November = Turkey Day and Mel and Brian's and Disneyland!

We've been making the trip to Victorville every November for Thanksgiving at Melanie and Brian's home since we moved to Arizona, since we're so close, and we were invited. It's turned into a mini family reunion every year which I love, love, love.

Last year was lots of crazy family and fun. The group was expanded by more of the Marnette family--Uncle Joey, my mom, Vikki and Trish--and other descendants as well as Brian's family.

We included Disneyland in the itinerary too, something we try to do every couple of years--this time there were 3 or 4 generations of us gallivanting about the enchanted kingdom for about 18 hours. Gotta love it.

We also all met up at Aunty Mary's to create some heirloom keepsake pieces from a couple pieces of Gramma Helen's jewelry. We took two necklaces and combined the bits with new beads and findings to make many bracelets and necklaces--all with a little bit of Gramma's legacy.

Uncle Don, Alec and Devin took the little boys out for a walk with the dogs while the gals all played with the sparklies. Check out the photos:

Disneyland

Turkey Day

Making jewelry

More hard work

Now, more on catching up. Last I posted about the house remodeling we were pulling up carpet and baring the concrete floors. Well, there was more of that to do and it required pulling up small glazed tiles that were apparently cemented to the cement. Argh.

The darn tiles were super slippery and not level. They were a type of saltillo but had a thick glaze on top.

It took a jack hammer and a whole lot of grunting, swearing and other  assorted sound effects to get it all up. They were clay based tiles too so red dust was everywhere and EVERYTHING was red when we were finished and stayed that way for a LONG time.

Ugh.

Click here to see more: Bare Floors and Red Dust

Late Desert Monsoon

Hmm, today is 9/11 and last time I posted it was July something... and that's how well the once a week thing is going. Oh well. Onward.

We had a hellatious storm last night and I got some pretty cool photos. To keep the blog performance up, I'm going to start including links to photos which are uploaded to Picasa. And maybe one photo just to pique your interest. :)

You can see the rest here: Photos

Post Dates and Photos

Just wanted to let you all know that as I catch you up with our adventures, I will mix posts with current and past info. And to make matters more confusing, sometimes the posts will have dates that are the same.

For example, when I upload a slog of photos all at once and parse them into separate draft posts, they all get the same date. This is a very efficient way for me to work, but unfortunately means the date I publish a post may have nothing to do with the date I started it or with the info contained in it. And when *you* receive a notification of a new post, it might not be in the current month's folder when you visit the blog.

Hmmm, there's something very existential about that. Maybe, I like it that way. Have to think about it, but later.

Anyway, I'll try to date things in the posts when this happens, but can't guarantee I'll catch them all.

Also, since the photos take up a lot of room in a post as well as room on the blog (in terms of storage), I will be cutting down the number of images within a post. But, never fear, I will upload the photos to Picasa, include a link in the relevant post to the related Picasa folder and you will be able to view them all at your leisure AND download any that strike your fancy.

You can also order photos from Picasa, but I'll let you figure that out.

Last, I will try again for consistency in posting. I'd like to aim for once a week, but we'll see how it goes.

Until next time.

Desert Colors and Storms

For you who love the desert and see the beauty, I just had to show you these.

Flagstaff Part Deux

We went back to Flagstaff in late fall 2010 and stayed in a nice little place with a fabulous view of the front side of the mountain on which the ski area (SnowBowl) sits.

This was the view from the cabin where we stayed. Just strikingly gorgeous and a balm for our heat weary souls.



Though a storm came through while we were there it was just too early in the season and there was not enough snow for skiing. So we made several day hikes in the area and found some amazing ruins and sites.

This hike was amongst some cinder cone like hills at the base of the San Francisco Peaks. You can't tell, but those rocks we're standing on are HUGE. We had to climb about 10-20 yards up them and Alec had to use the telephoto lens to get that picture.



And out in the middle of the desert are the ruins of Indian dwellings that are made of the same red clay that you can find throughout this state. The precision with which they made these bricks and laid them is astounding. As are the stones they used for doorway lintels. They sure looked heavy to me.



This estate had a couple of these round games stadiums and a very interesting blow hole.





They built the homes right into the rocks, which was pretty smart. Much easier to keep out vermin and other people.



What we figured (and the guidebook validated) was that the air was rushing through cracks in the rock under the soil and funneling through this hole. Apparently, the stat of Arizona though that deserved a little platform... and apparently, they were right. We all stood on it so the air could blow up our shirts. It could have been a very Marilyn moment... but alas, we did not have the white dress and strappy sandals.



Here's a good example of how they were built right around and on outcroppings of rock.

Doing away with the yucky carpet

After living with it for a couple of years we just couldn't take the carpet anymore. Previous owners had dogs and apparently those dogs were wild, if you know what I mean. The front room in particular got pretty smelly when it warmed up in there and frankly, it was just disgusting to try to vacuum and walk on.

So, out it came, and we vacuumed no end of dirt, sand, dead crickets and cockroaches (the big ones) and had to help a little lizard find his way back outside. Then we had to wash down the floors to try to cut down on the dust from the unfinished concrete. Whew.

When we have time and money and have sufficiently recovered from the other myriad household projects, we will put down a stained overlay with an acid wash finish and seal it. It will be an amber color. It will look verrrry nice. I have a very good imagination.

The plus side is we got to get another of the Persian rugs out of the garage and use it again. Yay!





Looks a little funky with the nice rug and then cracked concrete but we've lived with worse.

Cali family visit

August 2010 - Had some family out to visit. For some reason they wee trying to figure out gang signs. Silly children. Eating, swimming and playing games (charades anyone?). Can you think of a better way to spend a summer weekend?

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