started looking at pictures and listing all the items and I could not believe how many cool things we have been up to. 
My niece Shari can do a blog 6 months later and still remember a lot about her adventures, myself, on the other hand - not so much!
I have grouped them in sort of activity related activities instead of chronological as I usually do.
I have done a lot of "crafty crap" as our friend Larry calls it.

 I decided to make another quilt this year.  I think it turned out pretty good.  The picture below is of the wonderful sewing room here.  They have these neat boards on either end where you can put up your quilt or quilt pieces to arrange it or even admire it!  There are cutting boards and very nice sewing machines and anything you might need to do a project.  The ladies in this group are just the greatest.  Always willing to share a story or expertise.

 Barb used to be a floral arranger in her working days and she taught us how to make these cute little candy arrangements.  Suz and I took the class and we made quite a few of these over the winter.

 This was a class we took on making scarves.  You use an old T-shirt and cut it into strips and stretch it out and voila - a scarf.  Ruth took the course with us but she would rather go to zumba.

 Clare and Suz came over to my house one day and we made 5 more of the arrangements for Clare to take back for a party she is doing in Winnipeg in early April.  It was a fun girl morning - there was even salad, jello, biscuits and iced tea!

This is a rag rug woven on this loom.  Maureen started it about 3 years ago and then left it unfinished in the shed.  We decided it was time to get that baby finished up  - and also Glen was wanting it  OUT OF HIS SHED!  It was fun to sit and work on it and only a small bit of swearing and sore fingers.

We got new vinyl flooring put in our motor home.  I absolutely love it.  The air here is full of black sort of oily - for lack of a better word  CRUD!  This is so easy to wipe up.  I also took down the curtains in the front of the coach as they were sooooo dirty and dusty.  The track on the top had cracked and so they were not hanging on all the hangers.  We bought some new stripping to sew on the tops.  One morning we took the drapes down to the laundry, gave them a wash, hung them right off our awning (it was hot that day and they dried in half an hour.)  I took them down to the sewing room and sewed the strip on and we had them hung back up by noon.  That was such a relief - not much shrinkage (which we feared) and the sewing project went really really great.  I love it when things work out so easy like that!

These are from the NBA game we went to in Phoenix with Brad and Clare.  We took the light rail into Phoenix and it conveniently stops right beside the US Airways center where they play the games.  It was really quite exciting to watch one of these games in person.  They had some kind of star wars theme and even a motorcycle driving on the court at intermission.

We also went to a spring training game with Brad and Clare to Hohokam stadium.  It was a very hot day but we had seats in the shade and it was very comfortable. This was a really neat experience as well.  Oh and also they had the noodle truck there with all the soba noodles and veggies. OMG - I could eat that every day.

We went on a road trip to Payson with Ruth and Wayne.  We stopped in at a casino there and then for lunch at the Bee Line cafe.  This cafe has been around  since I think the 40's and they still use the same recipes.  We had a great lunch and then went to the Tonto National Bridge Park which was absolutely amazing.  After we walked around there for a while we went back to the cafe for pie!  The waitress had been teasing us about not saving room for desert and we said we would stop on the way back.  Of course, we were joking but the more we thought about it the more we wanted that pie.  It was a great day and I would go back to that park any time.

We went to Sloan park ball stadium for a Fox 10 media event with Suz and Larry.  We won some prizes Don won me that awesome soft kitty t shirt - which is unfortunately too small  :(    I am sure Kylie will enjoy it anyway.  It was really interesting to see how these things are organized as it was a live broadcast for their morning show.  We even made the news!
http://www.fox10phoenix.com/Clip/11158567/zip-trip-ritz-carlton-pianist#.VOeRUmxO2SA.facebook

 There have been so many fun parties this year.  Pool party, managers party, a couple of bocce parties, an ice cream party, a scavenger hunt, a dress up party, block party, brunch parties - just to name a few.  We had our own party which was a desert party.  Stupidly I did not get a picture of the spread.  We reserved the multi purpose room in Fiesta and had about 50 friends in for desert, coffee and liquors.  We really enjoyed ourselves and had a game with prizes even  - prizes were 2 of those candy arrangements.  We had a number of organized and impromptu happy hours and pot luck dinners.  There is never a dull moment in this park.

This was a little arrangement I made for Alvin's 65th birthday.  These are new friends from this year (well, we met 2 of the couples last year but got to know them better this year.)  We really enjoyed having  Janet on the end and Rick (taking the picture)  as our next door neighbors. 

I went to a wonderful breakfast brunch and a mid west states party with my date Suz.  Our men went off to Vegas to watch the Nascar races.  They enjoyed themselves and of course we sat at home "knitting and pearling"  or was it partying and shopping??  - can't remember.   Don also went to the Nascar races in Phoenix on a bus tour.

Of course we took a trip to the place where we see all the peach faced love birds.

We picked oranges and lemons.  I spoiled myself with a pitcher of fresh squeezed orange juice and one of grapefruit juice.  That stuff is heaven in a glass.  I was also given a lot of lemons ( I think I had about 200 in total).  I squeezed them and shared the juice and also made fresh lemonade.  I have a bunch frozen into ice cubes and a box all wrapped up in paper towels to bring home.  Hopefully they survive another couple of weeks! 

This picture cracks me up!  We went for about and hour bike ride on the canals near Gilbert Riparian Preserve one morning with Suz, Larry, Dennis and Gloria.  On the way back Larry remembered this house where the owner has animals and puts feed out for anyone who wants to feed them.  These 2 silly donkeys need some serious dental work.  The bike ride was just excellent, beautiful scenery and a great path to ride on.  Afterwards we went out for breakfast.  It was a very enjoyable morning.

These pictures were from our hike to Lost Gold mine trail area - petroglyphs.  The desert was warming up and flowers were popping up all over.  This pretty little area with ponds and rock was also decorated with pretty little drawing (petroglyphs)

This hike was also in the Superstition mountains.  The bottom photo is the weaver's needle.  This hike was fairly difficult and it was pretty hot but I would definitely go there again.  Love, love, love the Superstition Mountains. 
We also tried pickle ball this year which we both enjoyed but somehow did not get enough time to play very much.  I did water volleyball and water aerobics which were both wonderful.

No trip to Arizona would be complete without a little late night scorpion hunt.  LOL

This house always makes me laugh with the cactus growing in the eaves.

Last week's picnic at Saguaro Lake.  We sat and enjoyed the hot day, the water, watched some squirrels and lizards.  Then Don cooked us up some hot dogs.  After we walked around for a bit by the salt river.  Another fun day! 
We are leaving here on the 5th heading for Lake Havasu and Vegas.  Ruth and Wayne (they are from Alberta) are going to travel with us. After that we may stop in Valley of Fire  and then head north depending on weather.