Monday, November 16, 2009

A Long Time Coming

Well - the last couple of weeks have been in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area and I didn’t think there was much to write about (so I haven’t) - until I started to put some thoughts down. We have really been busy!!


When we arrived in town, the first thing I saw was an ad for the ‘Arizona State Fair’! Now Gary is NOT a fan of any fair since I drug him to the Utah State Fair to ‘check it out’ right after we moved to Utah. BUT, this was my very favorite thing to do as a kid - and it was always over my birthday. So, several of my girl friends and I would go to the fair and spend an entire afternoon/evening there making ourselves sick on all the rides that would spin us and turn us upside down AND eating cotton candy and chocolate fudge. SO - this year I talked Gary into going with Deme and me so they could relive my youth with me. Deme and I went on all the rides I could stand at my old age (and then a few on her own, as neither Gary nor I could do the upside down ones any more!) Then we ate ice cream, fudge and cotton candy until our tongue and teeth turned blue!! Deme and I had a BLAST!!!!




Blue 'cotton candy' lips and all

All of this fun and frolic was followed up with Halloween. Not sure when Deme was the scariest - at the fair with her blue teeth or dressed up for Halloween?!?!?!




Freaky Vampire

The first two weeks of November have been packed --


First there was Golf School. Three days of relentless instruction and hitting thousands of balls on the practice tees. The first question the first morning was “What do you hope to accomplish?” Can’t speak for Gary - but my answer was “get more distance out of my driver and transfer my ‘warm-up’ on the practice tees to the course”. After 2 days of hitting balls on the practice tees and being told “you are hitting GREAT”, we moved to the playing lesson on the third morning. After my first tee shot the instructor said “wow - you are a lot different on the course than on the practice tees! What has happened?” On the third tee he said “put away your driver and use your 3 wood!” So much for my objectives!:-((((!!!! (I think Gary felt about the same as me.) No pics to document this experience.


On to more fun activities!


Second came the Greek Festival. With a brother-in-law named Santorios - and a niece named Demetra Santorios, you bet we needed to take this in. As in all Greek Festivals, the main attractions are the food and the entertainment. After taking in the food, we made our own entertainment in the surrounding park as we were a bit early for the ‘scheduled’ entertainment. We played checkers, posed with the various park sculptures - in some cases trying to recreate the poses (even if they were up-side down) and just had a good time.




Fountains and femmes





Deme, Dad, dog and the big guy



Life imitating art ??? (None of us could do a handstand:-( )

Then the ‘girls’ had a proper English Tea, as the guests of Phyllis and Mother Dorthy. Eating was involved again - as was being properly attired with “the hat”! A selection was provided by the tea house, and we all had a great time selecting just the right hat for the afternoon.



Nice hats!



Tea time - pinkies up!

Fourth was a wonderful hike with cousins Walt and Jan in the Tonto National Forest (cactus not trees). We took the Metate Trail. For those of you not familiar with the Indian Southwest - a metate is the ‘scooped out rock utensil and grinding rock’ that was used to ‘mash’ corn (or other food item) to a powder or flour. Along this particular trail we found the ruins of a ‘kitchen‘ with the metate.



Hiking with Jan, Walt & Deme



A matate ... what's that ?



Trekkin trio

During this last couple of weeks we were also meeting up with old friends. We had a very nice dinner with Linda Stinson (from Chicago and PC), who was in town with her parents in tow. We also met up with one of our old Touche partners and his wife, Rick and Lisa Wolf, who now have a place in Scottsdale, for a nice dinner.


We are also trying to see how many we can include for dinner parties in Magic. This past week we had 5 guests, for a total of 7, for dinner and Sunday night football! We figured we could include three more if necessary. So - we are ready to be the entertainment center on the Alaska trip next fall!


Oh - also along those lines - we have decided that the name “Magic Bus” needs to be replaced with “The Magic Traveling Sports Bar”!! Everyone LOVES our outside entertainment center - including us.


One more thing - for our golfing friends - we now have the golf school out of our system and are back to playing our game and enjoying it! We also now have 18 balls from the new courses that we have played on this trip. And, we still have another full week to go!


Well - that is our two weeks of nothing! Will have to get our rears in gear so we have more to report in the next posting.


Love to you all - E & G


PS - There were no pictures in our last posting, as the chief photographer on our tour was a little slooooooowwwww with the shutter finger!! So - here are a few pics from our stay in CA -



Four generations



Hi great-gramma



You take it