Happy Birthday

Daughter turns 40 this year. Can you imagine that? I won't go into how special she is to me and many others but she also marches to her own drum. She was totally opposed to having the typical invite everyone you know to a "surprise" party and simply asked to spend time with each person in her life. This was our time......

Breakfast at the Cottonwoods resort in Scottsdale

Shopping at the Borgata where they have some very unual items like these glasses we modeled

We finished shopping just in time for lunch. I had made reservations at

The English tea room in Carefree, Arizona, a very unusal  sight for the everything western town.

We could not finish our lunch but packed it in a to go box and enjoyed them the next morning with our yogurt parfaits for breakfast..
We spent the night at the Carefree Inn that is totally western and more in my comfort zone...

 They have their own botanical garden to wander through

It was a great place to stay...we napped, did the Jacuzzi with drinks, had a great dinner

 looked at old photo albums from when she was little and of course talked and talked and talked.

Breakfast was on our little patio over looking the pool and we basked in a lazy dazy morning. My last treat was to take her to the little Mexican food place in carefree for lunch. This is not just any Mexican food restaurant but a total experience

El Canto

What a surprise when you walk through the archway....

Tables that surround the pond with ducks, turtles, birds, and a resident goose. Now can can you tell me anything about THIS duck?

He had a toupee! The ladies didn't seem too impressed....
Everyone was delighted to see the new babies that were born the night before...

The food is great and the bar in the back that looks out to the pond is pretty cool too.

It wasn't just any birthday...it was Happy 40th and am I ever glad to have been able to spend it with the apple of my eye.

Spring fever

Like most people I get a bad case of spring fever but am I ever happy with the results this year!!!
You see when we built our house there was this one little room that was a entry at the back of the kitchen that was originally to be a wash room but I had decided it would make a perfect sun room. By the time the house was finished we had a surprise Grandson and the third bedroom that was to be the office became his bedroom and the sun room became a shared office.
Thanks to a picture in a very old Better Homes and Garden  "favorite houseplants" book I was inspired to create a little of both.....Looking through the pass through of the kitchen. into the office
Double click on pictures for up close and personal.
The idea of this is to have more of water based plants of clippings.

This is lemon balm, smells so good.

Yes, that is a yam and am hoping for a beautiful vine.

Notice the blue container. A very special friend made two of theses for hubby and I....I will show a close up of what is in the other one.

These were some old bottles from my Mom

another African violet in a cup

Since I sit right next to these glas shelves I keep them all company or maybe they keep me company:)

Corned beef and cabbage

Consumption of corned beef is often associated with Saint Patrick's Day. Corned beef is not considered an Irish national dish, and the connection with Saint Patrick's Day specifically originates as part of Irish-American culture, and is often part of Saint Patrick's Day celebrations in North America.  In Ireland, the closest traditional dish is Bacon and Cabbage (more akin to Canadian style bacon or ham), as Beef was considered a less desirable meat. Corned beef and cabbage became popular in the U.S. after Irish immigrants in the northeast used corned beef instead of pork in the dish. This substitution was likely due to the low cost of corned beef in the U.S.

When I was young I wouldn't eat either one of these but now that my taste buds are dulled....I think it is delicious and happy that our local restaurant served it for Saint Patrick's Day. Did you eat this traditional dish for Saint Paddy's day?

Christmas in March

My daughter's Christmas gift to me was tickets

for her and I to go to the Pro Bull riding

and March 12th was the day!  She picked me up and we had dinner and then headed to Westgate where the event was being held.

This was entertainment from start to finish. A fiery opening  with the booming music that draws you into all the action and the worlds top bull riders jockeying for position to come out on top of bulls with an attitude.

 We had a good view of the chutes and of course they had the camera's too. I took this little video...

There was plenty of action but let me tell you one of the best actions they had...

Flint Rasmussen. A professional clown who's job isn't to protect the riders but to entertain the crowd and does he ever....watching him was worth the ticket in itself.......

   He follows the circuit and this is his full time job. I found his background interesting as well.....Flint Rasmussen.

My interest in bull riding goes back to when I was just a young girl who dated a bull rider, they are a breed of their own and it sure isn't for sissy's....

I think this is one of my best Christmas presents ever and one that lasted all night long...............................

A day of beauty

I am posting some pictures of the breathtaking beauty I experienced yesterday.....................(click on any picture to enlarge)

Now can you believe I was in the heart of Phoenix, Az. and smack dab on top of the 10 lane, 2,887 foot long Papago tunnel on I10 westbound when I took these????

This is the  Japanese Friendship Garden and we not only found this peaceful sanctuary but also... 

Koi fish and

ducks that relished the bag of food we bought.

Statues and

rain bells

Even the bathroom sink was a thing of beauty!

We drove a short distance to an old house that now is home to the Arizona Historical Society and even though  it was closed there was beauty to behold, from the lava rock it was built with

to the beautiful old windows

Would have loved to toured the inside...

maybe next time.

We then headed to the Phoenix Art Museum for lunch at Arcadia Farms there are two locations for this restaurant and they are famous for their farm grown venue. After a great lunch we wandered around and took in a few of the thousands of art features. There were some that just gripped me and fortunately for me they were ones that you could photograph..

This was done with gold and paint on a thin tin dish.

This was a HUGE portrait that was so detailed....you could even see the woman standing  in white, fingernails!

Both hubby and I were fascinated with this painting...no matter where you stood...left or right, he was looking at you!

This enormous light structure was in the lobby.

Oh what a day of beauty and gifts of talent..... How easily we forget the wonderful things right under our noses.

A test

Grandson wanted to go to Castles n Coasters for his birthday celebration....we agreed to go, I mean how wild is a game of miniature golf.

I picked my ball

We picked our course and we were off to a great start.

One of the best parts was trying to figure out what to do (not that it helped us actually do it).
It was in the low 80's so by the end I was beet red and maneuvering around the terrain

had been a challenge for me but I did it....until the last big test....a suspension bridge...I love them but metal in ankle not so much. I thought I had been on a pretty wild ride but the grand kids preferred this one

 Yes, I am definitely a Grandma with a ankle that is not like it use to be.....but I won the game of goofy golf!  No one was more surprised then me ..........

Speed Dating

This is Zippy, he is my grand-rabbit that my daughter adopted from a  rabbit rescue. She has been thinking about getting him a companion since he is alone all day while she is at work and the two dogs only want to chase him. I have learned a lot about rabbits since Zippy came into my life and especially about rabbit rescuers. They are VERY fond of their rescued rabbits and won't let just anyone adopt. You have to meet certain qualification and you can't just go and get another rabbit and put the two together...that is where speed dating comes in. You bring your rabbit to a rescue and they set up two cages next to each other....if they don't like each other they will fight, If they ignore each other that is a good sign and if they get lovey that is a great sign that they might bond. I didn't know rabbits bonded and thought they just did one night stands and that is where the term breeding like rabbits came from but maybe it is from the fact that when they do breed they have large litters....beats me. But they told us it usually takes a long time for them to bond. They even had some pairs for adoption that were already bonded and indeed they seemed very close.

"Hey, what's that?"

What are you doing?

"I don't see you"

sniff, sniff

Kissy, kissy

No she didn't go home with us because our little Zippy boy kissed everybody they introduced him too...what a lover boy!

Success

When we had our pool installed I told the contractor that I wanted it to look more like a natural pond than a swimming pool
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/These two seemed pretty comfy this morning.

Would love to keep them but they leave BIG poops!