Sunset

If only a photo could do it justice! I just came back from the pool....it's 7:45 pm and the temperature is a mild 104. But look at this gorgeous sunset! That's my only news for today. I have the day off tomorrow so I'm heading to the casino to play bingo for the afternoon. Wish me luck!

More Heat

Greetings from very sunny Arizona,

Whoops.....I missed the ice cream social Sunday afternoon so have no photos to post (again). I had been diligently cleaning house, doing laundry, etc. and then took a "little" nap in my chair. You can probably guess the rest of that story.

I had a fun adventure this past week. I took Thursday as a day off work and drove over to the Ak-Chin casino all by myself for a fun day of bingo. Don't laugh! I like bingo. I was surprised to see a huge brand new Wal-Mart store on the edge of Maricopa by all the new housing developments. There is still a LOT of construction along that stretch of road as they widen the highway and finish off the railroad tracks. I must say that I am extremely grateful for the stop light that has been installed at the intersection where we turn left to go to the casino.

The "Bingotainment center" is closed now and bingo is held inside the hotel in one of the huge ballroom areas. I had three cards for a double action game and was excited when I got a bingo. Unfortunately, four other people also yelled at the same time which meant we split the $300 pot. As they were verifying numbers, I noticed that I also had a bingo on a second card so called the gal back. Sure enough....I was a double winner so instead of just getting $60, I got $120. Anytime you can leave the casino with more money than you went in with....it's a good day so I went home a winner. It made for a fun day.

Other than that......the only news is that our HOT weather continues. I'm posting a blurb from the front page of this morning's paper. Our son, Kevin, is still driving truck all over our beautiful country. He called this morning from Tennessee as he heads down to Louisiana. He said he just had to call and brag about the beautiful scenery he was experiencing of the GREEN rolling hills and wildflowers along the route. He had his window down and was enjoying the fresh 60 degree temperature.....and working on his "trucker tan". A "trucker tan" is a standard joke because they all have a tan left arm from driving with the window down.

That's my blurb for today. Must hurry off to my morning water aerobics class. Ta Ta for now.

HOT

I missed several of the park's summer events...the July 4 potluck party, movie night, and a morning coffee & donuts meeting so I don't have any pictures to post or memories of great food to boast about. Both of our sons have been over for frequent visits so we're having fun but missed some resort events.

The paper this week had a big ad about our local Wal-Mart store being completely remodeled inside and out. Construction has already started as we stopped in at the pharmacy and found it operating but in quite the shambles. The staff had a good sense of humor about it and are certainly looking forward to completion.

The plaza by the old Wal-Mart store....Frys grocery, McMashers Bar, etc is also being completely remodeled on the outside. We know Reggie who owns McMashers. She called us at work and pleaded for a large banner that says "McMashers IS OPEN during construction" because several of her customers said they didn't come in for a while assuming the place was closed due to all the hubbub. Her sign is now up and business is underway. I recommend you stop in there sometime for a good cheeseburger and curly fries. It's a nice sports bar and casual restaurant. Lots of TV screens to watch.

Other than that, the only headline news we have is the heat. Whew!


P.S. For your info.....this site had 176 hits since July 3. Makes me feel guilty if I don't get something new posted each week. Thanks again for your support and feedback.

HOT

I added a little weather box to the blog so you can laugh (or sympathize) with us as we swelter in the summer heat. I can't quite get it to fit perfectly in the sidebar, but it's close enough. If you click on it, you go straight to the weather page. YIPE! We're supposed to be 117 this weekend. Whew. That's HOT.

We had our first monsoon rain Friday night. It was wonderful. Don and I sat out on the patio for about an hour just to watch the rain, and soak up the cool temperature as it dropped below 80 for the first time in quite a while. We had a great thunder and lightning display too but no wind to speak of. That's the first measurable rain we've had in a LONG time so it was much appreciated. We could almost hear the saguaros sighing as they soaked up the precious moisture.

Tuesday Night Bunco

Bunco was great fun tonight. We had several really close games that erupted in lots of laughs. Some Bunco records were also set.

Suzette took home almost ALL the money as she had the most wins, the most Buncos, and the prize for ending the evening with the Bunco bear. I thought surely I would win most Buncos because I got four including three during one hand!! Suzette managed 5 Buncos and won 16 out of the 24 games we played. She definitely went home a winner.

Poor Nikki on the other hand lost 17 of the 24 games but kept her charming smile the whole time.

Win, lose, or draw, I know we all had a lot of fun. A night of laughter and camaraderie sure helps to keep us in good spirits now that the temperatures are in the triple digits every day. It no longer cools off at night so the windows are closed and the AC is running full throttle. Ya gotta love Arizona!

Bingo!

We had a fun time at Bingo tonight! Thank you to Diane Gaines for providing free popcorn and soda. Thank you to Flo Fillipi and Linda Berry for organizing the event and doing all the set up and book work. Thank you to Lauren for doing the calling.

Sandy Clark was a strong winner tonight as she got to yell Bingo THREE times. Her whole table was lucky cause Popkorn won twice and Mike Kirsch bingoed as well. One time Sandy even bingoed twice on the same card plus she got to split the pot for the big coverall game at the end. Way to go, Sandy. Maybe she should run out and buy a lottery ticket this week.

It was still 96 degrees when we left the ballroom around 9:00 so our warm temps are definitely here. No more open windows at night and no more coffee on the patio in the early morn. Oh well......I'll still take a hot summer over a freezing icy winter so I'm not complaining.

Here's a photo of the winning table. That's Sandy on the far right with the big smile

I stood on stage and made everyone salute a "dobbers up" for a quick photo.

Items for Sale

Don and I are remodeling our little home here in the desert so need to sell some no longer needed items. We bought ourselves a HUGE new refrigerator so no longer need our beverage cooler or ice maker. These items are in excellent condition and will be perfect for your park model or shed. They'll be a guaranteed success come party time this season.

July Newsletter

The July newsletter has been published. I received many compliments from readers who liked reading it so here ya go. Looks like we have many fun events lined up for the month. Are you jealous???

Okay....I'll stop bragging about our beautiful weather....but its still sunshine, dry heat, beautiful flowers, and (yes) HOT. The photo below shows a new electronic grid that APS has installed to help spot power outages and get them repaired faster. I'd sure hate to be without our AC this time of year!!!!!!!!!! Let's hear three cheers for APS.

Weather

Okay....here comes the HOT weather. Just when I took time to brag about how wonderful it's been, the weatherman slipped and our normally high hot temps are approaching. We have a nice breeze today (enough that the pickleball folks would complain if they were here) so that's ideal time for cute little dust devils. Don and I drove up to Phoenix today to shop for a cabinet for our kitchen remodeling and enjoyed watching numerous dust devils hopping around in the desert on the way home. They never cease to entertain us and today they were in top form whirling their way among the cactus and scrub brush. Fun to watch.

Crime Prevention & Misc News

I thought summers were supposed to be quiet so I would have time to sit back and curl up with a good book. Whew. Lots going on around here.


CRIME PREVENTION MEETING

This morning was a meeting up in the Suntan room to discuss crime prevention. A very cordial Casa Grande police officer (Thomas Anderson) came to visit and talked about crime prevention in our resort. Basically, he reiterated all the things Wendell had written in our "Happenings" newsletter. If you missed your copy, I have it posted on this blog. Just scroll down a little farther till you find it. We're ALL basically involved in a neighborhood watch program and he encourages us to reach out and get to know our neighbors. This is even more important when so many houses are currently vacant so we should get to know those of us that remain as summer residents. If we see anything suspicious or out of the ordinary, we should call the gate to report it or if we spot a crime in action, we should immediately call 911. One of the people present asked a question I've often wondered about. (Thank you, Nancy, for bringing it up.) She was curious about dialing 911 from our cell phones since most of us have out of state phone numbers. The officer explained that the 911 goes to the closest tower regardless of where our phone was purchased and programmed. I guess I never really thought about it before so it was nice to hear a direct answer. We are strongly encouraged to program our cell phones so that #1 goes straight to 911. There should also be a number (#2) programmed as "ICE" which stands for "in case of emergency" so if someone finds us unconscious or ill, they can grab the phone and contact a local family member or a local friend for assistance. Guess I'd better drag out my directions and do some reprogramming as his suggestions certainly make sense.

While our resort is a gated community with limited access, there will sadly always be the hooligan kids who scale the wall looking for adventure so we really need to be aware and report anything suspicious instead of just waiting for someone else to call it in. I played my usual role of Paparazzi and took a snapshot of the crowd at the meeting.

PALM TREES IN BLOOM

I'm posting a couple photos of some palm trees for you snowbirds who leave us during summer bloom season. The palms are in full bloom now and are loaded with delicate fragrant white flowers. Long stems seem to grow outward and then split open with hundreds of the blossoms. The blossoms draw bees.....lots and lots of bees. Watching the swarms in the tree tops makes me grateful that our palm trees are tall so the bees stay aloft.

LANDSCAPING CHORES

Our landscaping crews have been hard at work in the summer heat. We observed this young man hard at work shoveling the pond sludge from the bottom of the creek that runs through the rose garden. This is another chore that our winter visitors never see. It takes a ton of work to keep this park fresh and beautiful. This is a prime sample of the "behind the scenes" chores that are part of required upkeep. The rocks by the waterfall have been all spruced up as part of spring cleaning. Many of the oleander hedges are getting their annual summer haircut too.

ENTERTAINMENT

Our Tuesday night Bunco game was canceled this week because of "movie night". We were all invited up to the Suntan to watch The Amazing Benjamin Button and enjoy some fresh free popcorn. I stayed home since I've already seen the flick at the Harkins Theater. We'll be back to Bunco again next Tuesday though cause we have a lot of fun.

Some of us have started going up to the clubhouse on Friday nights now for what we call "Open Game Night". We don't know what we're going to play till we see how many people show up. It could be Rummy Cubes, Pegs & Jokers, Hand & Foot, Canadian Salad, or any number of crazy card games.

Don and I have been doing some "remodeling" to our little house so I've missed some days up at the pool for water aerobics in the mornings, but the gals are up at the north pool six days a week. It's really fun and the water feels great. We certainly have some perfect swimming weather here in summer.

WEATHER

Speaking of the weather.....the weatherman has been gloriously kind to us so far this summer. It still cools down to the 60s at night so the nights and mornings are just wonderful. Mid-afternoon gets warm, but we can still sit out in the shade if there's a nice breeze blowing and the temp hovers in the 90s. With such low humidity, 90-95 is still quite pleasant.

Monsoon season is officially upon us as of June 15. The rule of thumb used to be that when the dew point reaches 53 for three days in a row, that was the start of monsoon season...but that changed this year as now they put an actual date on the calendar. Theoretically, we could see some of those powerful monsoon storms sneak up on us at any time. I'll keep you posted.
Sorry for being so long winded today. Hope you're enjoying your summer.

New Sports Complex

Big headlines in the Dispatch this morning announce the start of construction on the huge sports complex out at Francisco Grande. When complete, the $20 million project will include a sports complex with eight football fields, four field houses, a 57,000-square-foot state-of-the-art building housing the sports training and rehabilitation center, locker rooms, office space and other recreational amenities for public and private use. An agreement between the city and Francisco Grande calls for Casa Grande to pay for construction of the complex -- expected to cover about 50 acres adjacent to the hotel -- while the resort will maintain the complex and handle marketing. The city will own the project but Francisco Grande will operate and maintain the facility including cleaning, watering, cutting the grass and staffing.

Included in the complex:
1) Training for the Las Vegas and San Francisco United Football League teams
2) The Academy which will offer world-class instructional programs in soccer, tennis, football, golf, and physical and mental conditioning for children ages 7 to 18
3) National sports medicine rehabilitation center, Proaxis Therapy, which works with top athletes in various sports
4) Blue Entertainment Sports Television which will help provide national exposure for Casa Grande and the facility.
the UFL plans its season debut in October. On its web site, the UFL says it plans to train and house players in Casa Grande beginning in September and plans to begin signing players in July. UFL fans can follow updates on the organization's web site www.ufl-football.com or on Twitter, http://twitter.com/theufl as well as on Facebook and MySpace.

It's a "hummer" of a story.

(not my photo)

The story you are about to read is REAL...an honest true story....no exaggeration...no literary liberties. Don and I were sitting on the patio to enjoy our morning coffee when I noticed a hummingbird perched on top of our feeder which is a very unusual spot for her to perch. She was making a strange squeaking sound instead of the usual hummingbird twitter so I dug out my binoculars to take a closer look. Oh my gosh! The poor bird's bottom beak was broken and hanging down at a very odd angle plus I could see her tongue bent off to one side all stiff and dried out.

Don carefully approached her, reached out and picked her up as she made no attempt to fly away. We ran inside to get an eye dropper and started to administer sugar water from the feeder. Her tongue finally absorbed the moisture and became pliable again. Once she regained use of the tongue, she would try to lap up the water on her own while still laying on her side in my hand.

Dr. Don (as I now call him) sprang into action by going door to door to the neighbors searching for someone who had some super glue. Ron (Popkorn) came to the rescue with a fresh tube and we very carefully raised the bottom beak and applied dabs of super glue under the beak. It worked! With the beak back in its normal position, the little bird could lap up the sugar water on her own without being force fed. After another few minutes, she regained strength and sat upright in my hand. We had done all we could do for the precious creature. I slowly opened my hand, she sat there a moment longer and then flew away into the Arizona blue sky. Whether or not she survived the ordeal, we'll never know but we did our best for one of nature's most delicate creatures. I regret that no photos were taken, but we were so busy "saving a life" that we never thought of a camera till all was done.

The hummingbirds that come to our feeder have become very tame as you can see from this picture. Our cat, Hiway, perches nearby but the birds just ignore her. We found this cute little feeder at Lowe's this week and couldn't resist. We bought a red plant to put on the patio table and hung this miniature feeder. Cute, huh!

Asbestos Cancer

Cactus Blooms & Chat

Cactus Blooms:

Had to get my camera out again this morning to capture some of the beautiful and unusual cactus blooms that you snowbirds never get to see. The cactus plants themselves are so varied and very defensive as they certainly don't allow you to reach out and caress their soft petals!

These red beauties are at Site 1121. I don't know the owners so can't provide a name but they certainly have a beautiful plant. I have no idea how you would ever plant one of these prickly monsters, but they certainly have beautiful flowers.

This unusual critter resides behind Site 1705 at Frank and Joanie's house. Beautiful!!

CHAT:

Thanks for the words of encouragement from all our avid readers of this blog. Your response has been so rewarding. We had over 100 hits this past week. I even received a voice mail from a resident who called all the way from Winnipeg Canada to say how much she enjoyed reading the postings. Thank you, Ann. I certainly look forward to meeting you when you return this fall.

To help pass the hours while we cower inside avoiding the mid-day heat, I joyfully spend time at various computer games too. I used to think of computer games as just a waste of time with shoot-em-up games or racing cars....until I discovered a game site called "Big Fish Games". They have all sorts of games but by far my favorite genre is the Hidden Object games. A detailed photo emerges with a list of hidden objects to find plus many of the games have challenging puzzles to solve as well. I've gotten a good number of friends hooked into my addiction and I really laugh when they call long distance cause they're stuck in a game and need some guidance. If you have time to kill, look over the site and see if you're interested. I read an article in AARP magazine that says we "seniors" need to keep our brains stimulated. These games are a fun cure and I guarantee you'll enjoy sharing them with your grandchildren as well. If you want some recommendations, send me an email and I'll send you a list of the ones i've found to be fun. You can download the games and play one hour for free. If you like the game, it costs $6.99 to purchase on line. Here's a link to a particular game I enjoy.

http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/5430/dream-chronicles-the-chosen-child/index.html

With this being the end of another month, we watched a number of rigs pulling out again this morning. Jim and Diane Reese also left for cooler temperatures this morning. Don and I were the lucky beneficiaries of their leftover groceries from their refrigerator before they left. I always volunteer to take leftovers when folks leave. It's a great way to sample new foods....especially salad dressings, jellies, and occasionally BEER. Diane left us a jar of Italian Antipasto olives with fresh garlic, herbs & Napa Valley Chardonnay. Fantastic!! I can't wait to chop some up in my salad plus I know they'll really add zing to my next bloody mary if I can avoid sneaking them out of the jar as snacks till then. Thank you, Diane!

WEBSITES??

Do any of you keep a website or blog about your travels? Please send me a link if you do and I'll add it on the sidebar of this blog.

Tuesday Night Bunco

Sandi Feller started a Bunco group that meets on Tuesday nights for the summer. What a riot! We've had three tables playing and tonight was a blast. At the ringing of the bell, we start playing until the lead table hits a Bunco or a team at their table scores 21. The other tables are struggling and shaking dice as rapidly as we can to gather points before the bell rings. If you hit a Bunco, the coveted Bunco teddy bear comes flying across the room and you get to hold him till the next Bunco is reached. Many of the rounds come down to the last seconds so there's plenty of yelling and high fives at the end.


We gathered at the end of the evening for some group shots and pictures of the triumphant winners. We had each contributed $1 to the kitty so the winners could have a cash prize to celebrate. Thank you, Sandi, for bringing another entertaining evening to us summer residents.

And the winners were:


Linda Berry - Most Buncos $4



Sue Hepler - Most Wins $3

Sandi Feller - Last Bunco $2






Nikki & Marion had a "roll off" tie breaker for most losses. - $2











Marion won the prize money but I don't know if she was real proud of the title!






Pat won the consolation
prize so at least got her dollar back.



Lots of laughs, lots of fun, and lots of new friends.

Memorial Day Celebration

We had a lovely Memorial Day picnic/party and I found it surprising to see so many in attendance. Folks must be staying here longer this year. Most everyone was decked out in red, white, and blue along with the decorations making things quite festive.


Sandi Feller was our emcee hostess for the day (filling in for Diane Gaines) confirming the grapevine news posted earlier. Sandi will be Diane's assistant, Ann Lykens (sp?) will move into Alice's position as Activities Director. I think the threesome will make a great team to keep us active and organized next season!

Special "thank you" to Alice Herinck for her past dedication as Activities Director. Three cheers to Alice & fond hopes for fun-filled retirement.

Festivities started with Mike Kirsch leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. Jane Mikesell read a great poem she had written to honor all veterans which was very touching and most appropriate for this event. Thank you, Jane, for sharing your poetic talent.

This was a potluck dinner with the park providing hamburgers, all the condiments, beverages, and table service. These potlucks are fantastic! So much GOOD food!!

I took quite a few photos to share on the blog, but (duh) had the camera on the wrong setting for a large room so many didn't turn out. Sorry. I did get a good picture of some of the "colorful" characters in the crowd. Aren't they cute??

Jim & Diane Reese

Steve & Sandy

Jim & Carol Gairo

Bob & Bev Carte

Lots of good food and good friends!