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.

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.