Baby moose playing

This is so cute.

Our dogs rule!

Some of you have asked me to post pictures of our dogs. Thor is my Maltese and without a doubt the smartest one of the group...at least he has me well trained. Stanley is the black and white Shitzu/poodle - we call that a shit-poo. Then there's Bubbles the cock-a-poo. Named because she is the color of champagne. She is our senior dog. She's about 12 now and her eyesight isn't good, neither is her hearing. Or maybe she just has selective hearing. They all get along great and as long as we keep well supplied with treats and cater to their every whim they allow us to live with them. All three of them have to be groomed so every 4 weeks they go to the doggy beauty shop for a new do. We spend $105 a month on dog grooming!! I spend about $30 a year on my hair. There's something wrong with that picture. We are blessed to have a friend that will take all 3 of them when we go on vacation and in return we take the lovely Patches when they go. All in all they are an entertaining group and we wouldn't ever be without a dog .... or three.

Desert Entertainment

You probably have to live here to understand but we find the monsoon season very entertaining. A lot of times at night we have spectacular lightening shows and I am always amazed how it can just pour in one block or two and go over just 3 or 4 blocks and they might not have had a drop. At 3 this morning (yes that's 3 am), John and I were sitting out on our deck watching it rain so hard the street in front of our house was completely under water. That little shower was over in 30 minutes. But there's our entertainment factor, we jump out of bed and rush outside at 0 dark thirty to watch it rain. :) You have to be prepared to move when it happens because it won't last long. Had it been daylight I would have jumped in the car and driven up the street so I could watch the wash fill up and run. I've even taken pictures of that event! Yep, the photo is the wash up the street from our house.

What's new?

We had a wonderful vacation in Little Rock. The weather was very nice, not too humid, got a little shower every day. Speaking of showers....we came out of the movies on Saturday and it was just starting to rain. Just a drop here and there. Then in a matter of 3 or 4 seconds, it was like God turned a bucket upside down on us. Looking back, it was kind of funny but we couldn't have been any wetter if we had jumped in a pool with all our clothes on! It took my shoes 3 days to dry out. There's a memory for us. We also had great fun feeding french fries to the fish and turtles at a restaurant we went to in Hot Springs. We sat out on the deck by the lake and had wonderful seafood. John came back from this trip 5 lbs heavier, I have avoided the scale. We also did quite a bit of sight seeing and it was nice to see so much green for a change. By contrast, everything looked pretty barren back home. If it weren't for the tormados I wouldn't mind living in Little Rock.

We got back home to heat and humidity. Yep, humidity. The monsoon season has officially started. We got a nice hard rain yesterday afternoon and probably will continue this cycle for a few weeks. For all those people who joke "it's a dry heat", they've never been here in July and August. 106 degrees with 45% humidity is not comfortable.

We are looking forward to vacationing in Washington state in August. Hmm...more green and cooler weather, nice. The kicker is, I made our air reservations months ago with Delta and now they are pulling out of Yuma. While we were in Little Rock, they called and rescheduled us but we were still flying in and out of Yuma. Today I checked my reservation and they had changed us to leaving from Yuma but returning to LA. LA? I called them. I told the agent that LA was a freaking long way from Yuma and how did she suggest we get back to Yuma. She punched her keys and came up with her idea of a great solution. For an additional $350 we could fly to Yuma from LA on United. After a very lengthy conversation, the bottom line is, we are flying out of Phoenix. It is what it is.

Now we just have to diet so we can be ready for the next trip!