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.

The Great Scrapbook Store Hunt

Today, armed with addressed gleaned from the Internet, Lloyd and I went looking for some scrapbook stores. The first three we 'found' had gone out of business. The fourth, almost an hour from our house, was alive and kicking and I managed to buy a few 'samples' there. The woman who runs it told me that most of the scrapbook stores in the valley have closed down, with the exception of three in Mesa and Chandler, a couple of hours away. I think I'll wait till Mickey is here in January and we'll make a day trip of visiting those stores. I really liked the store we found though so most likely will go back there

Just Puttering

We've been buying a few things for the house today - no major purchases - just little things. It'll get totally furnished eventually. Here are a couple of pictures of what parts of the house look like right now.

This is our kitchen/dining area. There's a huge island as well as lots of cupboard space. The glass door on the right opens to the pool. The room you can barely see on the left is the living room and dining room.

This is taken from the kitchen island - it'll be the family room. The window on the left looks out onto the deck and pool. The door on the right leads to a 2-piece bathroom, a closet, and the garage.

This is the back of the house and the pool. It's the law here in Arizona that a pool must be enclosed by a childproof fence. I'm standing up in this picture so you can see the division between shallow and deep. It gets deep rather quickly from where I am - one more step and I'm up to my eyeballs in water. We look forward every day to our time in the pool. It's late afternoon when this picture is taken and at this time of year, it's mostly in the shade. During the heat of the day though, it's still in the sun...fun swimming in sun or shade here.

That's all for tonight. I'll post more pictures of the interior of the house later.

Cooling Off

Today, at last, we had our first swim in the new pool. It was 39C today and the water was lovely and refreshing. We love the pool, although the shallow section is much smaller than the deep. We'll have to be extra vigilant when the kids are here - life jackets for all. It's such a treat to have the pool to play in when it's so hot out. I wish some of the kids and grandkids were here to enjoy it with us.

Lloyd always likes to make a big splash!


Look at that golfer's tan!

Lloyd enjoying the pool.

My first time in the pool.

Here We Are

We arrived here in Surprise, AZ tonight. It's 37.5 C. It took us 25 hours of driving, over 2.5 days. Today was the most beautiful part of the drive,through southern Utah and straight through the length of Arizona. One of the prettiest places we stopped was Kanab, UT, where western movies used to be filmed. It's surrounded with red cliffs and has a beautiful park in the centre of town where we stopped to take some pictures.

Off to Arizona

I know...this isn't the best time to be heading to Arizona...temperatures there are still in the high 30s (C), but with the pool and air conditioning I think I'll live through it. (and frequent visits to scrapbook stores down there) I really need the break right now. It's been a hectic six weeks, with the visit to BC to help out when Mary's son was born, the wedding and all that involved, and Mum's visit....I need time to unwind and relax for awhile. We're taking Lloyd's laptop with us, with an air card, but I'm not sure how often I'll be posting here. I'll try to keep it up, but if I can't, you'll know why.


August 5 - Baron Kesey Bourne is born in Oliver BC. Our 17th grandchild and a sweet little boy.



August 23 - Emily marries Allan Taylor in a lovely backyard wedding.

August 21 - Sept. 9 - Mum visits and spends time with grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

This is our backyard pool in Arizona. It was just finished in July and friends of ours spent two weeks there in August, breaking it in for us. Now it's our turn....catch you later.

Grab My Hand...

I haven't taken any pictures the past couple of days so tonight I did this layout so I could post it. It's done on Paintables cardstock - I had to color in all the flowers and fence. I added stickles glitter glue to the centres of the flowers, the petals of the blue and red flowers, the borders around the pictures, and the bee.

What I really like about this layout is the words flowing throughout: "Grab my hand and run with me, trek the mountains sail the sea, forget the map, we'll find our way forever together". I feel it fit the theme of the photos - Mum at 87 with some of her great-grandchildren. Probably the last time she'll ever see them and knowing that in the very near future she'll forget them altogether. She enjoyed being here with the family these past couple of weeks, although it was very confusing when we were all together for the wedding festivities when she didn't recognize grandchildren or great-grandchildren - knowing she should know these people but not remembering why or who.

Everytime I see her she seems worse than the last time. Alzheimers takes an awful toll on a person...the stage she's in now is so hard on her because she knows she's forgetting things and there's nothing she can do about it and she gets so upset with herself. She's back in Winnipeg now in her own home and familiar surroundings where she has a measure of self-confidence and comfort. We know now that travelling is too hard on her. She's lucky to have Wendy there to watch out for her and make sure she has everything she needs while she's still able to live on her own. Thanks Wendy.