Trunk or Treat

We joined up with about 30 other cars in St Andrews church parking lot for Trunk or Treat for a little Halloween fun. 
We were the cowboy and the pumpkin down at the pumpkin coral!

Carol and Andy's pumpkin patch!
Susie had a game for the kids to play
I loved this costume. She said she was a Day of the Dead lady like "Katrina" (which is really big here in Tucson) but I thought she was the cutest Tim Burton character.
Loved these guys too.

Went out  afterwards with fellow trunkers for dinner and icecream.

Wills newest!

Wills latest stained glass project. It's a kalidescope!!
Pretty fun, huh

New kitchen (almost)

I got new quartz countertop in my kitchen this week. They installed the new ones and instant transformation. My old laminate countertops were dark brown and the new is a mottled white and the room just lit up!  The installers were so conscientious and careful, they made quick work of the job.
Will had to put sink back in as they would not do any plumbing.  Will also installed new light fixtures for an updated look.  Pretty fun to work in my kitchen now.

A few more days

Now that the work is done and the goal of the Mission trip is accomplished its time for a little relaxation and just be tourists.  Most people went home on Sunday or Monday but we stayed on until Wednesday.  Most folks had to go home to go back to work. . .not us!!

  Plenty of great birding just down the road at Cholla Bay. 
Osprey everywhere! Lots of food in the waters of the Sea of Cortez. Pretty wicked looking talons!

We signed up for a sunset cruise on a small catamaran that was to include dinner. When we went to sail, we were told not enough people signed up and would not sail. But hey, they assured us the next boat over was a similar excursion and they had room.  Well, wasn't long before we realized we were on the party boat, with lots of loud music, plenty of tequila shots and no dinner!! 

   Oh well. . .We did see Dolphins and it was a beautiful sunset.  We passed on the Tequila. 

Went out to see the Shuk Tok Visitor Center for the Pinacate Reserve which is a Mexican National Park and UNESCO site about 20 miles out of town. It was extremely impressive and although most in Spanish we could understand enough to make it very interesting.
Dinner on the beach during another amazing sunset.
Checking out the lava fields on the drive through Pinacate Preserve.

House build 2

Just like kids everywhere, playing with left over construction scraps.
We had 33 people on our team building the house including 4 families with kids between the ages of 7 and 14. Those kids worked really hard and truly contributed! Intetesting that it turned out all the kids were girls.  They never once complained or slacked off and even had time to interchange with family's kids.  They were an inspiration.
Lupita wanted so much to feed us a meal so the last day she did.  Honestly it was the best chicken mole and rice I have

 ever had.
Will working away. House had to be covered tightly with chicken wire so we could give it two coats of stucco.

The finale of our week was a church service on the beach. Including a baptism in the ocean. Four people decided to be baptised.

In Mexico

Thursday morning we piled in the RV and left Tucson at the crack of dawn. We had to meet up with friends and travel partners at the Mcdonalds on Ajo Way for the drive across the border.
Its a short 3 hour drive from our house to the beach. Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) is on the Sea of Cortez in the Mexican state of Sonora. We are here with a big group of people from St Andrews Presbyterian Church and Pantano Christian on a mission trip to build houses for some folks who could really use a hand up.

 We arrived at noon, ate a quick lunch and then hurried out to construction site because we had to get foundation and slab poured before we could build the next day.
Friday morning, our crew of about 25 of all generations got to work framing and building a house for Lupito, Hernando and two boys. All is done with no power tools, no electricity here in the neighborhood. So concrete mixed in wheel barrow, lumber sawn with hand saws, everybody, all ages worked really hard.


And pretty soon a modest two room house with bathroom, (once family can get hooked up to plumbing,) takes shape.
In three days we are ready to turn the keys over to Lupita in a very tearful ceremony. Tears of joy and shared thankfulness to God. 

Lupita and son in front of her new home. More pictures to come once I get better wifi but what an amazing thing to be part of.  We work with local Christian organization here who coordinates it all, we just do the labor. And the blessings we receive through this endeavor is so amazing. I would say I got a whole lot more than I gave. It was hard, physical work but every aching bone was so worth it.  We slept really, really well!!

Exhibit

At the artist reception for a juried exhibition I am part of. Feels good to have my work shown. Will be up until January.
"Sand Hill Cranes of Sulpher Valley", sculptural relief clay with mixed media.

Granite Hills and new state park

A morning hike in the Granite Hills outside of Prescott before we took off for home.

We stopped at Arizona's newest State Park North of Wickenburg near Yarnell.  Its a memorial to the hot shot fire fighters that died one July day in 2013 fighting what came to be known as the Yarnell fire. It is quite a rigorous hike to the actual memorial and we did not take the time to do it today. We will come back some cooler day and hike up there.

50th wedding anniversary

We celebrated our Golden Anniversary with a weekend getaway trip to Prescott, AZ.

Just did stuff we like to do, like a hike through a local nature preserve. We found this pond with at least 10 pairs of Wood Ducks. They are such a beautiful duck. Otherwise birding was pretty quiet but hike was nice.
One day we drove over to Jerome. Old mining town that has a lot of history, plus a funky artist town with drop dead views of surrounding valley.

Jerome sits on top of a mountain and surrounding forest had just a touch of fall color.
Back in Prescott we stopped at the library of Emery-Riddle Aeronautical University (first of all, did not know anything about this school--Prescott seems unlikely place for it) where we saw a miniature aircraft collection. The world's largest to-scale collection of miniature airplane models is housed here. There are 5,829 hand carved aircraft models, each in true painted detailed markings of the aircraft represented. Its quite amazing.

Found some really good restaurants in Prescott, like El Gato Azule (the blue cat) a Spanish tapas restaurant to down home Mexican which I can't remember name. Lots of galleries and shops for shopping delight in historic district.

 Nice place to enjoy with my very "significant other."