Lilliana and family

This pictures gets me every time I look at it.

Such a pensive moment.

Family is what it is all about

Day in Madera Canyon

We spent a wonderful morning in Madera Canyon.  Hiked up the Old Baldy Trail, birding was slow as expected this time of year, but the canyon was beautiful--as always.  Especially so as it was showing fall colors. Sycamores especially are glowing yellow right now.

Madera is one of those Arizona treasures in the desert, tucked up against the Santa Rita Mts just south of Tucson.

Found this cool lizard with a blue "beaded" tail.

Exhibit

St Andrews Presbyterian has an active Arts Committee and lovely gallery space and regularly host artist exhibits throughout the year.  My fellow member and potter, Gretel and I are featured for the next five weeks.  Pretty fun !!  Gretel and I have very different styles so we mixed them up when we put items out and turned out quite nice.  Got Will into the act, building shadow boxes and then today the husbands were indispensable in the installation.

A family afair

A pretty special little girl!

Newest pictures from a few of our favorite people!  Thats Doug, Lilliana and Tammy.  

St andrews arts and craft fair

The fellowship hall was buzzing today with our fall arts and craft fair.   We had 45 vendors selling a really fun array of items.  From jewelry to watercolors, aprons to self published books, Christmas decorations to home made jams and on and on.  Was a good time. The Kitchen crew, our "Heavenly Hosts" even had an old fashioned bake sale which was a great success all by itself. 

Here I am tucked off in a corner with my pottery.  Will put out some of his boxes, too.  I made the tile and then he incorporated it into a lid of a stained glass box.  I love them.

Tucson Meet Yourself

Every year, Tucson Meet Yourself gets bigger and better.  Its a celebration of ethnic diversity and all that Tucson has to offer.  Food vendors all over the place selling everything imaginable--from Costa Rican food, to Pacific Islands, to Swedish, to Mexican and everything in between.  Every ethnic community in town was there with their specialties plus about 4 main stages so that there was music from every nationality also.  Was pretty fun to walk around and see it all--plus all the crafts and booths from all the organizations in town.

Wouldn't be complete without a high school mariachi band!

The Tohono Oodom  tribe had a huge display showing traditional arts and crafts.  I watched this lady make baskets in a very labor intensive way.  No wonder they are expensive. Other Arizona tribes were also there each doing their particular craft.

There was even a car show.  Will found our old car--the one we had when got married.  Except our 63 Impala was red. . .and I don't remember it looking this good.  I also remember that car jumping out of gear when you would be driving down the road.

Home

Albuquerque to Tucson.  After 3 days of driving into the wind, finally a beautiful day for traveling. 

Landscape across New Mexico and Arizona.  Love it.

We made a stop in Hatch, New Mexico--chili capital of the world!!--bought a few to take home to make my own  Chilie Rellenos. I prefer the milder variety.  Still plenty of bright red and green chilies in the fields. 

  Home again.

Through 4 states

Started out very early this morning from Liberal, Kansas.  Wasn't long and we were in Oklahoma, and then a corner of Texas and into New Mexico.  We are following Hiway 54 through the High Plains, in the height of harvest season. 

Huge fields of corn, then wheat (long harvested) and sorghum and grassland. Evidence of the huge agriculture contingent are the mammoth grain elevators in all the small towns we pass through.  

The sky is so big out here.  However, as the day went on, the sky began to scream at us as the wind picked up again.  We have driven in a pretty steady headwind all the way but today was the worst. 

By the time the landscape changed to a more familiar Southwest of sage, yucca and red cliffs, the wind was gusting to scary levels.  We made it to Albuquerque and stopped at the Isleta Casino RV park.  It was time to be off the road.  It even rained for a while as the front passed through. 

   Had to check out the casino, signed up for a players card and managed to make enough on a nickel slot machine to pay for dinner.  Woo-hoo!

Another day on the road

A farm country sunrise!  

Got an early start so that we could meet Les and Helene for breakfast before everyone started their busy day!

We thought since we had time we would stop at DeSoto Bend National Wildlife Refuge near Missouri Valley, Iowa.  Great idea, however. . .we forgot.  Federal sites are not open these days.  Was hoping to see some migrating waterfowl.  

  So instead we went on and stopped for the night near Omaha and called Doc and Sharon Watson.  Enjoyed dinner together at a local Greek restaurant and caught up on our lives.  So good to see them! 

Transporting Motor Home to Tucson.

We flew to Wisconsin with a one way ticket and now in the process of driving our friend's motor home back to Tucson so that it will be there when she is ready to come down for the winter.  It is a considerably larger unit than ours so we were a little nervous heading out yesterday morning.  Wasn't long and Will settled in and we got more and more comfortable with each passing mile.  Pretty soon we were actually having fun. . .well, until we ran into one last hard rain, and a strong cross wind coming into Iowa.

We got to Rock Valley just fine.  Took us a while to remember all the instructions that Judy told us but between the two of us we figured it out and found all the right hoses and connections and etc.  Spent some time in the evening with Will's Mom until it was bed time for her.  We were ready for bed too.

 

Rock Valley has this wonderful city RV park with full hook ups and very close to Mom's Care Center.  We have always thought this was the best deal around.  We are not towing a car so we do need something convenient.

However, we did have an occasion to go to the nearby community of Sioux Center.  No place in a small town to rent a car so Will called the local Chevy dealer to see if he could rent a car for a day there.  Well, no they don't really rent cars but they do have loaner cars for people to use while their car is being repaired, or used cars for test driving.  When Will told the owner who he was. . .and that he was Lydia DeBoer's son--who by the way had been a loyal customer over the years, he gave us the use of a car at no cost!  That is classic "small town"--don't you love it!  We could have pulled up stakes and driven the RV to Sioux Center, but this made it so much easier.

   Today was the first really nice day we have had since we arrived in the midwest.  The Care Center often takes the clients on outings in this open car puled by a huge garden tractor so today was a wonderful day for residents to take a ride.  We hopped on too for a ride to see the colors.  We rode past Mom's former house, through downtown and out along some bike paths along the river.  Was the highlight of Mom's day.

It is definately fall in Iowa.

Wayne Massey 1947--2013

We had the bittersweet pleasure of attending an evening of tribute to a treasured friend who passed away on Sept 5, 2013 after a long battle with throat cancer.  It was truly a celebration of his life as friends old and new, co-workers, family, neighbors, and loved ones came together to share memories, stories and pay homage to a true hero and beloved man.  

He was dearly loved by his son, Brad and wife, Judy of 40 years but left an indelible mark on our kids as well. He was very special to Stephanie.

 

Lilliana is going preschool!

Lia has started preschool for a couple of days a week.  She seems to be really enjoying it all.

Thats her backpack! With her name on it.  Just like the big kids.