Remember This Name...

Mark MacKenzie.

On our last night in Arizona we got together with our nephew Mark to celebrate his birthday with some extended family down there. Mark lives here in Alberta but has been working with some music producers in AZ, one of whom produces for Lyle Lovett, on his first professional CD. Mark has a beautiful voice and writes a lot of his own songs so we're all hoping that when this CD comes out, he'll get lots of air time and begin a successful music career. We're all cheering for him.


After dinner at a local restaurant we all went back to someone's home where Mark performed some of the songs from his CD for us. Good sounds and lots of fun.

And now we're home, missing Arizona already.

Last Day

We're heading home tomorrow so today is our last full day here in Surprise. It's hard to have as much fun on the last day as on other days, knowing that our holiday is coming to an abrupt halt tomorrow, but we spent time in the pool and did some final shopping. Tonight we're going out with our nephew Mark to celebrate his birthday with his stepfather and his family. Mark is down here working on the CD that is being produced with the help of Lyle Lovett's producer. Mark has a beautiful voice. Hopefully this CD will get lots of air time. Tomorrow morning will be our clean-up time. We head to the airport at 2:00.

When I was loading pictures into Facebook yesterday I realized that I didn't have any pictures of the front of the house. So I went out and took some. Here's what it looks like in all it's desert landscape glory. It's 40C here today - 105F. Gonna be hard getting back to cold Edmonton temps.

Working Hard...or..

...hardly working!! Since Lloyd is technically 'at work' this week, he takes his Blackberry out to the pool and conducts business from there. What a life! He met with the Child Welfare people at Tuba City on the Navajo Nations reservation yesterday - a 4-hour drive each way.

Anyway, wouldn't it be nice to be able to work in such peaceful surroundings every day?! I don't know how he's going to adjust to working in High Level, or even in Edmonton, after such a laid-back existence here.

PS: Sara, show this to Quincey. He could easily conduct business pool-side.

Toad-ally awesome!

I fell in love with this foot tall/foot round toad in WalMart's summer clearance section that I just had to bring him home and put him in the back yard. At first I sat him at the pools edge, but then decided he'd look better tucked back by the sage bush. Isn't he just the cutest thing!!

One More Pool Picture

This is my second posting today so it'll be short. It'll also be the last pool picture I post.

Lloyd has rediscovered his boyhood love of swimming under water and wanted me to take a picture of him doing it. I must say he does it with more finesse than I do the Grammy Stroke.

I love the way the water distorts the images.

Good form for an old boy, hey!

He likes this one the best because the water swoops his hair back (what's left of it) and makes his head look like it's covered in hair. He's cute anyway, balding or not.

Beautiful Arizona

We were out at 7:30 this morning garage-saleing. They start early here and end by noon because of the hot afternoons. I took my camera along to take pictues of the native plants used in much of the landscaping. I love cactus - there are so many varieties. I got a book to help me identify them. Here are some of my best shots. Always keep in mind that I can't photo-shop any of my pictures until I get home.

This is a cluster of beavertail cactus.

Since I couldn't get out and stand in the middle of the road to take this picture, it's blurry and unclear because it's taken out the front window of the van (Curtis' new van). It's just a road bordered on both sides by tall palms. I like it.

This is a barrel cactus in bloom. I don't know what the smaller cluster of cacti is called.

More beavertail, I think.

Looking way up at the top of a palm.

I'm not sure what this is - yucca??

Pretty, but unknown to me.

This is pipe organ cactus.

One of the most common - Saguaro cactus - it's flowers are the Arizona state flower.

An orange tree. You can see some of the fallen fruit on the ground.

A really tall barrel cactus, I think. Birds drill holes in the trunks and build nests inside them.

A common sight in Sun City, where the seniors use golf 'cars' to get around - only legal in areas where the speed limit doesn't exceed 35 mph.

This cactus has a beautiful blossom. I'm not sure what type it is though.

And I love these - I think they're Queen Palms (my book isn't very comprehensive).

So that's it for today, and it's only 10:15 am.

Grammie Stroke

There's just no getting away from it...the pool is our favorite part of this vacation house. We spend an hour every afternoon in it...sometimes more...and usually an hour in the morning. The water is like silk - soft and buoyant.

I'm not a swimmer...never have been...but I'm so comfortable in this pool. I've developed a method of propelling myself from one end to the other, which I call the Grammie Stroke. It's a mixture of treading water and random forward moving strokes. Looks funny but it gets me where I'm going. Lloyd is nervous when I get in over my head - the water is 9 ft. deep at the deepest part - but I think I have him convinced that I can stay afloat...as you can see here.

This is the major part of the grammie stroke. Do not, under any circumstances, put your face in the water. It's an up and down stroke and I like it.

There...see...I can make it to the end.