Summer News

Something new!  The Activities office is now going to be open for summer hours.

Terri Wellman says she will be there and glad to be of assistance.

This prickly pear bush is just bursting with flower buds.  Can't wait to see how many of them actually open at the same time.

The palo verde tree is the Arizona state tree.  It's beautiful with its green trunk and yellow spring blossoms.

.....but oh, what a mess to clean up in your yard!!

New Pool

WOW!!  The new pool and facilities are almost ready to open.  We stopped by this morning for a quick view.  It's beautiful.  I'm guessing we'll hear an announcement soon.

I saw this announcement on Nextdoor this morning.  We're going to have some great swimming opportunities this summer!

The BIG palm trees by the admin buildings are already getting their trim.  Anyone want to volunteer for that job?  Yikes!

Spotted these pretty little white flowers on a very small cactus plant. Don groans when I pause for another flower photo but I do so enjoy them and so do many of our readers.

It will be fun watching these two stems rise to the sky over the next couple weeks.

I hear Calgary and some of our mid-western states are expecting more snow.  Oh well.  What can I say??  Here is our forecast from today's newspaper.

More Flowers and Cat Update

Good Morning, Readers!  It's another beautiful day here in our desert paradise.  I had my morning walk about 6 a.m. and loved every minute of it in this gorgeous weather.  70 degrees and many singing birds, clear blue sky, and so many pretty flowers to enjoy.

I walk up to get our mail and say Good Morning to Scott Honodel as he is cleaning the north pool for us.  

Scott mentioned that he saw a beautiful cactus flower so I asked him to send it to the blog so you folks at home could see it too.  This plant really deserves an A+.  (located between sites 21 and 22.  Don't know the owner but hope they see the picture.)

Then.........just when you think you've seen all the kinds of flowers in the park, I came across this one this morning.  The cactus has really heavy thick thorns but pretty delicate pink flowers.

This one has delicate white waxy flowers.

Our landscape crews are hard at work.  Fresh gravel arrives by the truckload and is being spread in all the planting areas and driveways.  It certainly makes things look fresh and new.

We had a small wind storm this week that took down a stop sign.  It was replaced immediately the next morning.

Not much else new to report but I will share a few pictures of "the kids" as I call them.  

Mouse and Kat

Kat appeared to be sound asleep but must have been dreaming as his tail was definitely not relaxed.  Looks like it was bent in a door.  :)

Our guests all laugh if they use our bathroom facilities.  They understand when I say there is no privacy in our bathroom.  "The kids" don't like being on the wrong side of the door.

*******************************************

I've learned two important lessons in life. 

 I can't recall the first one but the second one 

is that I need to start writing things down.

Tapas Tuesday and Summer Events

We have a committee of volunteers who are organizing some events to keep our annual residents occupied and entertained during summer.   We send a special thank you to the Organizers:  Barb Poole and Glo Mason, Ken and Julie Wolf, Chip and Sandy Milner, John and Suzanne Mizner.

Every Tuesday, we'll be attending Tapas Tuesday which has turned out to be quite a meal each week.  Tonight there were 88 residents in attendance.

There were just a "few" announcements for the upcoming month:

May 1            Suzanne Mizner starting Bible study group on the book of James

May 1            Beginning poker lessons for Texas Hold'em

May 3            Reminder that food trucks will be present at the  city gathering downtown

May 4            Card bingo meets every Saturday night 

May 5            Cinco de Mayo sponsored by Amazing Dental

May 7            Reminder of Tapas Tuesday every Tuesday 4:00 in SanTan room

May 13           Free coffee and donuts.  (get tickets from front     desk)

May 17          Suzanne Mizner is offering a silk scarf painting     class

May 18           Group trip to Kitt Observatory in Tucson

May 20           Breakfast club at Cotton House in Arizona City

May 25           Casino bus trip

May 30           Free movie by Amazing Dental "Dogs Journey"   (get tickets at front desk now)

May 31           Shopping trip to Chandler

Work is being done to organize a craft beer info meeting (and, hopefully, tasting!)

Working on a trip to the Dwarf Car Museum

Organizing a bowling group

Here's looking forward to a BUSY summer.

While we were at the event, a sudden storm passed through showing residents how fast and unexpected our summer weather can be.  Winds were strong enough to blow over the stop sign at the end of our street.  Sure hope those bursts stay away from our house this summer!!!

I spotted this on Nextdoor this morning.  The storm may have been a small taste of what is to come with summer storms?  Yikes!  

******************

In addition to all the events listed above, we also maintain all our normal activities like Mahjong, Swoop, Dominos, and other games.

Summer schedule says Mahjong meets on Mondays and Fridays but today (Tuesday) we had two fun tables also.

******************

Beautiful flowers in bloom at Ray & Cheri Norsted's at 1717.  (Special message to Ray and Cheri:  You went home a few weeks too soon!)

**********************

Avis sent some pretty photos she captured on Granite.

Baby Ducks

Spring time has arrived along with the baby ducks.  Gary Yaeger posted this picture on Nextdoor showing some babies hatched and more eggs on the way.

I watched a new family swimming in the small pond by #10.  So cute!

We counted 8 babies in this batch.

My son, Anton, and his girlfriend are here visiting so we went out with our black lights to look for scorpions.  It's a fun evening activity and we never come back empty handed.

I want to be sure to mention how much we appreciate the park installing new lights along the walking path across the golf course.  It is soooo nice to walk through there at night now.  The solar lights just didn't last long enough.  Thank you!!

There is also a huge investment in gravel as crews spread new gravel along the entrance drive and in the parking lot.  It will look nice.

Kat is quite proud of himself as he has learned to open a cupboard drawer to find a comfy resting place.

The toads are out

Cactus blossoms are starting to appear.  Check the beauty at 1926.  Although by the time you get over there, the blossoms will probably be gone as they don't stay very long.  Beautiful color!

What an awesome golf cart!!  Donna Keay owns this beauty.  No more plastic curtains to zip open or closed.....and this machine is actually air conditioned, has a heater, and a radio, and is still all electric.  Wow!  I think it wins first prize.

Mouse keeps me company while I work on the blog.

Sleeping very soundly!

I can hear the Sonoran desert toads in all their glory way over at my house at night.  They are VERY loud for such little critters.  Hard to get a good photo with  cell phone plus handling the flashlight.

I took a short video so you could get a sense of how LOUD they are.  I couldn't focus the camera enough to see a frog but you can certainly hear them.

We had a water outage for a few hours this week due to an emergency water line break.  Crews had us back on line as soon as possible.  Thanks guys!  That was no small job!

P.S.  Thank you to the lady that posted the outage alert on Nextdoor.